SEO “Search Engine Optimization” refers to all the actions improving natural referencing on Google and other search engines.
Creating or redesigning a website is the ideal time to establish a solid SEO strategy. In this article, Tealforge SEO experts offer you 10 key steps not to be missed to maximize your chances of having a well-positioned site after its launch.
10 SEO optimizations for a successful launch
A good SEO strategy involves site optimizations: structure, content, tags, loading times, etc., and a detailed understanding of your visitors’ expectations.
Step 1: Schedule optimizations as early as possible
When considering launching a website, a successful SEO strategy begins with one essential step: planning. Early integration of SEO considerations into your site construction or redesign project is essential.
Search engine optimization requires careful consideration of information structure, content, and even technology, as this can have consequences throughout the entire production chain.
If integrating SEO is too late in your project, you risk losing the flexibility needed to incorporate the required optimizations. It involves collaboration between specialists from various areas of the web, such as graphic designers, user experience experts, development agencies, etc.
They must work together to define the scope of the project and the actions to be undertaken.
The right questions to ask yourself:
- Why: redefine the scope of the project and its short, medium and long term objectives.
- Who: clarify the roles and responsibilities of the experts involved.
- How: determine everyone’s needs to progress (access to the site, traffic data, communication methods, etc.).
- When: establish essential milestones, because SEO intervenes at each stage of the production chain.
Step 2: take stock of the site and market
This second step consists of aggregating data to know the strengths and weaknesses of your site, the visibility and conversion levers, the market trends in search engine results (SERP), and the mapping of the existing… to confront them with the objectives and scope of the project.
The right questions to ask yourself:
- Is the semantic scope (keywords) to be applied to the site content defined?
- Do I have a detailed vision of competitors’ SEO strategy?
- Is the content available and the content to be created is listed?
- Do I know the strengths and weaknesses of the current site?
- Is the backlink profile optimized or improvable?
Step 3: Define a Simple, Logical Tree Structure
The structure of the site determines the distribution of information and the URLs, it is therefore a key part of your natural referencing strategy. The more your content is accessible simply and logically, the more search engines will favor you.
The key is to put yourself in the shoes of your future visitors: what thought process will they follow to arrive at this or that content?
The right questions to ask yourself:
- Does the tree reflect the priorities defined by the SEO strategy?
- Is important/sought-after content easily accessible?
- Has low-performing content been improved or removed?
- Is the category content aligned with the target keywords?
- Does the tree structure promote effective internal networking?
- Do multi-theme sites use a silo structure?
Step 4: prepare SEO-friendly models
Often underestimated in terms of SEO, page templates are not just a concern for web designers and user experience experts.
Maiden Stride, a digital marketing company, suggests that models must also be examined by the SEO expert, who thanks to his analysis of the market and the key success factors of the competition, can give opinions and recommendations regarding markup, content placement, etc.
The right questions to ask yourself:
- Where will key elements, such as the logo, navigation menu, and calls to action (CTAs) be placed?
- Is my site well-optimized for mobile view?
- Are SEO important elements placed above the fold?
- Are the titles well marked in order of importance (H1 > H2 > H3)?
Step 5: Specify Important SEO Features
Once the models have been validated, the natural referencing expert will write functional specifications containing both technical elements and advice on the content to be created. It is also customary to define a priority level based on the expected SEO impact.
The right questions to ask yourself:
- Are there features that can prevent content duplication?
- Does the site contain unnecessary URLs?
- Do we have the expected behaviors for back-office fields (title tags, URL rewriting, image management, etc.)?
- Are page lifecycle management rules (automatic product redirects, disabled content, etc.) created?
- Has the HTML markup (placement of h1 tags, etc.) been checked?
Step 6: Collect all current URLs
This sixth step is essential to prepare for redirects. It considerably simplifies the redirection phase and avoids unpleasant surprises once the site is online.
Once this data is collected and merged into a single file, it is possible to identify dynamic redirection patterns and anticipate the total volume of redirections. This file of URL lists and matches will allow you to test redirects before and after going live.
The right questions to ask yourself:
- Were the URLs collected from the current site crawl?
- Has a list of URLs positioned in search engines been published?
- Have I extracted URLs generating Search traffic in the last 12 months?
- Have 404 error URLs in Google Search Console been identified?
- Has the current list of redirects been taken into account?
Step 7: audit the prepared to check its SEO compliance
The SEO recipe ensures that the site will comply with SEO expectations before going into production.
The audit must be planned and carried out on a crawlable pre-production version, with access to the back office, and a stable tree structure with at least 30% of integrated content.
Identified problems can be reported to the web agency via a ticket system, which must be corrected before completing the project.
The right questions to ask yourself:
- Does the preparation comply with SEO requirements?
- Is the navigation user-friendly?
- Are the responsive versions operational?
Step 8: Optimize the site’s title tags and meta descriptions
The eighth step usually takes place before the final recipe. It consists of setting up automatic and manual contribution rules to optimize all the title tags and meta descriptions of the future site.
During first indexing or a major change (e.g. site redesign), search engines tend to allocate a greater exploration time than normal, so you must take advantage of this opportunity to index as much as possible of pages with well-optimized tags.
This assumes that all the pages of the future site have already been contributed to pre-production.
The right questions to ask yourself:
- Do all my pages have an SEO-optimized Title/meta tag?
- Are the targeted keywords present at the start of my page title?
- Are there duplicate titles, too long or too short?
Step 9: Check for 301 Redirects
In the case of a redesign, as soon as a URL is modified, it is imperative to set up a 301 redirect to the new version closest in terms of content. A common mistake is to redirect all pages to the home page.
You will then need to deploy the redirects in pre-production so you can test them before going live.
The right questions to ask yourself:
- Does the old URL link to the new page via a 301 redirect?
- The desired URL responds in status 200.
- Are automatic redirect rules working correctly?
- Do the majority of old pages link to a similar page (and not to the homepage)?
Step 10: Publish your site and check again!
This last step ensures that your site functions correctly once put into production. A full site crawl should ensure that all optimizations and URLs are consistent with what was observed in pre-production.
The technical compliance of SEO recommendations must be verified, redirections in production must be controlled, and the various webmaster consoles, such as Google Search Console, must be validated.
Please note: It is preferable to put the site online at the beginning of the week to have time to react and make corrections in case of problems.
Conclusion
Creating a strong SEO plan is important if you want your website to do well. When you follow these 10 steps, starting from the planning stage to making improvements after the site goes live, your website can gain visibility and ranking on search engines.
Remember, SEO is an ongoing process. You need to keep checking your site’s performance and make regular updates to keep improving your rankings over time.
