Getting Started

Disclaimer: I'm not a SEO expert, I even stopped offering these services since this space got flooded with "experts" who never even scripted a web page, let alone brought a site to first page rankings on Google. The level of effort to achieve first page search engine results by organic means is no small task and while there are a lot of software applications to help your SEO efforts it will still take quite a bit of time to achieve SEO success... by which time the search engines change up their algorithms to keep the SEO rankings playing field "level", which can send your current SEO rankings way down the SERPs (search engine results pages). Of course we'll have to consider wild-cards going forward, like when ChatGPT starts accepting "sponsorships", or something like it.... As time permits I'll pontificate about what should become more of a broader SEO initiative, and less about a single or even handful of specific tasks to make it to the SEO big-time.

Summary: Here are some guidelines that I follow to improve a site's SEO performance. In my experience SEO success is spear-headed by those who are committed to a brief daily check-in on their site's SEO progress. At the same time managing expectations is also important - it could take, not just days - but likely weeks or even months - before you see the organic search results improvements that you're really looking for. Over the years I've been on teams that were lead by Google experts where our mission was to improve sites' rankings, and listed below is some of what we did.

Do These Things First

In a perfect world you'll do these things before you've even started building your site. They're pretty important and you'll see why....

• Keyword Research: Pretty much everything your site is about will revolve around keywords - the words and strings of words people will enter into their searches that will ultimately list your site as one of the search results. Your goal is to get your site to appear at the top of the Googles' and the Bings' search results pages whenever someone searches for those keywords. It's no small task and will take some time but it all starts with proper keyword selection. There are many online tools (do a search!) but you'll likely start with Google....
• Sign Up On The Google Search Console: It's free and will help you measure your site's search traffic and performance and if nothing else will help you to generally get along with the Google Gods.
• Buy Your "Keyword-Perfected" Domain Name: The example I always use is, if you're going to be selling naked lady golf tees from your website then do your best to get the domain www.nakedladygolftees.com. If that domain is already taken then find the next closest domain that matches your keywords of choice. Get as close as you can and then when you buy the domain buy it for 10 years; the search engines will actually do a DNS lookup and give you more points for a longer ownership period than a shorter one.

Do These Things At Site Build/Launch

• Use Correct / Error Free HTML: Make sure you build your site using error-free HTML. Don't use invalid or outdated tags, make sure you haven't nested incorrect tags, etc. Also your site should render equally as error-free on mobile viewports.
• Proper Tag Usage: Try to build out your page titles (which should be your keyword-focused strings of words) in <h1> tags, indicating priority/importance. Other/lesser keywords appearing on your page(s) may need to be bolded and / or emphasized.
• Landing Page Development: Build out your keyword-targeted pages to consider relevancy as well as your keywords. Stuffing a web page full of keywords that is garbled nonsense will hurt your SEO efforts, a lot. Search engines want to suggest relevant pages in their search results; if search engines refer people to non-relevant or un/under related sites that don't answer a user's questions then nobody would continue to use search engines, so your mantra should be relevancy, accuracy and above all expertise. Also a good idea: something known as "long-tail-urls", for example your landing pages would benefit much more from something like this:
  
  healthstore.com/buy-vitamin-c-with-hesperdin-and-rose-hips-immune-boosting-strengths
  
  instead of a url like this one:
  
  healthstore.com/buy-vitamin-c.
  
  
• Meta Tags Title, Description and Keywords. Use 'em!
• Submit a XML Sitemap To Google at Launch/Page Additions: Learn how to, and then build a XML sitemap to put into your site's root. Then log into your Google account and tell them about it. Same with a robots.txt file.
• No Tricks: Avoid using any HTML or coding "tricks" like keyword stuffing or colored text on the screen. If the search engines haven't already figured it out they will, then they'll likely crush you for it.
• Host / Deploy Close To Your Audience: These days cloud hosting affords us the ability to deploy our sites to any locale around the world, so make sure that when you choose your host that you select a region that's in or at least close to your potential-customer base.

Do These Things ASAP, But Later After Site Launch

• Request Link Backs: Reach out to relevant sites (they don't have to be your direct competition) and tell them you'll link to them if they link back to you. Search engines like it when your site has external links pointing to your landing pages.
• Social Media: Establish a social media presence on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, Instagram, etc. Search engines consider your presence across the entire web.
• Monitor and Tweak Your Landing Pages: Using tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics you'll need to track your site's progress and adjust accordingly.