The comprehensive guide to SEO for new websites

Are you launching a new website and want to make sure it's fully optimised for search engines right from the start? You're in the right place! In this comprehensive guide, we'll walk you through a technical SEO checklist to help you set a strong foundation for your new online presence.

Website functionality & usability

The functionality and usability of your website are fundamental to its success. This section will guide you through the key aspects, from selecting a reliable hosting provider to creating a user-friendly site structure and ensuring your site is accessible and secure.

Hosting

The first thing to consider when setting up your new website is its functionality and usability. This includes choosing a reliable hosting provider and selecting a domain name that's relevant, memorable, and easy to spell. Remember, a good hosting provider is one with a reputation for reliability, speed, and excellent customer support. They should offer sufficient bandwidth and storage for your needs, and if you handle sensitive data you will want to make sure their security measures are compliant with your requirements.

Website structure

Next, you'll need to create a clear and logical site architecture. This means organising your site with categories and subcategories to group related content. This will help users and search engines easily navigate your site. You may find it useful to do this in a collaborative process with devs, marketing and other key stakeholders before you start building—maybe even using old school methods like pen and paper! Remember to use a simple and organised URL structure. Keep your URLs short, descriptive, and keyword-rich, and use hyphens to separate words.

User experience (UX)

User experience is vital for SEO, but also—why wouldn’t you want your users to have a good time engaging with your website? Make sure your website is easy to navigate with a clear menu structure. Don't forget about mobile users! Your website should have a responsive design that works well on a variety of platforms and devices. At Brew Digital we are increasingly encouraging people to go mobile-first with their design principles, given how web browsing trends are shifting away from the traditional desktop experience.

Another key aspect of UX is accessibility, including those with disabilities. Consider using alt text for images and ensure the site is navigable via keyboard. Don’t overlook your site's readability; appropriate font size and contrast can go a long way in enhancing usability.

Crawling and indexing

To help search engines understand your site, you'll need to create a robots.txt file and an XML sitemap. The robots.txt file guides search engine crawlers on which pages to crawl or not, while the sitemap lists all the important pages on your site in an easily-readable format. Be sure to submit your sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to get it indexed. .

Security is essential in any website build

Website security is an absolute must. One of the first steps to securing your website is implementing HTTPS, which is achieved by using an SSL certificate. This can be obtained from your hosting provider. Not only does HTTPS secure your website, but it also builds trust with users and is a ranking factor for search engines.

Cater to your audiences where they are

If your website is going to serve users in different regions, you'll get an SEO boost from having different language versions of your website. Use <hreflang> for language and regional URLs, which helps search engines understand which language and regional version of a page to display to users based on their language preference and location. This is crucial for avoiding duplicate content issues and improving search visibility in different regions.

Website performance 

Your website's performance is critical not just to your SEO, but also to your user experience. Here, we'll discuss how to optimise your site's loading speed, implement efficient caching strategies, and optimise your images for better performance.

Loading and caching

Improving your website's loading speed and implementing efficient caching strategies are crucial for enhancing user experience and SEO. One effective way to boost your page speed is by minimising your CSS and JavaScript files. This can be achieved by reducing file sizes, removing unnecessary characters from your CSS, JavaScript, and HTML. While it might seem like a minor change, it can significantly impact your website's loading speed, leading to a smoother user experience and improved search engine rankings.

In addition to this, consider using a Content Delivery Network (CDN). A CDN speeds up content delivery globally by storing copies of your site at various points of presence around the world. This ensures that your website loads quickly, no matter where your users are located.

Image optimisation

Effective image optimisation can significantly contribute to your website's overall performance and SEO. Start by using descriptive file names and alt text for your images. This not only helps with accessibility for users who rely on screen readers but also provides search engines with more context about your images, aiding in SEO.

Next, consider using next-gen formats like WebP for your images. These formats offer superior compression and quality characteristics compared to older formats. They can significantly reduce the load time of your images without compromising on quality.

Additionally, serving responsive images that adapt their size based on the device a user is browsing from can further improve your website's performance. Lastly, compress your images using tools like TinyPNG or ImageOptim. This can reduce their load time, which is especially important for mobile users who may be browsing on slower connections. Remember, faster load times can improve both user experience and search engine rankings, making image optimisation a crucial aspect of website design.

Content optimisation

Content is king in the world of SEO. In this section, we'll delve into the nitty-gritty of on-page SEO, creating compelling content, implementing technical markup, and handling errors effectively to ensure your content is fully optimised for both search engines and users.

On-page SEO

Optimising your on-page SEO is crucial for search engine visibility. Start by using unique and descriptive title tags for each page. Keep them under 60 characters and include your target keywords. Remember, each page should have a unique title to avoid confusion.

Next, craft compelling meta descriptions for better click-through rates. Aim for 150-160 characters and include a concise summary of the page's content along with a call to action (CTA).

Finally, use header tags (H1, H2, H3) to structure your content. This helps search engines understand the hierarchy and organisation of your content, making it easier to crawl and index your site.

Create compelling content

When it comes to content optimisation, start by conducting keyword research and integrating keywords naturally into your content. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush to find relevant keywords.

You also need to ensure that you provide valuable, relevant, and unique content to your audience. This not only improves your SEO but also increases user engagement. Once you’ve started to build up a library of resources, use internal linking to connect related content. This improves navigation and distributes page authority across your site. 

Finally, don't make the mistake of canonicalising individual blog posts to the root of your blog. Doing so can lead search engines to overlook the unique content and keywords of each post, instead only indexing the main blog page. By allowing each post to stand on its own merit, you increase the potential visibility of your site's diverse content in search engine results.

Structured data

Implementing structured data, or schema markup, can boost your SEO by enabling rich snippets in AI Overviews. These provide more information to users in search results, and can lead to improved click-through rates. 

Use canonical tags to prevent duplicate content issues. These tags indicate to search engines the preferred version of a page, effectively consolidating duplicate content under one URL. This is crucial because search engines can penalise sites for duplicate content, potentially harming your site's SEO performance. By using canonical tags, you're directing search engines to the content you deem most valuable, helping to maintain your site's SEO integrity 

Error handling

Start by creating custom 404 pages. But, rather than showing a generic error message, design these pages to be helpful and engaging, with navigation links to guide users back to your content. You could even include a search bar or a list of popular posts to help users find what they're looking for.

In addition to this, it's crucial to regularly check for broken links and fix them. Broken links can harm your site's SEO performance and lead to a poor user experience. Tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs can help you identify and fix broken links efficiently. 

Data tracking and management

This section will guide you through setting up Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track your website's performance, monitor indexing and search performance, and make data-driven decisions to improve your site's SEO.

Tracking your data

Start by setting up Google Analytics to track your website's performance. This tool will allow you to measure key metrics such as traffic, user behaviour, and conversions. By understanding these metrics, you can make data-driven decisions to improve your site's performance and user experience.

In addition to Google Analytics, use Google Search Console to monitor your site's indexing and search performance. This tool allows you to monitor your site's performance in Google Search, fix crawl errors, and analyse search queries. By regularly checking Google Search Console, you can identify and fix issues quickly, ensuring your site remains optimised for search engines.

Local SEO

If you're serving a local audience, local SEO should be a key part of your strategy. Start by creating and optimising a Google My Business profile. Claim your listing and ensure your NAP (Name, Address, Phone) details are consistent across all platforms. Next, include local keywords and contact information on your site. This helps search engines understand your local relevance and can improve your visibility for local search queries. Remember, local SEO is all about connecting with your local audience, so make sure your content reflects the needs and interests of your local customers.

Audit your SEO performance regularly

Finally, make sure to perform regular technical SEO audits to identify and fix issues. Stay updated with SEO trends and algorithm changes to ensure your website stays optimised. And if you haven’t already, subscribe to our newsletter to get updated periodically of all the new content we post in our resource hub! 

We also have an SEO checklist that you can download to quickly check off each step before you launch. You can find that here.