SEO for New Website

[obrienkev]

Hi all,

I am about to launch a new site for a client. He wants it to get to the top of search engines quickly.

What can I do that will make this happen? The site is clean coded, compliant to web standards and uses css/xhtml.

Thanks.

Kevin.

[stymiee]

We'd all like to get to the top of the search engines quickly. But until that's realistic, we'll have settle for "in a reasonable amount of time".

Also, from the Search Engine Optimization FAQ:

What would be a good SEO strategy?

Before you write one line of code:

• Do keyword research to determine what keywords you want to target

While constructing your website you should do the following:

• Use markup to indicate the content of your site
  
  • Optimize your <title> tags on each page to contain 1 - 3 keywords
  • Create unique Meta Tags for each page
  • Use header tags appropriately (H1 > H2 > H3)
  • Use <strong> and <em> tags if appropriate
• Optimize your URLs
  
  • Use Search Engine Friendly URLs (for dynamic sites)
  • Use keywords in your domain (http://www.keyword1.com/)
  • Use keywords in your URL (http://www.example.com/keyword2/keyword3.html)
  • Use dashes instead of underscores to separate words in your URLs (keyword2-keyword3.html)
• Optimize your content
  
  • Use keywords liberally yet appropriately throughout each page
  • Have unique content
  • Have quality content
• Use search engine friendly design
  
  • Create a human sitemap
  • Do not use inaccessible site navigation (JavaScript menus)
  • Minimized outbound links
  • Kept your pages under 100K in size
• Design the navigational structure of the site to channel PR to main pages (especially the homepage)
• Create a page that encourages webmasters to link to your site
  
  • Provide them the relevant HTML to create their link to you
  • Provide them with any images you may want them to use (although text links are better)
• Make sure your website is complete before launching it

Immediately after launching your site you should do the following:

• Submit your site to all major search engines
  
  • Google (Use a Google SiteMap)
  • Yahoo (Use the page list option)
  • MSN (Finds your site via incomming links)
  • Ask (Finds your site via incomming links)
• Submit your site to all free directories
  
  • DMOZ (also powers Google Directory)
  • JoeAnt
• Submit your site to relevant directories
  
  • Find more at ISEDB
• Begin a link building campaign (attempting to get keywords in the link anchor text)
  
  • Put a link to your website in your forum signatures
  • Reply to relevant blog posts (Don't spam please)
  • Submit articles to relevant websites

If you will pay to promote your website:

• Submit your site to pay directories
  
  • Yahoo
  • GoGuides
• Purchase text links from high PR (Pagerank) sites related to your site

Finally, as part of an ongoing strategy:

• Continually update your website will quality, unique content
• Continually seek free links preferably from sites in your genre

Do NOT do the following:

• Make an all Flash website (without an HTML alternative)
• Use JavaScript for navigation
• Spam other websites for incomming links
• Launch your site before it is done
• Use duplicate content
  
  • Point several domains to one site without using a 301 redirect
• Use markup inappropiately
  
  • Style <H>eader tags to look like regular text
  • Hide content using 'display: hidden' (for the sake of hiding text)
• Use other "black hat" techniques (unless you accept the risk - Banning)
  
  • Doorway/Landing pages
  • Cloaking
  • Hidden text
  • Keyword stuffing

Additional Tips:

• Usable and accessible sites tend to be search engine friendly by their very nature
• Be patient! High rankings don't happen overnight
• Don't obsess with any one search engine. They are all worth your attention.

[HAWK]

Wow Stymiee! What happened to the standard "Look at the SEO FAQs" response?

[stymiee]

Wow Stymiee! What happened to the standard "Look at the SEO FAQs" response?

Variety is the spice of life.

[Dan Williamson]

Variety is the spice of life.

Lol, I don't see why people can't read the pinned threads which is clearly marked SEO FAQ although Stymiee loves directing people to the thread

[obrienkev]

Do NOT do the following:

• Launch your site before it is done

We have registered the domain name and at the moment there is no page up.

Will this have a bad affect on SEO?

Thanks.

[bluesaga]

Just dont get internal links to the website, dont submit to google etc

Or maybe use .htaccess encryption to dissallow access, create a splash page and name it index.html and have your main page index.php (index.html gets priority over index.php on a standard installation). There are many things you can do.

[stymiee]

We have registered the domain name and at the moment there is no page up.

Will this have a bad affect on SEO?

Thanks.

Until it is ready to go, put a robots.txt in the root directory blocking access to the site. That way they do not index any half-completed pages. Once you are ready to launch just delete that file.

[obrienkev]

Until it is ready to go, put a robots.txt in the root directory blocking access to the site. That way they do not index any half-completed pages. Once you are ready to launch just delete that file.

Thanks guys. How do I do this??

[stymiee]

just put this in your root directory and call it robots.txt:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

[obrienkev]

thanks. I have read that robots.txt file can potentially get a website banned from search engines.

Is this true?
The domain name has been registered for near a month now.

Thanks again!

[dc dalton]

thanks. I have read that robots.txt file can potentially get a website banned from search engines.

Is this true?

Never heard of any such thing unless that is, you are trying to do some funny stuff with it (redirecting spiders to one folder while users get another)

[yourhostnow]

Yea, robots.txt can NOT ban you from search engiens, however you can use robots.txt to tell google/yahoo/msn to NOT index your site.... but it isn't technically a ban.

[stymiee]

thanks. I have read that robots.txt file can potentially get a website banned from search engines.

Is this true?

Never visit the website that posted this again. They are worse then newbies.

[Dan Williamson]

Never visit the website that posted this again. They are worse then newbies.

LMAO. You took the words right off my keyboard, You can stop your site being indexed with robots.txt but you can't get banned for that.

[obrienkev]

Is it too late to use robots.txt file? Domain has been live for over a month now. Will it make any difference if I use robots.txt file now?

Thanks guys.

[stymiee]

It's only too late if you don't do it.

[dc dalton]

Never visit the website that posted this again. They are worse then newbies.

A classic example of how dangerous idiots with the WRONG information can be, I'll take someone who say's "I don't know" over one of these morons any day.

[stymiee]

Those people probably also think playing leapfrog with a unicorn is a good idea.

[Tyssen]

Until it is ready to go, put a robots.txt in the root directory blocking access to the site. That way they do not index any half-completed pages. Once you are ready to launch just delete that file.

Rather than blocking access to the site completely, wouldn't it be better to create a basic 'Coming soon' page that has your company's name and a brief description (and maybe contact details) on it.
That way, the time you spend on developing the rest of the site (which you can hide from the SEs with robots.txt or robots="none" meta tag) is time taken off the amount of time you might spend stuck in Google's ageing delay after launch.

[Tyssen]

• Create a page that encourages webmasters to link to your site
  
  • Provide them the relevant HTML to create their link to you

One thing I don't quite get about link building/exchanging is where are all these pages that webmasters link to/from. Are there pages just with lists of links, because I never see them when I'm browsing sites (maybe I'm not looking in the right place or are they hidden), or are links somehow worked into 'relevant' content of other sites?

[awrowe]

Something which may actually help your pages (I did this for one of my sites) is to upload an index.html page which you have SEO'd to the max. Make sure the actual meat of the page tells casual visitors to watch this space, but also use the page to tell visitors what the site will be doing.

In the head elements of the page, make sure you include the relevant meta tags. There are people out there who will tell you meta tags are next to useless, but I absolutely disagree with them. I managed to get one of my sites into 8th position on MSN for the keywords "great boobs" because I accidentally uploaded an index.html file I created as a joke to one of my serious sites. The joke page had every metatag I could possibly get dreamweaver to insert into the head and it was only online for two days before I removed it. Also, the meat of the page was an image rather than text and the keywords I mentioned weren't used on the page except in the head.

That sort of suggests to me that metatags work and work well. Use them.

We won't even mention the sandbox for the moment.

cheers,

awrowe

[stymiee]

Rather than blocking access to the site completely, wouldn't it be better to create a basic 'Coming soon' page that has your company's name and a brief description (and maybe contact details) on it.
That way, the time you spend on developing the rest of the site (which you can hide from the SEs with robots.txt or robots="none" meta tag) is time taken off the amount of time you might spend stuck in Google's ageing delay after launch.

I would think a website with only one page that suddenly shoots up to hundreds or thousands of pages is probably going to be considered launched on the day when Google sees it no longer is a one-page website. I assume the Google dozens of PhDs aren't going to leave a loophole like that in there.

[stymiee]

One thing I don't quite get about link building/exchanging is where are all these pages that webmasters link to/from. Are there pages just with lists of links, because I never see them when I'm browsing sites (maybe I'm not looking in the right place or are they hidden), or are links somehow worked into 'relevant' content of other sites?

Basically what I was referring to is providing the code other webmasters can use to link to [o]your[/i] site. You provide the HTML they can cut & paste onto their webpage. It allows, and encourages, visiting webmasters who like your site to link to it. The amateur ones, who aren't very good at HTML and also more likely to link to other sites unilaterally, will find something like this handy and empowering.

[samjones]

I had some luck adding my site to online business directories for caravans, holiday homes and related topics. It's often free! But be patient-it does take a while!
Hope that helps!