So you just finished creating your new shiny website for your online business, you have all the technical aspects sorted (hopefully)…what now? Well the next logical step would be to create your awesome marketing plan where SEO(Search Engine Optimization) was maybe decided to have a prioritised position.

Many people dismiss the huge potential SEO offers just because they are overwhelmed by the amount of work that needs doing. Terms like back linking and keywords research almost always alienate a start-up entrepreneur.

Being quite technical, I’m not a big fan of reading(or writing) 10 page articles that’s why I decided to crate these 11 steps that any newly created website owner should consider. So straight to the point:

1. Install Google Analytics.
2. Do your keyword research. Google has a free tool you can use: Google AdWords Keyword Planner.
3. Analyse your competition.
4. Focus on your brand.
5.  Write for human readers and then optimize for Search Engines
   • Make sure you have SEO-friendly URLs
   • Use your keyword in page titles
   • Use your keyword in meta descriptions
   • Use your keyword in headings(h1, h2, h3)
   • Add an internal link with keyword as your anchor text
   • Add an image with keyword as it’s alt tag
   • Use your keyword in the first and last paragraph
6. Create a XML sitemap.
7. Figure out what Social Media platforms work for your product or company and join them for social signals.
8. Add other social sharing options.
9. Start regular link building campaigns.
10. Blog at least twice a week keeping point no 5 in mind.
11. Enhance your posts with YouTube hosted video.

One thing to note: you need to be patient, SEO takes time. It’s about planting seeds not instant results. If you become a SEO student and do things the right way on ongoing basics, you’ll start to enjoy the fruits of your labour in a few months time.

UPDATEIt is now recommended to have an SSL certificate assigned to your domain so all data is transmitted via an encrypted connection. HTTPS became a search engine ranking signal.

“… over the past few months we’ve been running tests taking into account whether sites use secure, encrypted connections as a signal in our search ranking algorithms. We’ve seen positive results, so we’re starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal.” … excerpt from the Google Security Blog.

To your success,
Marius