SEO Work: First Day in Office, How to Start Work on a New Website
Starting a new job is always exciting but can also be overwhelming, especially when it’s your first day working in SEO. The challenge of building a new website’s online presence from scratch can seem daunting, but with the right steps, you can set a strong foundation for success. Today is September 6, 2024, and if you’ve just walked into your office to begin working on SEO for a new website, this guide will help you get started.
On your first day, it’s important to be well-prepared, organized, and clear about your goals. SEO is a gradual process, but taking the right steps from the beginning will ensure long-term success for your website. Here’s a detailed breakdown of how to start your SEO work on a newly launched website.
1. Understand the Website’s Purpose and Audience
Before you jump into any technical SEO work, take some time to understand the website’s purpose. Is it an e-commerce site? A blog? Or maybe a corporate website? Each type of website will have different SEO strategies.
Next, define your target audience. Ask questions like:
- Who are the people visiting the site?
- What kind of content are they looking for?
- What problems are they trying to solve?
Knowing your audience helps you create relevant content and choose the right keywords.
Pro Tip: The more specific you are about your audience, the better you can target them with the right SEO strategies.
2. Conduct a Thorough Website Audit
Since this is a new website, you need to assess its current condition. Perform a complete SEO audit to identify any potential issues that could harm your rankings. A website audit will give you a clear picture of what’s working and what needs improvement.
Here are the essential aspects to check:
- Site structure: Is the website easy to navigate? Can visitors find what they’re looking for?
- URLs: Are the URLs SEO-friendly? They should be short, descriptive, and include relevant keywords.
- Mobile-friendliness: More than half of internet traffic comes from mobile devices. Check if the site is optimized for mobile use.
- Loading speed: A slow website can hurt your rankings. Test the site speed using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights.
By conducting a detailed audit, you’ll know where to focus your efforts and what needs fixing immediately.
3. Perform Keyword Research
Once you have a good understanding of the website and its structure, it’s time to dive into keyword research. Keywords are the backbone of any SEO strategy. You need to know what your target audience is searching for so you can optimize your website for those terms.
Here’s how you can do keyword research:
- Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or SEMrush to find relevant keywords.
- Look for keywords with high search volume and low competition. These keywords are easier to rank for and will bring in more traffic.
- Focus on long-tail keywords (phrases with 3 or more words). Long-tail keywords are more specific and usually have less competition.
For example, if you are working on an e-commerce site selling shoes, instead of targeting “shoes” (which is too broad and competitive), you could target “affordable running shoes for men” or “women’s leather boots under $100.”
4. Optimize the Website’s Content
Content is king in SEO, and creating high-quality, relevant content is one of the most important things you can do for a new website. On your first day, review the existing content and start planning how you can optimize it.
Here’s what you should focus on:
- On-page SEO: Optimize each page of the website with relevant keywords. Ensure that the title tags, meta descriptions, headers (H1, H2, H3), and alt text for images include the target keywords.
- Content quality: Make sure the content is valuable to your audience. It should answer their questions, solve their problems, and provide useful information.
- Blogging strategy: If the website doesn’t have a blog, suggest starting one. Blogs are a great way to drive organic traffic to the site. Plan a content calendar with topics based on the keywords you found during research.
Don’t forget about internal linking. Internal links connect different pages on the same website, which helps search engines understand the structure of the site and can improve your rankings.
5. Ensure Technical SEO is in Place
SEO isn’t just about content and keywords. Technical SEO plays a crucial role in how well your website performs in search engine rankings. On your first day, you need to check that all technical aspects are in order.
Here’s a checklist of technical SEO tasks:
- Robots.txt file: This file tells search engines which pages of your website to crawl and which to ignore. Ensure that your robots.txt file is correctly configured.
- XML Sitemap: This is a roadmap of your website that helps search engines find and index all of your pages. Make sure your XML sitemap is generated and submitted to Google Search Console.
- SSL Certificate: Websites with an SSL certificate (which starts with “https://”) are more trusted by search engines and users alike. Make sure the website has SSL enabled.
- Canonical tags: These tags help prevent duplicate content issues by telling search engines which version of a page is the “official” one.
By taking care of these technical elements on your first day, you’ll avoid future issues that could harm your SEO efforts.
6. Set Up Google Analytics and Google Search Console
To track the success of your SEO efforts, you need to set up Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
- Google Analytics: This tool helps you track how much traffic your website is getting, where the traffic is coming from, and what visitors are doing on your site. It gives you valuable insights into how your SEO efforts are paying off.
- Google Search Console: This tool shows how your website is performing in Google search results. You can track which keywords your site is ranking for, how many clicks you’re getting, and if there are any technical issues (like crawl errors) that need to be fixed.
By setting up these tools on the first day, you’ll have the data you need to track and improve your SEO strategy over time.
7. Build a Solid Backlink Strategy
Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors for Google. A backlink is a link from another website to yours, and the more high-quality backlinks you have, the more authority your website will have in the eyes of search engines.
Start building a backlink strategy by:
- Reaching out to influencers in your industry to get them to link to your content.
- Writing guest posts on other blogs to get backlinks to your website.
- Creating shareable content (like infographics or in-depth guides) that others will want to link to.
While building backlinks can take time, it’s important to start as soon as possible, as it’s a long-term strategy that will pay off in the future.
8. Monitor and Adjust Your SEO Strategy Regularly
SEO is not a one-time job. It’s an ongoing process that requires regular monitoring and adjustments. Once you’ve set everything up on your first day, create a plan to keep track of your progress.
Some things to monitor include:
- Keyword rankings: Are your target keywords moving up in the search results?
- Traffic: Is your organic traffic increasing over time?
- Bounce rate: Are people leaving your website too quickly? If so, you may need to improve the user experience.
If you notice any areas where the website isn’t performing well, adjust your strategy. SEO is about constantly learning and improving.
Final Thoughts: First Day Success
Your first day working on SEO for a new website might feel overwhelming, but with the right steps, you can set a strong foundation for success. From keyword research to technical SEO and content optimization, there are many important tasks to tackle on your first day.
Remember that SEO takes time, and the results aren’t immediate. But by following the strategies outlined above, you’ll be well on your way to building a successful website that ranks well in search engine results.