It\u2019s crazy how many people ignore SEO when they\u2019re building their site, and it\u2019s a costly mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Put it this way; it doesn\u2019t matter how comely your site is. If you ignore the basics, your site will fail. There are five reasons you should be implementing SEO when you\u2019re building your site:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- It helps develop better rankings<\/li>
- Saves time having to redevelop your site<\/li>
- Saves you money<\/li>
- Increases your traffic volume<\/li>
- Makes you a lot more money<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
This can be accomplished if you think about SEO while building your site. But, what specific factors do you need to think about in the development stages of building your site:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How Internal Linking & Site Architures Helps<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your website has many moving parts that all need to work together if you want to succeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In basic terms, your website needs to be laid out in the most logical manner possible. But how does internal linking and site architecture help?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A well-structured website with plenty of internal links does two things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Makes it easier for your users to navigate<\/li>
- Helps Google crawl your pages<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
And if you want to succeed with your efforts, this is a crucial thing to think about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The easier you make it for Google to crawl your pages, the more likely they are of placing you in a higher position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you\u2019re optimizing your site architecture, there\u2019s a general rule of thumb:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All your website pages should be no more than three clicks for the homepage. Making it as straightforward as possible for Google and your users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Internal links are what helps your users navigate your website and find new content. But that\u2019s not all they do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Internal links help you spread link juice, which helps other pages feed off the more powerful pages on your site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Make Sure Your Website Is Mobile Friendly<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Did you know that 60% of all internet searches are made from a mobile phone? For that reason alone, you should realize why it\u2019s important to have a mobile-ready site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what makes a mobile-friendly website?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A mobile-friendly website can adapt to the small screen size of your mobile phone. This usually means it shrinks images and formats the page to make it easier to read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/stg.tftus.com\/blogs\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/mobile-responsive-website-700x912.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nMaking sure your website is mobile-friendly in the development stages can make your life a lot easier and save you time and money having to redevelop the site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And there is another fundamental reason your site should be ready for mobile phones. And that is avoiding Google penalization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They now prioritize anyone with a mobile-friendly site; in other words, you\u2019ll struggle to rank if your site doesn\u2019t adjust to mobile phones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Make Sure Your Website Is Secure<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are a few reasons why your website should have great security. The first more obvious reason is, it protects you against attacks from hackers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hackers can cause serious harm to your reputability, steal personal data, and potentially bring everything crashing down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there\u2019s another reason which is just as important:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In today\u2019s world, websites that don\u2019t feature HTTPS security are now being labeled unsecure. I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve seen this pop up a few times when you\u2019re browsing the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The problem is, this warning page confuses your potential customer. You see, it doesn\u2019t necessarily mean the website is unsafe\u2026 It just doesn\u2019t use HTTPS security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, it does stop people in their tracks, and more often than not, it makes them click away from your page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This could mean you\u2019re losing out on thousands of potential customers without even knowing about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Increase Your Site Speed For Better Results<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your website\u2019s speed should be one of your top concerns when it comes to building your new website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The easiest place to start increasing your site speed is in the development stages; it saves a lot of hard work later on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But why is site speed so important?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/stg.tftus.com\/blogs\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/page-speed-statistics-700x1048-684x1024.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nAs you can see from the image above, a 2-second delay will lose 40% of your users, which is a shocking percentage of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Increasing your website couldn\u2019t be any easier; there are a number of SEO plugins you can use to help improve your speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They help reduce image sizes and lazy load your JavaScripts, which increases your load time. You can check out your site speed here. Anything higher than a 3 second load time is gonna need some work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Make Sure Google Can Crawl Your Site<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The more comfortable you make it for Google to crawl, the higher chance you have of getting your website to rank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, having an easy to crawl site does so much more than that; it also makes it easier for Google to identify new content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Making the site easier to crawl means making sure your new content is delivered in a way that makes it easier for the search engines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When building your website, you should make sure you regularly crawl the site to ensure Google can crawl the site quickly and efficiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Add Rich Snippets To Increase CTR<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adding rich snippets to your site is a fantastic way of making sure your pages stand out above the rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rich snippets add relevant pieces of information to your Google listing that add value to anyone searching for what you\u2019re offering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This could be things like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Adding the price<\/li>
- Star ratings<\/li>
- Availability<\/li>
- FAQs<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Adding stuff like this makes your listing look more clickable by giving the reader the information they need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The more inviting you make your listing, the more inclined they will be to click on it. And this is the first step of getting people through the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keep Track Of Your Progress And Conversions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keeping track of your progress, goals, and conversions during the development stages is a great place to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can keep an eye on all your studies from previous sites using Google Analytics. This will show you all the essential data which you can compare with your new site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rounding Up<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
As mentioned before, multiple times, starting a new business online is like building a new house. You need to make sure all the foundations are set before you do anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Remember, it doesn\u2019t matter how good your site looks; it will never take off without the right foundations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So to give the best chance in the development stage, make sure you remember these eight things:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Site architecture & internal linking<\/li>
- Mobile-friendly design<\/li>
- Site speed & user experience<\/li>
- Crawlability<\/li>
- Functionality<\/li>
- Security<\/li>
- Rich snippet optimization<\/li>
- Keep track of your progress<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
If you do this, you can fast track your way to success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When you\u2019re starting a new site, you need to imagine you\u2019re building a house. What this means is you need to develop strong foundations\u2026 If you don\u2019t, you\u2019re setting your website up to fail. Think about it, if you build your house on sand, it will sink. And that\u2019s what happens to your website when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3091,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-development","category-website-design"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg.tftus.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg.tftus.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg.tftus.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg.tftus.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg.tftus.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3089"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stg.tftus.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12357,"href":"https:\/\/stg.tftus.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3089\/revisions\/12357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg.tftus.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stg.tftus.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg.tftus.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stg.tftus.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}