SEO for New Websites: 5 Tips to Rank Higher on Google

It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting out online or taking a physical business into the digital world. Having a website is key to working on your brand presence and reach.

One of the greatest challenges in this process is to build and optimize a website so that it stands out among the thousands of competitor pages. With more than 1.8 billion websites on the web, your brand needs visibility.

In this sense, a widely used strategy is to rank well on search engines, such as Google. This allows you to attract organic traffic, increase recognition, and even generate sales.

The problem is that search engine algorithms place a lot of importance on the domain’s age and authority. In other words, newly launched websites end up having fewer chances of appearing in the first positions when compared to competitors that have been on the market longer.

Fortunately, there are SEO techniques for new websites that allow you to optimize recent pages to obtain better positions on Google.

Would you like to learn some of these techniques? Then keep reading!

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s a series of techniques to increase the visibility of your pages in search engines when the audience searches for a subject related to your business.

In other words, with better SEO, websites and pages have a greater chance of appearing on Google, achieving better positions in the results, and generating organic traffic.

]

Why is working with SEO important?

An SEO strategy is very important to give more visibility to businesses. After all, 81% of consumers search online before purchasing a new product or service.

This means that making your website or page appear on Google when the audience performs a search increases your chances of communicating and selling to these people.

A well-crafted SEO strategy helps position a website in the best search positions for strategic keywords. As a result, your business attracts the attention of potential customers, generates leads for the Sales Funnel, and increases brand recognition.

SEO for New Websites: 5 tips!

As we explained earlier, search engines consider several factors when ranking the content of a page. And the age and authority of the domain are some of these criteria. 

In other words, newly launched websites may take a little longer to show the first results with SEO techniques.

Fortunately, you don’t have to be an expert in SEO or web design in order to create a page that’s optimized and able to climb the Google rank faster.

With the 5 SEO tips for new websites below, you can speed up this process and ensure that your pages get more visibility in searches:

1. Choose your domain name carefully

The domain name, i.e. your website’s name, is one of the most important aspects in attracting traffic.

When it comes time to register a domain name, choose one that’s in line with what your brand offers. It needs to indicate how your products or services can help your audience.

In addition to helping the user experience, a domain name also boosts SEO. Search engines analyze the website’s name to determine what the page is about. Then, they rank in search results.

You can either use your brand name, which helps in the branding of your business or use a strong keyword from within your niche.

2. Have an outline of your website’s structure

Our second SEO tip for new websites is to create an outline of your website’s structure in advance.

This outline serves to predict which pages will need to be created, such as “About the company”, “Contact info”, “Products”, etc.

It’s important to have a well-defined website architecture to make it easier for users to browse and to help the search engine robots identify the subject matter of each page and thus, rank them correctly in the search results.

In addition, creating this outline helps you plan the creation of your pages’ content in a much more organized manner, optimizing time and reducing rework.

3. Plan your website’s content in advance

Before you officially publish your website and start promoting the address to the audience, it’s essential to already have the most permanent content, which won’t change often, produced beforehand.

Pages like “About the company”, “Contact info” and “Services” have more permanent content that doesn’t change frequently. Therefore, it’s a good idea to have them ready before launching the website.

In addition, it is worth creating an editorial calendar with a schedule for creating and publishing upcoming content and pages, especially if you plan to maintain a blog for your business.

And remember to produce content for each page based on keywords that are strategic for your business! These are the search terms that will make users find your website in search engines.

During this planning process, also think about internal links between your website pages. Define the most important and strategic content and make sure that other pages have links directing the users to them.

4. Optimize your content

Besides being well planned, your website’s content needs to be optimized to make it more “readable” by search engines. And, thus, have better chances of appearing in the top places in search results.

Content optimization techniques are known as on-page SEO, i.e. done directly on the page you wish to rank.

Below, you can find some of these techniques that can be used by new websites:

Title tag and meta-description

Have you ever noticed those Google search results where a list appears with the name of the pages and a short description or summary immediately below?

These elements are known respectively as title tag and meta description and help both search engine bots and users to understand what your page is about.

Therefore, your page’s title and meta description need to contain the keyword and summarize what the user can expect when clicking on your link.

Overall, the title is usually between 30 and 60 characters long, while the meta description is between 79 and 135 characters.

Heading tags

Your content’s hierarchy of information, divided into headings and subheadings, helps the reader browse your page and provides search engines with an indication of what the most important information in your text is.

This hierarchy is accomplished through markers called heading tags, which follow this order: H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, etc.

Generally speaking, a page should contain only one H1, which is the title of the text or the page itself. And although it isn’t mandatory, it’s possible to use more than one H2 in the content.

Alternative text on images

Another aspect that assists SEO on new websites is adding descriptions to all images on the page, in text format, known as alt-text.

In addition to being a way to help search algorithms understand what the image is about, it also assists in digital accessibility.

Many people use screen readers, and having images with descriptions helps these users have a better experience with your content.

Optimized URLs

URLs, or the addresses that direct users to a particular page, also need to be optimized.

Always avoid URLs that are too long, with too many symbols and numbers. Instead, include the focus keyword of the page in the address, and prefer simplified and easy-to-remember addresses.

5. Work on your website authority and obtain backlinks

Do you remember how we explained that domain authority is one of the main ranking factors used by Google?

Although it takes time before a website has enough authority, it’s possible and recommended to start working on this aspect early in the launch.

To do so, the first tip is to create quality, original content that helps users solve a problem.

In addition, another technique that helps show search engines that your domain is a point of reference is to obtain backlinks. These consist of hyperlinks on websites of different domains that direct people to one of your pages.

But be careful: overdoing backlinks without criteria can harm a website’s SEO instead of helping. So, create backlink partnerships with recognized and quality websites.

Never stop working on your website’s SEO

Optimizing a website for great SEO, whether newly launched or older, should be an ongoing job. With frequent updates of search engine algorithms, it’s critical that you stay on top of the latest techniques and recommendations.

So, don’t become complacent and stay on top of each new update in ranking factors. And remember, your brand’s focus should be to offer the best possible experience for users, with truly relevant content.

And to further enhance your website’s browsing, offer an even better user experience, and improve your SEO, it’s essential that you build responsive and mobile-friendly pages.

Want to learn more about the subject and how to adapt your website for mobile use? Then make sure you check out our post on the subject by clicking here.