I thought for my second post it may be a good idea to talk about where to start when setting up your own website and what to consider before even creating a website.
The Internet is big business whether a large corporation or small to medium business and therefore, it is extremely important to do your SEO research before rushing into anything. It’s not just of case of getting a website built and watch search engine traffic come to you, search engine optimisation is an effective advertising tool and has to be done in order for any online business to succeed.
In order for your website to be effectively optimised, try to avoid a 100% flash website as search engines cannot read websites made up solely of flash. If you have to have flash, at least accompany it with HTML. HTML is easy to update and can be indexed by the search engines. Make sure your website content is well optimised for certain keywords and phrases that are relevant to your product or service although new sites will take a few months to get indexed by the search engines, but once picked up any further changes will get re-indexed within a few days.
Submit your new website to search engines and online directories such as Google, Yahoo and DMOZ to name just a few.
It is important for new sites during the first few months to think of other forms of advertising to get website visitors to your site i.e. pay-per-click (PPC), link exchanges with other relevant sites, writing articles, banner advertising. Whatever you do, if your business relies solely on the Internet, you need to promote your site. You will able to work more on natural SEO once your website starts getting indexed.
In this post, I just wanted to give you an idea of the things to think about when setting up a new website, even if you are having your website designed for you, it is important that you know what will help make your website SEO friendly, meaning having a site that easy for search engines to index (not 100% Flash) and keyword rich content related to your product or service. What you don’t want to do is get a website built and realise that it is not SEO friendly.
Also, remember that during the first few months of your site, it is important to promote yourself (PPC, banner advertising, link exchanges etc), at least until you are able to concentrate on natural SEO.
