Let the first website build be the right website build

Onboard SEO – Search Engine Optimization

Working with search engines to rank high

Ranking high in search results increases the amount of traffic to your website, if you show up at the top of the unpaid search results on the first page, it is more likely that a user will click into your website.

To achieve this, you need a good onboard SEO strategy built into your website along with quality content so that you have the best chance possible to show up high in searches.

The Onboard SEO campaign

SEO Keywords

A list of keywords is carefully compiled, worked over, tested online, compared against ranking, positioning and results which then produces a final list that is used strategically throughout the website.

Search Results Display

Placing the right content and keywords in the correct places in your theme files lets search engines know what to show in search results, improves the content of what you are showing which makes it more relevant for users and more likely to get a click through.

Relevant Content

Having relevant content is essential, but also wrapping content in the correct tags, starting with a theme that already has SEO-friendly tags, is crucial to get the best SEO out of your content.

Testing & Tweaking Over Time

The initial onboard SEO build needs feedback from searches to see how it performed and changes and tweaks are usually made over a period of at least 6 months.

It can take anywhere between 6 months to a year for organic SEO to kick in and be indexed by Google and other search engines. The search bots progressively search your website’s content over weeks and months and if they find that your onboard SEO and content fits the criteria for the keywords your user is searching for, it will begin to raise your indexed position. Don’t get confused with Google Adwords, this is something you have to pay for constantly and gives you instant results and is not the same as Organic SEO.

Yes and no. You could just allow the initial organic SEO that was built into your website to stamp it’s place in indexing, however, if you take a look at where your website is being positioned on searches for various keywords on a regular basis (at least monthly), then you can direct the indexing results better if you feel that a certain keyword or longtail keyword is receiving more strength. I call this SEO Tweaking and get the best results this way.

Generally yes. Websites that have been up for years will consistently maintain their position on SERPs without Organic SEO tweaking or content changes. For various reasons, this is not a good idea though: for the users sake it is good practice to ensure that your content is current.

A large portion of your Organic SEO is implemented during the build of your website, however, at least half of the implementation happens after the website has been made live.

Much of the Organic SEO implementation is is only possible to do on a live website. I ask search engines not to index or follow the website while it is still in the test stage and so external tools that measure Organic SEO will not work until this noindex has been lifted.

For a maximum of one month after your website has been built or rebuilt and made live, I work on the Organic SEO, and this is already worked into your original quoted price, and not part of any monthly maintenance plan.

From extensive experience, not only with online SEO tests but with popular SEO plugins, using paid for online testing, is a waste of time. If your website shows up in the first page of Google searches for it’s long tail keywords, then your job is done. Many organic SEO tests take valuable money from desperate customers and output data that is not usable or relevant.

This really depends on many factors. Firstly, how much competition do you have for your current long tail keywords? Secondly, you cannot trust that your user has their location switched on for their device, and location narrows down the competition in searches, have you specified specific location names as part of your keyword research? Thirdly, have you given your website time to be indexed by the search bots, and have you done all you can to work with them by analysing where your website is currently being shown on SERPs and tweaking accordingly?

Yes, it absolutely will, however, if it is done right and we work with search engines to minimize the impact of the change, the Organic SEO should actually improve after the website is rebuilt.