Specifically, we are discussing how to start off with SEO for a newly created website. However, the examples provided can also be used to improve the ranking in search engines for websites created earlier.
A good start with SEO on a new website (technical aspects and content) is far more effective than a later improvement.
SEO is not losing its importance; on the contrary, it continues to be crucial. It might even become more important in the future, although this is a difficult prediction to make.
We have learned a lot about this topic, both from success and from failure, or more clearly, from experiencing drops in search engine rankings.
If we start from the facts of E-E-A-T signals (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), then I am sure we possess all these qualities, at least in front of the visitor. If we were to talk about E-E-A-T signals as if we were facing search engines, this would be a long article, perhaps boring to some.
Google says: E-E-A-T. But we say: a better visitor experience, rich content (quality over quantity), and signals from other sources.
Best SEO Strategy – For a New Website
- Choose a unique domain name.
- Think clearly about your content.
- Find as many external visitor sources as possible.
- Structure, categorize, and plan taxonomies and permalinks.
- Don’t waste time overly focusing on SEO plugins and webmaster tools.
- Technical Issues: If you lack knowledge on technical matters, consult an expert who understands these issues.
- You Decide to Install a Free SEO Plugin.
- Ensure that meta tags are generated on the site and pages.
- Speed and user experience.
- Create Necessary Redirects in the .HTACCESS File
These are just some of the key elements for a good start, not the only ones, but the most important.
Choose a unique domain name
The domain name should align with the content’s type, but when we talk about domain names, there are even more important things to consider. Make sure the domain name is unique and your brand, not a name already in use by another brand.
Also, don’t try to choose a very popular term as your domain name. Avoid existing brands, overly popular terms, symbols, numbers, etc., in your domain name. So create your own, unique name even if you need to choose a longer name.
The domain extension is not so important, and we believe its importance will decrease in the future. However, if someone has already registered a .com, .net, .org, or any other domain and has content on it, we recommend avoiding that name.
Think clearly about your content
This is already a topic that’s been widely discussed by others.
Think about topics in which you know you are qualified. We consider qualification to be real knowledge, not just educational level or courses.
Create rich content in your articles. Don’t write similar content in two or more articles to avoid internal duplication.
Don’t copy content from other websites, as external duplication is even more harmful than internal duplication. If you do copy part of the content from other sources, be sure to cite it properly with a link, or you’ll be penalized. Google has recently launched an algorithm that penalizes websites for not citing sources, even affecting websites that ranked well but did so dishonestly.
Find as many external visitor sources as possible (Important)
Google sometimes seems to say(not officially): do what I tell you, but don’t do what I do. And sometimes it seems to say: I’ve said this, but I’ve changed my mind. Often it seems that Google think “if a website has many direct visitors and social media traffic, we will rank it higher too!”
During our work as developers, webmasters, or SEO managers, we’ve seen strange rankings.
One client, who didn’t create any content themselves and copied everything from others, had a Facebook page that was valuable, and they were indexed much better than another client of ours who wrote rich and unique articles but had fewer valuable external resources. This was quite frustrating. But we must play by the rules, even when we don’t like them.
So, here’s what you need to know:
- Alternative resources seem to encourage search engines to rank a website higher.
- Links from authoritative websites also encourage search engines to rank a website higher.
When placing links on other websites, be careful. Do not use software for automatic link placement. Links should be natural.
You can use the ‘Guest posting’ method on other websites, where you are allowed to place your post link, detailing the topic you’re writing about. If you comment on other websites, focus on the topic and write something valuable, not idiotic comments like “I divorced my husband, etc.”
Bing is quite important. When your website is indexed on Bing, it will automatically be indexed on Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, etc.
Unlike Google wich is more flexible , Bing has stricter rules. If you follow those rules, they will help you rank better on Google. In addition to the rules mentioned above, you should have a meta description for almost each page with 150-160 characters.
If you’re using a CDN, ensure that the crawl IP of Bing is not blocked, not just in the CDN but also on your server (which happens often). Make sure that it’s not blocked via robots.txt or any other method, such as ‘noindex’. Be careful with all of these because once your website is removed from Bing’s index, it’s hard to get it back.
Structure, categorize, and plan taxonomies and permalinks
It’s important to plan certain things in advance and not to change them later.
Don’t start with too many categories, especially not tags when you are starting ne site. It’s important to have a small number of categories, tags, and other taxonomies and as many posts as possible. Otherwise, you’ll create sparse archive pages with fewer posts. Initially, set up the main category for which you’ll write, and after you’ve accumulated more than 30-50 posts, start adding tags. I think it’s better when a category, tag, or other taxonomy has more than 10 posts.
The same applies to author archives and date-time archives. Initially you can prevent indexing author archives and date-time using ‘follow, noindex’, but this depends on the type, purpose, and content capacity of the website.
Permalinks and prefix: www or non-www should be planned carefully and not changed later. Otherwise, you will encounter ‘404 not found’ errors and will have to create 301 redirects. Some sources, including Google, claim that ‘404’ and ‘301’ errors do not harm SEO, but I disagree. If in Webmaster Tools, you see more ‘not indexed pages’ with status 404, 301, 302, etc., than ‘indexed pages’ with status 200, I believe this has a negative impact.
Don’t waste time overly focusing on SEO plugins and webmaster tools
If you read all the suggestions in this tutorial and implement them, then don’t waste time worrying about the “warnings, suggestions” in Webmaster Tools or SEO Plugin on the page.
If in Webmaster Tools of a search engine you see only a few errors, don’t focus on them, only if they are important, like when there is a ‘duplicate’ issue if an article has been published twice with two different links. If you see many 404 errors for pages that you know were fine, check if there are issues with the publishing platform. Otherwise, it’s better to focus on creating new and valuable content.
Focus on the content that you know how to write best. If an SEO Plugin asks you for a keyword, then give your best. Also, create the meta description, title, etc., as the plugin requests.
But when an SEO plugin suggests putting the keyword at the start of the first paragraph, in the heading, etc., and suggests another way of handling keyword repetition in content, don’t listen to it if it warns you about long paragraphs. Otherwise, you’ll destroy the content and your voice in it. In some cases, these suggestions can lead to penalties from search engines.
If you don’t have technical knowledge
If you don’t have technical knowledge, consult an expert who knows clean SEO configurations. If you don’t, well, it’s 2024, ask AI. Nowadays, there are many alternatives such as OpenAI for content generation, Gemini (if available in your country) for region-specific features, and other tools tailored to various needs.
But be careful, always use a ‘but if’ approach, e.g., “I can add that code in .htaccess or functions.php, but if there’s an error and the site is inaccessible, can I and how can I restore access?”
You decide to install a free SEO plugin
If you’re on a budget and decide to install a free SEO plugin, think carefully before doing so. Once you start with a plugin, you need to stick with it.
An SEO plugin affects the entire structure of the website. Also, a plugin often leaves a lot of tables in the database, even after deactivating and deleting it.
However, an SEO plugin is a good choice because it simplifies your work, and you only have to focus on content. You need good knowledge or help to generate titles, canonical tags, and meta descriptions automatically without a plugin. Usually, SEO plugins like Yoast WP-Seo have a wizard that is more suitable for beginners and a more detailed gradual configuration for others with more knowledge.
I also don’t recommend switching to another SEO plugin after installing one.
Ensure that meta tags are generated on the site and pages
The three most important meta tags generated in the ‘head’ section are: title tag, canonical tag, and meta description.
Also, in the ‘head’ section, Open Graph for Facebook and Twitter Card or another depending on the platform or social network you use should be included. WP-SEO (Yoast) does this automatically unless you disable it. These are important because they allow the post to be shared on social networks without technical errors.
Schema Markup script is necessary but many consider it non-essential. I think it’s good to add it because it helps search engines better understand the content and structure, and it almost has no effect on page speed.
Speed and User Experience
Speed is one of the most important aspects when talking about ranking in search engines. I don’t think it’s necessary to tell you that you need a good-performing server/vps/web host, but I’ll say it anyway :).
Almost everyone knows that you should use a CDN, such as Cloudflare. This also helps with the security of the website and makes DNS management easier.
It’s also important for CLS to be as low as possible to avoid a bad experience for the visitor, especially when an object on the page appears late and the entire content moves up or down.
I recommend AMP for certain types of websites, like news sites.
I also recommend having images in webp format; based on experience, I suggest converting them using convertio.co (Convertio).
Image size should also be specified in HTML. Don’t use too many ads, and stop them when testing speed that may be affected by design, content, or server.
The best way to test site speed is PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix.
Create Necessary Redirects in the .HTACCESS File
To avoid unpleasant surprises, it’s a good idea to create some rules in your .htaccess file. By implementing these rules, you can protect your URLs from manipulation by SEO abusers. This will help you prevent duplicate links from appearing in Webmaster Tools.
This is the best I can share with you right now, but there will be more tutorials in the future. Believe me, I would have paid a lot to read these things from someone else 18 years ago, and even later. As a team, we’ve learned a lot from mistakes that have cost us in the past. That’s why we’ve gained valuable experience and information, and today, we’re sharing it with you for free.