Building an SEO-Friendly Website from Scratch

If you're building a new website for your business, you have a unique and powerful advantage: you can build it with SEO in mind from the very beginning.

It's much easier to build a house on a solid foundation than it is to go back and fix the foundation of an existing house. The same is true for SEO. By incorporating SEO best practices into your website's architecture and design from day one, you can create a site that is built for long-term success in search engine rankings.

Here is a guide to the key considerations for building an SEO-friendly website from scratch.

1. Choose the Right Domain Name

Your domain name is your online address.

• Keep it Brandable and Memorable: Your domain should be easy for users to remember and type.
• Avoid Exact-Match Domains: In the past, having a domain like best-plumber-in-brooklyn.com was an effective tactic. Today, Google prefers branded domains. It's better to use your actual business name.
• Stick with .com if Possible: The .com extension is the most recognized and trusted top-level domain.

2. Select a Scalable and SEO-Friendly Platform (CMS)

The platform you build your website on will have a huge impact on your ability to implement SEO.

• WordPress.org is a Top Choice: A self-hosted WordPress site is an excellent choice for most businesses. It's incredibly flexible, powerful, and has a vast ecosystem of SEO plugins (like Yoast SEO or Rank Math) that make optimization easy.
• Other Good Options: Platforms like Squarespace and Shopify have also become very SEO-friendly and are great for beginners or for specific use cases like e-commerce.
• The Key: Choose a platform that gives you control over the essential SEO elements, like title tags, meta descriptions, URLs, and alt text.

3. Plan a Logical Site Architecture

Before you build a single page, you need to plan your site's structure.

• Create a Hierarchical Structure: Think of your site like a pyramid. Your homepage is at the top, followed by your main category or service pages, and then your more specific sub-pages or blog posts.
• Keep it Simple: A user should be able to get to any page on your site within 3-4 clicks from the homepage.
• Plan Your URLs: Your URL structure should reflect your site's hierarchy (e.g., yoursite.com/services/web-design).

4. Perform Keyword Research Before You Write

Your keyword research should inform your entire site structure and content plan.

• Map Keywords to Pages: Assign a primary target keyword to every important page you plan to create. Your homepage should target a broad, branded term, while your service pages should target more specific, transactional keywords.
• Use Keywords to Plan Your Content: Your keyword research will reveal the questions your audience is asking. Use these to plan your initial set of blog posts.

5. Prioritize the User Experience (Page Experience)

From day one, build your site to be fast, secure, and easy to use.

• Mobile-First Design: Your website must be fully responsive and provide a flawless experience on mobile devices.
• Focus on Site Speed: Choose a good web host, optimize your images from the start, and use a lightweight theme.
• Use HTTPS: Install an SSL certificate to secure your site from the very beginning.

6. Optimize Your On-Page SEO as You Build

Don't wait until after your site is built to think about on-page SEO. Incorporate it into the content creation process.

• For every page you create, write a unique and optimized:
  • Title Tag
  • Meta Description
  • URL
  • H1 Tag
• Structure your content with a logical hierarchy of H2 and H3 subheadings.
• Optimize your images with descriptive file names and alt text as you upload them.
• Implement internal links between your pages as you create them.

7. Set Up Your SEO Tools from Day One

• Google Analytics: Install the GA tracking code on your site before it goes live so you can start collecting data from day one.
• Google Search Console: Set up and verify your GSC account as soon as your site is live. Submit your XML sitemap immediately to help Google discover and index your new site.

Conclusion

Building an SEO-friendly website from scratch is about being proactive and strategic. By making smart decisions about your domain, platform, and site architecture from the very beginning, and by integrating on-page SEO best practices into your development process, you can launch a website that is perfectly positioned to start climbing the search rankings. A strong SEO foundation will save you countless hours of work down the road and will be one of the most valuable investments you make in your business's online future.