With so many startups in Melbourne, SEO is a critical part of their immediate growth. Below, we’ve highlighted eight crucial tips for all startups to consider to ensure their high ranking in search engines.
Responsive Design- The website should be responsive, which means it needs to function correctly and look aesthetic to users regardless of the device they are entering your site from. If you are having difficulties finding the appropriate template, look for a theme labelled “responsive template.” Responsive themes options are available for almost all platforms, and some free alternatives are always available. Ensure that you eliminate any external visual components that do not fit accordingly from a mobile device.
HTTPS- It is essential that you set up HTTPS as soon as possible in the process. If you decide to do this step later on in the process, the migration will be much more difficult. You will need to establish that hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) always redirects to hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTPS) and ensure that it never leads to a 404 page. Run a secure socket layer (SSL) test to ensure your setup is secure.
Sitemaps – Make sure you check that an extensible markup language (XML) sitemap can be found at example.com/sitemap.xml and that the sitemap has been uploaded to the google search console and Bing webmaster tools. The sitemap should be effective and updated whenever a new page has been added. The sitemap must use the relevant URL structure and must be consistent. Verify the sitemap returns only status 200 pages. You do not want any 404s or 301s. You can use the world wide web consortium validator to ensure that the sitemap code verifies appropriately.
Title Tags- A title tag is an HTML component which defines the title of a web page. Title tags are presented on search engine results pages as the clickable headline for a given result and are essential for usability, SEO, and social sharing. Title tags are presented in two major places, the internet browser and the top bar of internet browsers. Ensure that any primary keywords you are targeting with a piece of content are present in the title tag. Do not repeat keyword variations in the title tag, consider synonyms if they fit well, and place the essential keywords closest to the beginning if it does not look incorrect. Remember that keywords should rarely trump the importance of an appealing title.
Meta Descriptions– Crawl your website to ensure that you are conscious of all lost meta descriptions. It is a misapprehension that all pages need a meta description since there are some cases where Google’s computerised snipped is much better, such as for pages targeting long-tail. However, the option between a lost meta description and a present meta description should always be deliberate. Recognise and remove all duplicate meta descriptions as they are always bad. Confirm that your meta descriptions are shorter than 160 characters to ensure they do not get cut off. Include critical phrases in your meta descriptions, so they show up bold in the snippet.
Keywords– Keywords are essential for a webpage as they determine what type of traffic you will get. You will need to review content and see whether or not it has a target keyword, as any content that does not currently have an official keyword assigned to it will need some keyword research applied.
External Links– Links to other websites in your main navigation, or otherwise listed on every page, can be interpreted as a spam signal by the search engines. While sitewide external links are not necessarily a violation of Google’s policies on link schemes, they can resemble the “Low-quality directory or bookmark site links,” and Google explicitly calls out “Widely shared links in the templates or footers of multiple sites.” It is essential that any sponsored links use a nofollow attribute and an excellent idea to nofollow your comment sections and other user-generated content.
Those are 8 important SEO tips to consider when starting up a new webpage. It is essential that you choose an experienced SEO Melbourne company to ensure remarkable and quality results.