A couple of weeks ago I met one of my friends, who was eager to share with me updates about his web site that he built and how quickly he got his website ranked well in the SERPS.
What he didn’t know was the remaining part of his responsibility. The major one – maintaining his ranking.
Once you have optimized your website for search engines there are still many responsibilities that you should consider outside of regular SEO tasks. Here is a short list:
Things to be done after your website is optimized
If you are like me, you already know many of the tricks to get your website optimized. There are other tasks that have to be done periodically. This way you can ensure that your website is search engine and user friendly which in turn brings more business.
1. Google Analytics
Get your Google or Yahoo Analytics code integrated within your website! Make sure to check your analytics account regularly to keep track of your visitors. (If you have not yet created an account, create a google analytics account now. It’s free !) 'GA' is an amazing tool to analyze the number of visitors, most viewed pages, the time a user has spent on each page, demograpic of visitor, conversions done and much more! The drop or rise in your search engine status can be analyzed through these reports.
Note that it is important to have the GA code implemented on all the pages that you wish to track on Google. So don’t forget to scan your pages to make sure that your GA code is properly placed. Do the same for Yahoo! analytics depending on your requirement.
2. Broken Links
Make sure that there are no broken links on your website. This includes not just the inner links or the external links but the images too. Search engines hate broken links so don’t make this an issue with your website. You can check you website for broken links using GPABLO. There are many tools which help you to check for the broken links.
3. Page Load Speed
If you read our blog regularly you already know the Google algorithm scans your websites load speed. After all, the viewers satisfaction is what matters for any search engine. So make sure your website loads as quickly as possible. Click here to do a speed test check-up.
4. Social Networking
If your website has signed up for a twitter/ facebook/ any other bookmarking site, then make sure to update followers and fans with news and related topics which can create an interest in your profile. It is important to stay involved in topical information related to your industry so that you are gaining more viral attention. This can give your website a better chance at future link building opportunities.
5. Content
As you know, content is king in SEO. Hence, make sure that your content has the right keywords which match the page and provides ‘relevant information' to the visitor. Updating your content frequently will also help SEO. For example, publish new developments or upcoming events from the industry. Blogs can also help to increase traffic to your site. So make sure to add at least a new catchy post every week. (the more the better!)
6. Lead Management
If you have forms available on your website for prospects to fill out make sure you are subscribed to lead management system, which can help to manage leads properly. This way you can ensure you are not depending strictly on email. A good lead management system can help you keep your leads on track and follow them through the sales cycle.
7. Off-page SEO
Make sure to keep promoting your business online through submissions in article sites, blog sites, forums and other online venues. There is obviously much more detail involved in Off Page SEO but it all starts with getting relevant visitors to see your link in a helpful, non spammy way!
Good points indeed. Regular maintenance of your website is crucial in improving your SEO results. Many consider SEO a one time affair. Implementing a strong tracking system on your site is the only way to measure your online success rate. So when it comes to SEO or any other online promotional service it is a good idea to hire an SEO facilitator who has robust tracking and measurement in place.
@Jay: SE spiders can have hard times while crawling the website which has broken links. This may nullify the effect of SEO benefits. Page load time is one of the most recent updates in the Google Algorithm and its really a must to check that for websites in order to perform well in search engines. All your seven points are equally important to enjoy complete SEO benefits.
The impact off page optimization can be determined by the relevance of the links involved in link building which in turn determines the Page Ranking. In the case of page load time, it is important to have properly optimized videos which is a miss for most of the sites. Thanks for the points Jay. It is indeed a good checklist for SEO.