It happened again. A client had contracted with an agency to build their website and was told by the agency that the agency would handle the SEO on the new website. Soon after our engagement started our client let us know the website was ready to launch and asked us to take a look. When we reviewed the website, we saw that the SEO was poorly executed. Unfortunately, “ready to launch” actually meant the website was being launched as the client was emailing us. We hustled to work with the client to update the SEO on the website to avoid a huge loss in organic search traffic.
If this client was the only one that experienced this situation it would hardly be worth a blog post, but we actually see poorly executed SEO on new websites more often than not. So to help you avoid this scenario we put together a simple checklist to help you understand whether basic SEO is being properly implemented.
The Basic New Website SEO Checklist
- What are the agency’s SEO approach and goals for organic search traffic? It is important they have a document that outlines the approach specifically for your website and organic traffic goals.
- Have they conducted keyword research utilizing both third-party tools, current organic performance and paid campaigns? This keyword research should contain current clicks, impressions, click-through rates and position, competitive ranks and new keyword opportunities.
- Have they tied the keyword research to individual page updates? You should be able to see the recommended SEO updates by page for each page on the website.
- Make sure that multiple pages do not target the same primary keyword. For example, if your product was hotel booking software, you do not want two pages each targeting the keyword “hotel booking software” as the primary keyword phrase.
- Verify on the new website that SEO title tags and H1 tags have been updated to target those keywords. You can do this by viewing the page source code. Look at the words between the <title></title> tag and <h1></h1> tag to ensure that they include meaningful keywords that you think your users would be searching for. You do not want the keywords to be too broad, for instance on the pricing page you do not want the keywords just to be “Pricing” because alone that keyword is too broad just to apply to your website.
- Are they redirecting the current web pages to the most relevant page on the new website? They should have a specific plan to redirect pages and a page list of the old website pages and the new website pages to which they will be redirecting. This is important not just to maintain your organic search traffic, but also not to cause broken links on other websites.
- Are they submitting a new sitemap to the search engines? A sitemap will help search engines quickly discover the new content.
- Are the mobile experience and core web vitals being addressed correctly on the new website? Performance testing and a technical audit should be conducted to make sure any issues are addressed before launch.
- Is there an internal page linking strategy? Internal links help with content discovery and help search engines understand the relationship between pages.
- What organic search reporting will they be providing after launch? Your agency should be able to provide a detailed report that shows changes in performance by keyword.
If you do not feel like the level of detail you get from the agency in response to this checklist is specific enough, do not launch the website until these issues are addressed. A new website should be an exciting experience that drives new growth, not an experience that requires you to explain to the board why performance has declined.
TL;DR
When you are working with an agency to create a new website for your company, it isn’t enough for the agency to simply say they are taking care of search engine optimization. Use the checklist above to verify that addressing the basic SEO needs for the website and hold the agency accountable for performance.
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