How to Launch a Website: Part II

Let's continue our conversation around launching a new website. Launching a website can be super stressful. In this blog, we will discuss part 2 of how to properly launch a website with SEO. 

We talked about all the things you have to do before you hit the switch and it goes live. Now, that it's gone live, you're not done yet. We still have some things to take care of. Let's take a look at my after-launch checklist here.

Let’s deep dive into what else we need to get knitted up. 

The first one is there's a Google site checker for mobile responsiveness. Just type in Google mobile test and you'll be able to test your new website. Make sure it's really being given full credit for its mobile responsive quality. Then we're going to submit your site to local directories.

Now, if you have a localized business, a dentist a mechanic shop. For anybody that has a walk-in presence, we use a tool called Yext and it is a paid service but it will get your listing into every possible local index that has service-based businesses on it. 

You have to submit it to Yext with all that stuff taken care of so that you can be findable through all of those different directories. The next one is to make sure your descriptions and photos are up-to-date. 

A lot of times when you launch a new website, you'll name all the photos --image1.JPEG. Image2. JPEG and that's you're like, "Okay, fine, We'll do that for the launch." But then you have to go back and rename those photos where you want them to be findable in Google. 

It's supposed to be image1.JPEG. You're going to name it… You're going to rename it to like SEO classes1.JPEG. SEOclasses2. JPEG or whatever keyword you want that image to come up in Google Images search and that’s very important. 

Google Images is the number 2 way people use Google. It’s a very powerful visual search engine. 

Don't drop the ball at the last minute because you've launched your site. Go back and make sure to rename those photos, the keywords, rather than image 1, image 2. Make sure to name your business with keywords you are trying to rank for as well. 

In your Yelp profiles, in your Glassdoor profile, anything that has your name in it has a better Better Business Bureau listing. You want to make sure that you bake that keyword into that listing. Like my son works for a BMW shop. I do all the marketing for them because I like to keep him out of my basement.

Anyway, he's doing great. He loves fixing BMWs. And when I rolled into them, they had no clue about how to do any of this. I actually created a lot of the elements here based on the work that I did with them.

We discovered it after a long interview process with them. They wanted to become BMW repair experts. That's how they wanted to be found. I popped into GoDaddy and we found that there's a huge amount of search volume for BMW repair experts. 

We bought (go figure) BMWrepairexperts.com for $13. Then we've proceeded to put the website together. Now, once their website got launched, I went to their Yelp listing and added a BMW repair expert to the back of their name. And then I went to all the other sites that had them listed. 

I added BMW repair experts. Now, they rank right underneath Ralph sharp is the biggest BMW dealership in Colorado. This is a small little garage, but they are killing it. I just found out that they are going to be opening up a branch location right around the corner from my house and my son will be working there. Boom! Drop Mike walk off. I'm so excited. 

It's just a matter of knowing where you're pointing to. They named their business the garage. The garage is not helpful because there's a Pilates garage. There's a yoga studio called the garage. This restaurant is called The Garage. It was a problem name. 

I was able to petition Yelp to go in and add BMW repair experts right to the name and it started clicking right away. They get business from all over the country because they came out of the gate saying they're experts. 

That's where you put your keyword into your Google business listing. Your Yelp listing and any other listing sites associations you make belong to any accreditations, go back in there and add that keyword to all of those presences.

Title Tag

Then, of course, you want to make sure you go back and do a title tag and description tag audit. The title tag is that blue line that shows up in search results and the description is what shows up right underneath there. 

Make sure you go back in, look at your titles and your description tags and get those tweaked with the right keywords. 

Now, let's talk about the final phase. Phase 3 is all the ongoing elements that we need to keep our eyes on. The first one is to set up a SEMrush tool or use a free keywords tool such as Keywordseverywhere.com 

Make sure you have something to keep tracking the performance of your website and how it ranks over time. It takes a little bit of time for Google to recognize the content that you've written and to then actually start ranking you for those keywords. 

Have a tool in place that's going to really give you that data that you need. You want to pull your keyword ranking report every week and watch carefully for improvements. If you're ranking under a whole set of keywords with your old site, you want to make sure that when you launch your new site. 

You have a hole you're watching all those keywords as well as all the new keywords you've planned to rank for. Make sure to run that ranking report at least weekly, if not monthly. Then in SEMrush, they have something called a project. 

A project where you could put everything. The social media, the RSS's, all the branding stuff in one project and you can run it. This is kind of an advanced move to run a project in SEMRush. 

If you have questions about that, feel free to contact me or post a comment down below and I'll make sure to answer those questions. But setting up a project just helps you to keep your ears to the ground of all the things people are saying about your business and there you go. 

Now, you've done a proper website launch. You've looked at all the indicators for what Google's looking for, how to make your existing content findable, and ultimately how to track and record the progress. So, good job! You did it. 

Go now and start blogging and start socializing. You thought your job was done? Uh-uh. Get busy. 

Don’t forget to download the checklist, before you launch your website. That you make sure all of those little tiny details that are so important to Google get addressed. 

If you are interested in learning more about how we can help you use the link below to book your FREE hour call with me Book Heather Lutze: Empowering Businesses To Dominate Online!