Remember this when building a new site - Beginners Guide   by Werner Coetzee

I recently helped my mom to launch a web site (http://www.mom2me.com) to publish some of her recipes and it was probably the best wake up call I have had this year. It dawned on me that I actually do not know nearly as much as I thought I did. In fact it was evident that some things are best left to the experts.

However, what I did do was keep a record of what went wrong and believe me when I say it was quite a record!

Herewith then, a couple of things that you might want to remember or pay attention to, should you ever launch a new site. Some of these items may seem trivial, but I think this should be a basic check list for all new sites.

All of the items below turned out very important in creating a site that is Search Engine friendly and will hopefully get you good placement!

1. Define the purpose of your web site. It could be something as simple as "I want to sell my 5 products through my web site" or "I want to create a site where my organization members can get a schedule of events and view our employee handbook through a password protected area." You can and will most likely refine your definition as you go but make sure you have some clear direction. This was exactly what happened with Mom2me.com!

2. Define your keywords. This is probably the most important aspect of starting any site and you should really spent some time on this. I made use of two great sites to help this. Have a look at OneLook Reverse Dictionary and Wordtracker!

3. The new sites’ URL. You have to ask yourself the following questions:

• Does it contain your Keywords? (in the case of Mom2me.com not! – Oops)
• Is the URL too long? (In this case no, I don’t think so)

4. Check the page title. Does the page title contain your keywords? This is very important for good Search engine placement. Also make sure that it is not to long.

5. Check the Description tag. Does this contain your keywords and is it too long? As you may notice there is a bit of a trend here.

6. Check the Keywords Tag. Once again, does it contain all your keywords and in order of importance and relevance? Always try to place the most relevant keywords first and never, ever place any irrelevant keywords. This does actually negatively affect your rankings!

7. Make use of ALT Text. Always try to make use of your keywords in the ALT text of images on your site. Not only does it help people that can’t display pictures, but it also increases the occurrence of your keywords on the site and we all know what that means!

8. Check your body text. You guessed it! Does it contain enough instances of your keywords? You should also consider the following:

• Does your body text contain enough content?
• Is your body text human-readable?
• Does the page have excess HTML markup which could be removed?

9. Linking pages. Do all pages in your site link to each other? It has been said that you should be able to access every single page within the site with no more than two clicks. I don’t know if this is strictly correct, but the principle is definitely sound!

10. Promoting your site. The old adage “We have built it, so they will come” does not hold true in this scenario. We really have to promote our site and make sure that we will get the visitors. Here are a couple of things that you should ask yourself:

• Does the site have a site map? (Something I still need to do for mom2me.com)
• Is it possible to issue a press release about this new web site?
• Can you submit this new site to web directories?
• Could you mention your new site on relevant web forums?
• Could you trade reciprocal links with similar web pages

I really wish you all the best in your efforts in getting that new site up and generating traffic. If you have any questions, I will gladly help where I can, but as I recently discovered, I am by no means an authority! Sometimes it is worthwhile to call in the cavalry! (Professionals)

About the Author

Werner Coetzee
Mom2me.com