The ultimate guide to optimizing your website for search engines, including essential pre-launch checks and ongoing maintenance tasks.

Before Publishing Your Site

Site Information Essentials:

• Create a site title under 60 characters with relevant keywords
• Write a compelling site description (50-300 characters)
• Add unique SEO descriptions for each page
• Review page titles for proper formatting in browsers and social sharing

Design and Technical Setup:

• Add a favicon for brand recognition
• Configure social sharing images for your site and individual pages
• Create a custom 404 page with helpful navigation
• Connect a custom domain
• Enable SSL security
• Optimize URL slugs to reflect page content

Location and Social:

• Add business location details
• Create a Google Business profile
• Connect social media accounts
• Set up social sharing features

After Launch

Search Engine Integration:

• Verify your site with Google Search Console
• Submit your site for Google indexing
• Connect with Bing Webmaster Tools
• Set up Google Analytics tracking

Ongoing Optimization:

Content Best Practices:

• Use strategic keywords naturally
• Structure content with proper headings
• Add alt text to all images
• Keep image sizes under 500 KB
• Maintain overall page size below 5 MB

Collection Management:

• Organize content with tags and categories
• Create internal links between pages
• Customize URL slugs for new content
• Add social sharing images and SEO descriptions

Maintenance Tasks:

• Regularly update content
• Monitor analytics and search rankings
• Create redirects for changed URLs
• Track keyword performance
• Review site traffic patterns

Note: SEO ranking changes may fluctuate initially after optimization. Allow 1-2 weeks for search engines to process changes before making additional adjustments.

Regular evaluation and updates of your SEO strategy will help maintain and improve your search engine visibility over time.

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