Before you launch your new website, utilize this checklist to make sure your SEO is in top shape.Try our free SEO audit as well - http://bit.ly/2z6fU49

The first item you will want to start with is the design and speed of the new site. Your new site needs to be mobile responsive because mobile first indexing is here.  User experience is one of the most important aspects to a website and a responsive design can fit all devices. Additionally, the site needs to be as fast as possible, tools like https://testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com/ and Pingdom are great places to start while testing the speed.

Keyword mapping is the next item to tackle. This is a great opportunity to analyze which pages are performing and which keyword rankings could use a little bit of help. After your keyword research, map the keywords to each of the new pages that you would like to rank for. This helps the copywriters write the content around each of those terms. 

Paired with the keyword mapping of each page, one of the most important things to complete are the 301 redirects. After you map your new pages, take a look at the existing content of your old site that's being indexed by search engines or receiving traffic. Tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console or Screaming Frog all help with locating these existing pages. This is also a good time to look at pruning or combining content on the new site. Are there old pages that could now be dual purpose? Or how about pages that could be removed after not getting traffic in the last quarter. This is a great time to look at the purpose of those pages and how users are interacting with the content.

The fourth item on the checklist is the on-site optimization. This task needs to be detail oriented once content is loaded. Be sure to update page titles, meta descriptions, alt image tags and more based on your previous keyword mapping. Dont forget to look for some good internal linking opportunities. Remember that the most important pages of the site should have the most internal links pointing to it. Additionally, be sure to work with your development team to add structured data to the site. This will help inform search engines of the purpose of your website and individual pages. Visit Schema.org and filter to the appropriate opportunities for implementation. Don't forget to test the set up with Googles structured data testing tool.

Next comes the set up of your search console accounts. Tools like Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster tools are essential for indicating any errors or indexing trends. Be sure to get these tools verified on your site for ownership. this includes the www and non www versions so you can assess if your site is consistent in indexing. Once verified, submit your XML site maps to each of these platforms to help indexation of these new pages.

The last item is Google analytics as it should be a staple in your site monitoring. Add this snippet of code manually to all pages of your site or implement it through Google Tag manager. If you want to get more advanced with your tracking, you should set up events and goals or filters and rules to create clean and true views of your traffic in order to see improvements over time.

Hopefully these tips help with your new website launch. For more great tips, visit our site http://bit.ly/2z4m70q

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