A few months ago, I was going through some previous projects in my portfolio to finally write up some case studies. Yes, I know, someone whose whole brand is “content marketing” doesn’t keep on top of her own case studies. Groundbreaking.
Anyway, as a website copywriter, my work is often done months (or sometimes a year or more) before the website actually goes live. It’s part of the reason my portfolio has so many projects on there without a fully written case study. And let me tell you, A LOT can happen in those months.
On the rare occasion that websites go live within a couple of months of the copy being signed off, things go mostly swimmingly. But the sites that take many months or sometimes years fall into the same trap: they do not come back to me (or someone else) for SEO support with their launch.
And the result is often the same. Websites that are stuck with either stagnant or falling organic traffic because somewhere between the search optimised copy being signed off and launch day, no one involved knew enough about SEO to make the launch a success.
When your boss has agreed to fork out £20-30k for a new website, they expect it to perform. So don’t fall at the final hurdle by taking your technical SEO for granted.
7 questions to ask your developer before you commit to the website project with them
- Do you have experience managing migrations from my current CMS to my new CMS?
- What is your approach to heading tags on a website?
- Are you also managing any hosting, domain, DNS, and SSL certificate renewals or changes?
- What is the post-launch plan? Even if I don’t go on a maintenance plan with you
- What do I need to do to keep my website indexable and ranking once it’s live?
- Can you share results from previous projects? (with a focus on both conversion and organic traffic)
- Before we go live, are we missing any critical SEO elements and do you need anything else from me?
Their answers will let you know if they’re equipped to handle the SEO by themselves. Your developer should have concrete answers to all of these questions.
Not every developer understands the intricacies of SEO and that’s ok. SEO is a huge, broad discipline which is why it’s important to bring a website launch SEO specialist in to help you through the launch process.
4 stages of website launch SEO you will need support with
1. Pre-live SEO (before build begins)
These are the things that need to be handled before your new website goes live. This includes:
-
- Understanding what your current CMS will do to your links etc. once domain/hosting is switched off and moved elsewhere (this is particularly important if you’re moving from self-builders like Wix or Squarespace as they can throw a bit of a hissy fit the second you move away)
- Understanding the technical intricacies of your current CMS before the move
- Pre-empting canonical tag management (again, this is mostly for CMS migrations)
- URL structure designation (this needs to be done before the website even goes to your designer/developer)
- Redirects spreadsheet (to account for any changes in URL structure. Make sure this also includes post types like blogs and/or case studies)
It is also crucial at this stage that if you are a tinkerer (ie someone who loves to add in fresh keywords, apply new tactics, adjust page design etc.), all tinkering needs to stop until your new website is live. Because your efforts will not be carried over to your new site.
2. Pre-live SEO (once build is complete)
Now your new website is in a staging environment, your SEO can go into what’s been built and check everything is up to scratch with SEO requirements. This includes:
- Heading tagsto ensure there is only one H1 per page, that that H1 is the first heading on the page, and that all other headings are stacked/nested appropriately. These serve both an SEO and a design purpose
- Links point in the right direction and open correctly (for example, internal links open in the same tab, external links inc. PDFs and external booking systems etc. should open in a new tab). Any missing links will also need to be populated
- Key conversion points need checking to make sure they are obvious enough. The most common issue I see is the “contact” or similar conversion button not standing out from the rest of the navigation menu
- Navigation menu also needs to be checked to ensure all pages are visible via a dropdown (unless they are specifically designed to be hidden pages)
- Formatting checks on all pages and blog posts. The blogs can be especially tricky if they’ve been pulled over automatically instead of manually moved across to the new site
- Is the testing site de-indexed? Because it should be. Your testing site should never be indexable on Google
- Meta data needs to be correctly populated on every single page. Bare minimum, you need a meta title. Ideally you need a meta description but your site will survive without it)
- 404 page needs to be built and it needs to have personality. Especially on a larger site, at least one broken link is going to be inevitable in this process, so a really great 404 page is a great way to turn a shitty user experience into a good one
2a. Pre-live copy checks (once build is complete)
So this is my copywriter head on here and not strictly SEO stuff. While I do like SEO, writing is what I really love to do. And whether I’ve written the website copy or I’m supporting the migration of someone who has written their own, I will always check the following:
- Typos, grammar errors, or other issues
- Does the copy still make sense in the design? You’d be amazed how often copy looks out of place once it’s been designed. A quick “see below” can stop making any sense if the designer has put stuff in two columns that you were expecting to be displayed one after the other
- Heading consistency to check for title case vs sentence case throughout the site
- Full stop and punctuation consistency especially in bullet point lists. The area most people get caught out on
- Alerting the client of anything that is missing, most commonly the missing components are meta titles, meta descriptions, and alt text
3. Launch day
For me personally, this is always the most stressful because of the urgency of it all. A lot can go wrong on launch day if these things aren’t handled correctly. Launch day SEO support includes:
- De-indexing the old website
- Making sure the new website is indexable
- Managing canonical tags. Again this is a particular issue on CMSs like Wix or Squarespace that throw a hissy fit once you switch your domain or hosting elsewhere
- Implementing all redirects in the old CMS to point to the correct new URL structure
- Managing XML sitemaps in Google Search Console as the website structure often changes during the migration process
- Recrawling all new pages in GSC to speed up the process of Google recognising that the website has changed
4. Post-launch
This is the maintenance phase of the migration. Your SEO should be on hand for a week or two after launch to keep an eye on and fix the following:
- Unexpected 404 errors
- Canonical tag issues (again, very common when moving from Wix or Squarespace)
- Just about any error in GSC
- Indexability issues
So when I say you need SEO support for a smooth migration, I’m not just talking about keywords. This is the shit that really makes or breaks your website launch.
Do I still need SEO support if it’s my first website?
Yes, absolutely. It’s incredible the difference an SEO uninformed design/build job can have on a website’s performance.
At an absolute bare minimum, you will need someone to check the following:
- Everything in the pre-live SEO (once build is complete) checklist
- Making sure that your site is indexable once it’s launched (you’d be amazed how often this is missed)
- XML sitemap creation and integration with GSC
- Request crawl of every page on the website in GSC
It doesn’t have to be me, but you do need SEO support
The good news is that if you’re working with me on your website copy, all of this is already included in your project. For a while, I made it optional (but still included in the price). Now, after seeing several website launches in the last few years go wrong because no one got in touch before launch, I’ve made it mandatory.
It’s all included in the price so no extra cost, all I need is a couple of weeks notice so I can make enough time in my schedule to give your website the attention it needs.
Whether we’re working together on your website or not, please for the love of god bring in an SEO specialist who knows their shit about website launches to help you. Your boss will thank you for it.