Part 1- Proper Website Structure – RESEARCH PHASE
There are a lot of different platforms that allow yo you to build a website (some are free) – however, building a website that will perform well in search takes some skill. Google is constantly changing the way they rank sites – so having a properly structured site is absolutely CRITICAL! The key is SLOWING DOWN and CREATING A MASTER PLAN. So, let’s learn about proper website structure…
The very first thing you need to do to build an effective website is to start PREPARING to do the necessary research. Information gathering will play a critical role in the success of your site.
For information gathering use this site for a scraping tool.
We recommend setting up an excel spreadsheet AND folders on your desktop so you can stay organized. There will be a lot of content you will need to keep track of!
Research will cover three areas (initially)… AND ALL OF THE DATA WILL HELP YOU IN SOME FASHION.
Three Areas you will need data on:
1) Keywords – in my opinion, this is the most critical when setting up the foundation of your site.
2) Competitors
3) Content (Written, Images, Videos, Social Media)
Let’s walk through each of these in more detail:
1) Keywords:
In order to build an effective site, you must target keywords that will bring you traffic. There are several tools to help you with keyword research (both free and paid) – we recommend using Google Keyword tool to start off with. There are a tons of Free resources on Youtube that can help you learn how to use Google Keyword tool (teaching this tool is beyond the scope of this course).
Here is what you need to research and determine: You will need One MAIN Keyword and at least 4-5 “Sub Keywords”. Your Main Keyword should have a minimum of 1000 monthly searches (EXACT SEARCHES- not Broad). You will need to find and additional 4-5 keywords as well. The most important part of these “sub” keywords is RELEVANCY (not monthly searches). They must be closely related to your main keyword!
2) Competitors:
You will need to find the TOP 10-20 competitors in your Niche and keep a very close watch on what they are doing. Start with Google, Youtube and Facebook. It is important that you properly document these and constantly update them. This will help you with the long term growth (and content) for your site.
3) Content:
Now that you have found the keywords you will be targeting and your top competitors in your niche – it’s time to start looking for content sources. Time to get articles. We recommend either writing your own articles or having someone write them for you. You will need roughly 4-5 articles to begin with. You will need one article for every keyword you want to optimize for (see part B- keyword research for more info)
In part 3B of this series, we will take the information we gathered from above and apply it in preparation for our WEBSITE LAUNCH.
DO NOT go any further in your Website build until the above steps have been taken. You will actually slow the website development process by short cutting these steps. Why? Because we are still pouring the foundation!
As we mentioned above, building a website is very much like building a home – you would’t start building the Framework until the concrete settles – SO YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST NOT LAUNCH YOUR WEBSITE BEFORE YOU HAVE LAID A SOLID FOUNDATION.
