What is an SEO-ready Website?

An SEO-ready website is a website that has been created following all the known and easily-applicable SEO guidelines. This Website will display no errors if checked with an SEO tool, although it might need a lot of work (regarding content marketing) to outrank the competition. 

How to build an SEO-ready website

Step 1: Choose a speed-optimized WordPress Theme

Speed is one of the most important ranking factors you should consider when choosing the Theme for your website. 

There are two ways to make sure that your theme is speed-optimized.

The first one is to check the Theme description. Themes that use speed optimization technologies (such as AMP) usually make it very clear to the buyers.

The second way to check a Theme’s speed is to preview the Theme demo and check the link at Google PageSpeed Insights. The Theme is usually a safe choice if you get more than 95% from this tool. 

Step 2: Optimize Images

Before uploading any images, make sure to resize and compress them. You can compress your images online with a click of a button. 

If your image file type is jpeg you can compress it online at compressjpeg.com.

If your image file type is png you can compress it online at compresspng.com.

Download the minified files and upload them to your website using file titles and alt text descriptions.

Step 3: Install an SEO plugin

Before you start creating content and building pages or posts, make sure to install an SEO plugin. 

An SEO plugin will guide you through the content creation process and add extra fields to your pages for full control of metadata.

The most common SEO plugins are Yoast and The SEO Framework.

Step 4: Make a quick Competitors Research

A quick online search for competitive websites will help you come up with a page structure, decide on your home page sections and get content ideas.

During the search you should:

• Search patterns among the first-page ranking websites (do they all use lists? do they all include links? etc.)
• Get inspiration
• Check content volume

Remember: Your own home page content should be better and longer than all first-page result websites combined.

Step 5: Publish unique content

For your website to rank, your content must be unique and original. Avoid copying phrases or sections from other websites and try to analyze your subjects in depth. 

Using media usually helps as long as it is highly relevant to your context.

In case you want to include small sections or references from other websites, you should always link back to the source and make sure this is less than 5% of your total page content.

Step 6: Make right use of headings

The right use of headings will help search engines crawl your website and understand the context of your page. 

Make sure to use keywords and follow the guidelines for the best use of h tags. Make sure to apply these guidelines to each one of your website pages.

Do you still have questions?

An experienced consultant can help you through the process and provide personalized guidance according to your needs.