A brand new website is the foundation for an awesome online presence. Before we can decide which features to include in our website, we need to know what search engines consider as essential factors when evaluating a company's website. Otherwise, all the cool design and interactive features will be for nothing if your site isn't found by your audience. 

Business websites require the same amount of care and attention as the products or services they represent. When it comes to a new startup it’s easy to forget about this, which could result in a loss of valuable sales opportunities. As an SEO expert, I always find something to worry about when managing a new site, especially on launch day. With these nine essential SEO tips for the launch of your new company website, you will feel more confident in your website user experience.

While the domain name or URL is one of the most important parts of your website, it’s often very overlooked by business owners as they rush through the launch process. However, you should take your time to pick and choose a domain name that properly represents your company.  A good domain name is important: it acts as a shortcut to your company’s identity and plays a crucial role in search engine optimization efforts. Many companies fail to carefully select a domain that accurately portrays their brand.

The domain represents your business and will set the tone of your marketing efforts. Having an appealing, easy to remember domain name is critical to attracting new customers. 

One of the most essential things you can do as a new website owner is to make a sitemap. A sitemap is a document that lists all pages, files and other resources on your website. It is often an XML file that will help all the major search engines index your page. Without this, search engines may have a difficult time finding and indexing your content.  Making a sitemap is easy using the XML sitemap generator which will create an XML sitemap and will show you detailed information about each page indexed by Google. This is a good starting point to guide you on improving your site structure before moving on to advanced SEO techniques.

When you start a new company website there are all kinds of choices you have to make. You need to decide how the website will work, who it’s for, what design you plan to use, and so forth. 

Your competition is who you’ll be up against every day and even though it may only be a small fraction of what you’re really going to be competing against, understanding your competition is absolutely essential to generating the success that you deserve. The more you know about your competition and what they are doing, the more insight that you are going to have into what it takes to succeed in your niche.

 There are many options to consider when choosing a web hosting provider. The most notable options are 1&1 Hosting, GoDaddy, and HostGator. You may want a local host if you are somewhere like New Zealand, such as Discount Domains. When registering domains you need to consider the hosting on offer, unless you are going to point your domain at other hosting. Your host quality can affect your search engine rankings, as website speed, host location and website uptime are ranking factors.

 Before you create your site, put yourself in the mindset of your website visitors. What keywords do you think they would use when searching for information on your industry? When writing pages, always include these search intent keywords on to the page. Not only does this allow search bots to crawl through the page, but it also will help your website visitors find exactly what they are looking for.

The days of nonresponsive websites are numbered. Studies now show that more than 50% of website traffic comes from mobile devices. Are you ready to welcome these visitors? If not, then now is the time to start considering responsive websites and using a mobile friendly website design. Nobody wants to be one of those companies that fails due to their website not being optimized for mobile traffic.

If your business is just getting started, you need to begin by establishing your brand online. This can be a completely overwhelming task that many business owners avoid accomplishing for as long as possible. By taking some time to create a solid foundation of SEO-friendly material and building your website’s reputation, you will give your brand a much-needed boost in credibility online. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of describing what you do and providing a list of services and such. But what a visitor really wants to know is: “how does your business help my business, or help me?” And you know what? They don’t want pictures of your team playing in the pool or selfies from the last company retreat. 

Business blogging provides a great way to share useful, interesting and engaging information with your existing clients or potential customers. Blog posts can also be a great source of backlinks that increase your search engine rankings.

Backlinks are an important part of SEO. They can help improve your search engine rankings and increase traffic to your website. Earning backlinks means providing value to other sites in order to encourage them to link back to you. One of the most effective and inexpensive ways to gain backlinks is by commenting on other blogs in your niche. This is a great way to network with other bloggers and industry leaders. The more contacts you make, the more likely you are to develop a valuable relationship, which could lead to a link and good press attention. As mentioned above, your blog can be a great place to earn backlinks too, if the quality of the content is industry-leading. 

Many new companies get their website up and running, then sit back and hope the world comes knocking. Sadly, this is rarely (never) the case. You tell your SEO person you’re ready to be found on Google while spending days on designing a logo for your Twitter account. What? If you want the world to find you there are certain things you need to do. You do need a social media audit and strategy. Without it, your company will likely have a difficult time growing its online presence, retaining customers and achieving industry recognition.

It's no secret; if you're serious about SEO, you need to understand social media. The majority of search results now include social data, cites and user-generated content. Most importantly, sharing your content on social media is still the quickest way to gain organic traffic and earn backlinks.

With the fast pace of business development, it is easy to see SEO Company when launching a new company website. However, you should be thinking of Search Engine Optimization from day one and whether or not your websites will rank well in the search engines, particularly Google. Your website is only as good as your SEO. You need to do the things that will help you rank well.