The First 5 Things I Do For Every New Website
Now that I have built few of my own websites since joining Weathy Affiliate I have a set process of things that I do as soon as my website has been set up that I consider to be very important.
Here are the first 5 things I do with every new website:
Add SSL
You can activate your security certificate with WA at any time but I like to flip that switch as soon as I have built my website. It is literally the first thing that I do every single time.
My reasoning for this is that when you start adding content to your website it becomes more than just "flickiing the switch" - there may be things that you need to fiddle with before your green padlock shows. I struggled with 2 of my websites that wouldn't show the green padlock.
The second reason I do this immediately is because in the next steps I need to choose to use http or https.... I will have to repeat some of those steps if I do them before activating my SSL.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is where you can access all the information pertaining to the traffic coming to your website. You can see where your visitors are coming from (organic, social media and which social media channel, direct etc), which country they are from, how many page views your website is getting and what content is being viewed.
This is vital information that you need to be able to asses in the future to grow your traffic and to monitor what is working and what is not working.
How To Add And Verify Google Analytics
Google Search Console
Google Search Console (also known as Google Webmaster Tools) is another very important tool. It gives more detailed information for your organic traffic. For some reason Google Analytics only gives a few of the search terms in your organic traffic reporting but the majority of keywords that your visitors are finding your website through are missing. Google Search Console provides all the keywords that your visitors are using to find you, which is invaluable information.
You also need to submit a sitemap to Google so that your website and posts gets indexed faster. It will give Google a map of your content which is very useful.
How To Verify Google Search Console, Submit Sitemap and Fetch As Google
Social Share Buttons
I like to add social share buttons to my website before I write my first post making it easy for me to share my content as well as for my readers to share my content. There are plenty of plugins available for this, so head on over and have a look for one that you like.
I have Social Media Feather plugin on a few of my websites, you can check out this training by Loes to get started with it:
Push and Email Subscribe Forms
One of the biggest mistakes I made with my first website which is my main business is not bothering with email marketing immediately. It is an incredible tool, and so is Push Notifications.
Think about this, you start your website, you write your first post and you share it on social media, maybe 20 people come and read your post... and then they are gone and never visit your website ever again... OR you have a subscribe form and 5 of these visitors sign up and every time you publish a new post or have something important you can bring those 5 people back!
How To Set Up Push Notifications Using SendPulse
How To Set Up A New Mailing List Using SendPulse
After these 5 things are done I make my website look pretty and I started creating content. I hope you have found this helpful :)
If you have any questions please leave a comment.
Recent Comments
90
Great info Lynne! I have the basic checklist I go through when publishing new posts, I should have thought to do so with creating sites as well. Thanks!!
That sounds like a great lineup the one thing I have not set up yet is the Push and Email subscribe forms sounds like I better get on it so I am not losing those valuable customers.
Thanks for sharing this list.
I must absolutely add a subscribe form.
I've bookmarked this post.
Going to check the links you've added to this post.
:-)
Adding sign up forms is something I did too late with my website but I will know better next time.
This is a great list of first things to do.
With Grace and Gratitude
Karen
The links are in the post Nsoh :) I will be adding some more training soon when I get the chance.
Yes, but the video assumes that you have already set up SendPulse. How do you install it? I need to have it installed before I can understand your video lesson. Or is there something I'm missing?
Great information, thank you for sharing your steps and especially bringing my attention to email marketing and push notifications.
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Thank you so much. This is informative and has sparked my interest. The points about social media buttons and push and email subscribe forms are so important. I will be following up on this. I will ensure to have push and email subscribe forms on my site. I gonna go get these trainings when my lap top is up on WiFi.
Nickoy
I am happy to help you with that Nickoy :)
Ok. I will contact you when needed.
Thanks