A) Prep work and begin building content.
Long before the domain name is settled on, start putting together
notes to build at least a 100 page site. That's just for openers.
That's 100 pages of real content, as opposed to link pages, resource
pages, about/copyright/tos...etc eg: fluff pages.
B) Domain name:
Easily brandable. You want "google.com" and not "mykeyword.com".
Keyword domains are out - branding and name recognition are in
- big time in. The value of keywords in a domain name have never
been less to se's. Learn the lesson of "goto.com" becomes
"Overture.com" and why they did it. It's one of the
most powerful gut check calls I've ever seen on the internet.
That took serious resolve and nerve to blow away several years
of branding. (that is a whole 'nother article, but learn the lesson
as it applies to all of us).
C) Site Design:
The simpler the better. Rule of thumb: text content should out
weight the html content. The pages should validate and be usable
in everything from Lynx to leading edge browsers. eg: keep it
close to html 3.2 if you can. Spiders are not to the point they
really like eating html 4.0 and the mess that it can bring. Stay
away from heavy: flash, dom, java, java script. Go external with
scripting languages if you must have them - there is little reason
to have them that I can see - they will rarely help a site and
stand to hurt it greatly due to many factors most people don't
appreciate (search engines distaste for js is just one of them).
Arrange the site in a logical manner with directory names hitting
the top keywords you wish to hit.
You can also go the other route and just throw everything in root
(this is rather controversial, but it's been producing good long
term results across many engines).
Don't clutter and don't spam your site with frivolous links like
"best viewed" or other counter like junk. Keep it clean
and professional to the best of your ability.
Learn the lesson of Google itself - simple is retro cool - simple
is what surfers want.
Speed isn't everything, it's almost the only thing. Your site
should respond almost instantly to a request. If you get into
even 3-4 seconds delay until "something happens" in
the browser, you are in long term trouble. That 3-4 seconds response
time may vary for site destined to live in other countries than
your native one. The site should respond locally within 3-4 seconds
(max) to any request. Longer than that, and you'll lose 10% of
your audience for every second. That 10% could be the difference
between success and not.
D) Page Size:
The smaller the better. Keep it under 15k if you can. The smaller
the better. Keep it under 12k if you can. The smaller the better.
Keep it under 10k if you can - I trust you are getting the idea
here. Over 5k and under 10k. Ya - that bites - it's tough to do,
but it works. It works for search engines, and it works for surfers.
Remember, 80% of your surfers will be at 56k or even less.
E) Content:
Build one page of content and put online per day at 200-500 words.
If you aren't sure what you need for content, start with the Overture
keyword suggester and find the core set of keywords for your topic
area. Those are your subject starters.
