Website Launch Tips for Small Businesses

Abstract: A look at some key points for launching new websites targeted towards

small businesses, organizations and sole traders.

Intended Audience: Small Business Owners/webmasters and anyone new to the world

of web design and search engine optimization (SEO) particularly those working with

small businesses, organizations and sole traders.

When launching a new website there are a number of key issues to address in order to

get your new website off to a good start and get it indexed by the search engines

particularly Google.

Create a Sitemap

A sitemap file is used to inform the search engines about the content of your website

in terms of the number of web pages, their names, and the priority of each page and

the frequency of change. There are a number of online sitemap generators that you

can use to create a sitemap though always check before submitting your sitemap to

Google that it is complete and contains all the web pages that you want indexed.

Create a robots.txt

A robots.txt informs search engines about which content you do not want indexed by

the search engines. For example most websites do not want their images or documents

directories indexed by Google and a robots.txt file can be used to prevent their

indexing.

Install a Google Map on your website

Most small business will have a requirement for an interactive location map on their

website for one or more of their locations. Websites that use the Google Maps

Application Programming Interface (API) tend to be indexed more quickly than

websites that do not use this facility.

Note: All of the above items should be completed prior to your website going live.

Add Your Website URL to Google

As soon as your website is live then you should submit your website URL to Google

to let them know the website is ready for crawling and indexing. You should also add

your website URL to Bing and Yahoo at this time. Instructions to add your website

URL to the above search engines can be easily found on each search engine.

Utilise Website Monitoring Tools

Once your website goes live it is very important to monitor its progress closely during

the early weeks to ensure it gets indexed and there are no content issues. Tools such

as Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo Site Explorer are useful in this regard and

will allow you to ascertain which web pages have been indexed, display backlinks,

uncover content errors etc.

Obtain Relevant Links

Good quality relevant links are also important and more information about this topic

can be found at http://www.istech.ie/blog/?p=133

Eoin Redmond is an expert in the area of Search Engine Optimization and Internet

Marketing for small businesses works for Istech Technology Services in Kilkenny,

Ireland.

Istech Technology Services Ltd

Leading Website Developer and SEO Specialists

Tel: 00 353 56 7780234

Web: http://www.istech.ie/