So, what about building your website live? The decision of where to build your website can be strategic. Should it be offline? Behind a "coming soon" or "under construction" landing page? Or should it be live for all the world to see? While the temptation to polish things offline or behind a landing page of some sort, might be strong, there are compelling reasons to consider going live sooner (immediately) rather than later.
Here is why building your website live could be the right move, even a game changer, for your project:
Benefits of Building Your Website Live
Early SEO Advantage: Search engines like Google prioritize active and updated websites. Building live allows search engines to begin indexing your content, potentially boosting your visibility over time.
Gathering User Feedback: A live website lets you gather valuable user feedback. Observe how visitors interact with your content and use this data to refine your site for optimal user experience as you build.
Building Anticipation and Community: A live site, even with limited content, can spark interest and build anticipation for your full launch. Engage with early visitors and foster a community around your project.
Testing Functionality and Performance: A live website allows you to test all functionalities, including forms, plugins, and integrations, in a real-world setting. Iron out any major glitches before your official launch announcement.
Content Creation Momentum: A live site can fuel your content creation process. Knowing your content is being seen by the world can motivate you to consistently add valuable resources and keep your site fresh.
The PLR factor: After all, you do have PLR. There should be no problem finding relevant content for your home page and a handful of blog posts on the very first day of the build. You can always add to or edit these pages/posts later.
Addressing Concerns about Building Your Website Live
"Imperfect" Launch: Do not wait for everything to be perfect. Focus on the core functionality as you decide about building your website live or launching only when you have perfect content. You can always add more features, improve content, and refine details over time.
Transparency is Key: If your site is under development, be upfront with visitors. Use a simple "About Us" page to explain your progress and set expectations for a full launch date. Change that page as the site nears completion.
Making the Live Build Decision
Whether to build live or use a "coming soon" or "under construction" page depends on your specific project, of course. Consider these elements when deciding about building your website live:
1) Content Readiness: Do you have a solid foundation of high-quality content ready for launch? Line up a few necessary filler or place-holder content pieces and then go for it.
2) Project Complexity: Is your website a simple brochure site, or does it involve complex functionalities that need extensive testing? Either way, you can get the basic site live almost immediately -- home page, about page, half a dozen blog posts, contact page -- and work on the rest behind the scenes.
3) Marketing Strategy: Is your marketing campaign ready to drive traffic to your live site? This can weigh on your decision but it is not critical. Getting search engines actively indexing your site NOW is!
Ten SEO Benefits of Building Your Website Live
As we all know, search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for driving organic traffic to your website. One strategic decision that can significantly impact your SEO is whether building your website live is best or should you keep it hidden behind a "coming soon" or "under construction" landing page. While it might seem safer to develop your site offline or behind a placeholder page, building it live offers substantial SEO benefits that can accelerate your online presence and boost your search engine rankings. Here are the key SEO benefits of building your website live.
1. Immediate Indexing and Crawling
When you build your website live, search engines like Google can start crawling and indexing your pages immediately. This means that each new page or update you publish can be discovered and indexed by search engines quicker, allowing your site to begin establishing its presence in search results faster. In contrast, a "coming soon" or "under construction" page provides no content for search engines to index, and building offline provides nothing at all, delaying your website's visibility and discovery by potential visitors.
2. Incremental SEO Gains
SEO is a long-term strategy that benefits from incremental improvements over time. By building your site live, you can start accumulating these SEO benefits from the moment you publish your first page. Each page update, new piece of content, backlink, and user interaction contributes to your site's SEO profile. Over time, these incremental gains can compound, leading to better search engine rankings and increased organic traffic.
3. Content Development and Optimization
Building your website live allows you to continuously develop and optimize content based on real-time feedback and performance data. As search engines crawl your site, you can analyze which pages are performing well and which ones need improvement. This ongoing process of content refinement and optimization can help you create high-quality, relevant content that meets the needs of your audience and aligns with search engine algorithms.
4. Enhanced User Experience (UX)
A live website enables you to test and improve the user experience (UX) in real-time. Factors such as page load speed, mobile responsiveness, and ease of navigation all play a role in SEO. By monitoring user behavior and making adjustments as needed, you can create a seamless and engaging user experience that not only retains visitors but also signals to search engines that your site is valuable and user-friendly.
5. Backlink Opportunities
When your website is live, other websites and online platforms can discover and link to your content. You can even directly place backlinks. These backlinks are a crucial component of SEO, as they signal to search engines that your site is a credible and authoritative source of information. By building your site live, you open up opportunities for both direct and organic backlink growth, which can significantly boost your search engine rankings.
6. Social Media Integration
A live website allows for immediate integration with social media platforms. You can share your content on social media channels, driving traffic to your site and increasing its visibility. Social signals, such as likes, shares, and comments, can indirectly influence SEO by generating traffic and engagement. This integration creates a symbiotic relationship between your website and social media, enhancing your overall online presence.
7. Local SEO Benefits
If your business has a physical location, building your website live can help you start reaping the benefits of local SEO. Search engines prioritize local results for users searching for services or products in their area. By having a live site, you can optimize for local keywords, create location-specific content, and get listed in local directories, all of which contribute to higher local search rankings and more traffic to your actual business.
8. Continuous Improvement Through Analytics
With a live website, you can use analytics tools to track visitor behavior, page performance, and other key metrics. This data is invaluable for making informed decisions about content, design, and marketing strategies. By continuously analyzing and improving your site based on real user data, you can enhance your SEO efforts and achieve better search engine rankings over time.
9. Building Authority and Trust
A live, actively maintained website builds authority and trust with both users and search engines. The sooner your begin the better. Follow with regular updates, fresh content, and ongoing engagement to signal that your site is a reliable source of information. This trust and authority is a critical factor in SEO, as search engines aim to provide users with the most relevant and trustworthy results.
10. Competitive Advantage
Launching your website live gives you a head start over competitors who might still be in the development phase either offline or behind a "coming soon" or "under construction" page. By establishing your online presence early, you can begin building your SEO foundation and gaining traction in search results. This early advantage can be significant in competitive markets, where being visible and accessible to potential customers is crucial.
The Overall Bottom Line
While building a website behind a "coming soon" or "under construction" page might seem like a safer approach, it can delay the SEO benefits that come from building your website live. By building your website live, you enable immediate indexing, incremental SEO gains, and ongoing content development and optimization. You can enhance the user experience, attract backlinks, integrate with social media, and capitalize on local SEO opportunities.
Additionally, when building your website live, the ability to continuously improve through analytics, build authority and trust, and gain a competitive advantage makes building your website live a strategic choice for maximizing your SEO potential. By taking your site live from the start, you set the stage for long-term SEO success and sustained online growth.
Building your website live can be a strategic move that offers SEO benefits, user feedback opportunities, and a platform for building community. It is still going take a while for your site to be found in search engine results pages (SERPs), so initially you will control who comes to your site. Do not be afraid to embrace building your website live and iterate as you go!
Got questions about building your website live? Feel free to reach out to our support team. CLICK HERE.
Need a guide or coach versed in website builds? Stephen B. Henry can handle it. CLICK HERE.
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