Launching a new business is never an easy task, moreover making a business successful is much harder. If you are thinking of launching a start-up in 2019 or beyond then you must know that in 2019 no business can grow without marketing.
Marketing is such an essential part of every business strategy. There is a popular saying that “it’s not about who has the idea first but who has it best” And according to me ” it’s not about who has the idea first but who marketed it in the best way”.
If you can market your business better than your competitors, you are going to make more profit then your competitors.
Now when it comes to marketing, you cannot deny the fact that for start-ups digital marketing is the best option.
If you are a huge start-up who has got a lot of funding, you may invest in costlier marketing channels like T.V ads but then also you can’t ignore digital marketing from your marketing strategy in the digital era.
Broadly speaking, digital marketing is to promote your business using the Internet.
Internet marketing involves a wide range of marketing tactics like Paid search ads, Facebook ads, Youtube ads, pay per click ads, SEO etc but the most effective digital marketing tactic is SEO.
Why SEO is Fundamental for start-ups
Yeah, you heard it right- SEO.
SEO is about optimizing your website as to show your website result higher in the search results page for certain search terms.
Let’s take an example to suppose you own a start-up selling some goods or services, let’s say you sell t-shirts. With your website, you can take online orders for t-shirts from throughout your country.
This way you can grow your business online, but just starting a business website is not enough. A website is essential but not enough. A website is of no use if no one visits it.
The point is you need visitors or traffic on your website to make sales through your website. It would be better if we say, you need targeted traffic on your website to make sales on it.
What I mean by targeted traffic is website visitors who are looking for goods or services you offer.
If you will ask your hundred friends to visit your website. They will visit your website and in this way, you will get some traffic but will those friends of yours buy anything from your site?
Probably not, because they landed on your site on your request, they were not actually looking for t-shirts to buy online. So any random traffic would not work, we need targeted traffic on our website to make sales.
- SEO is the best way to get targeted traffic on your website and make sales through your website.
Okay. Now, suppose if your website can rank on google for search queries(keywords) like buy a t-shirt online then you are going to get a lot of targeted visitors on your website thus you are going to make a lot of sales through your website for your T-shirt business. This is what SEO can do for you.
SEO can make your business website rank on google for your business keywords and get you targeted traffic on your business website.This targeted traffic, in turn, would convert into your customers if they like your website and your services or goods. - SEO will not only give you more customers but will also help you build an online reputation of your new start-up.
Search Engine Journal stated that 93% of online experiences start with a search. So more people noticing your business in the search would mean more people knowing your brand thus making it popular and gaining authority. - SEO is free and a long-term strategy to Grow
We know that SEO is just one of the marketing practice that comes under digital marketing. There are other digital marketing tactics too like paid search marketing often called SEM. But Unlike paid search marketing, with SEO, you would need not to invest in ads for getting targeted traffic that converts. SEO is free to practice. You do not need to pay anyone money to send targeted traffic to your website, unlike FB ads where you pay Facebook to send you traffic.
This is the most important point that makes SEO fundamental for start-ups. While some start-ups have a large sum of money to keep on investing in paid ads but most of the times, start-ups lack the capital to invest in paid digital ads constantly. With SEO, start-ups would need not to pay anyone(FB or Google) to bring in customers.
Also relying on paid ads to grow online is not a good idea. Using Paid ads for marketing is not a long-term strategy. With SEO, you can rank for your business keywords once and enjoy sales till you keep ranking on SERP.
The bottom line is SEO is relevant and important for your start-up. SEO is the best long-term marketing strategy to make your business grow online.
SEO Strategies for start-ups.
Search engine optimization is a little complex as it involves a large number of things to do on your website.
As said before, SEO is about optimizing your website as to show higher in search engine results page. Speaking more precisely, The aim of SEO is to secure the first position on the 1st page of search engine results for certain keywords.
As to achieve this aim, you would need to use a lot of tactics like link building, On-page SEO, off-page SEO, technical SEO that comes under the tag SEO.
I will explain some of these most important SEO tactics soon in this article.
But before that, you should know that SEO for start-ups is a little different from well-known brands. What does make a difference for most startups is the scale of the challenge.
SEO takes time to show results. You cannot rank on Google the very next day you employed SEO strategies on your website. This will take some time like months.
But well-known brands have been in the search industry for a long time, For these brands its easy to rank on Google for their desired keyword within days or weeks.
You know why? Because these well-known brands have gained a lot of authority with the course of time. So SEO strategies for start-ups should aim to gain authority in the search market.
SEO for star-ups is also hard as search market is awash with the competition. You cannot rank for any keyword you want, as a new website you should target low competition keywords to rank on Google fast.
Some Effective SEO strategies for Start-ups
- Get your new website designed the best way. I believe UX+UI+SEO is the killer combination of online success. Website design matters in SEO.
- Your website should be designed following SEO parameters and guidelines.
- Your website should be designed in a way as to give the highest conversion rate.
- Your website should be designed to give the best user experience.
- Your website design should be responsive to mobile devices. Most of your customers would be using mobile devices to find you thus it becomes crucial for you to get a mobile-friendly website.
These are some important thing you should take care of while getting your start-up website designed. - Make your website Load fast
Only fast websites rank on the first page of search results. You can never make it to the first page with a slow website. Your website should load fast, at least within 3 seconds.
Your website speed also affects your conversions. A website that takes more than 3 seconds to load loses a lot of potential customers. Thus better watch your website speed and take measures to improve it.
Your website speed also depends on your server response time so choose your hosting plan and company carefully. - Optimize for low competition keywords
The aim of SEO is to rank on SERP for certain keywords. Thus it is wise to first decide for what keywords you want to rank for?
Every business wants to rank on Google for their business keywords. Start-up selling medicine online would love to rank for keywords like- “buy medicines online”, “order medicines”, “order online medicine” etc.
Research your business keywords and try to find keywords that are both profitable and easy to rank(less competitive).
While the keyword “buy medicines online” may be the most profitable keyword but do remember you are a start-up and it will take you years to rank for high competition keywords. So better go with “order online medicine” if it’s less competitive even if it is not as profitable as “buy medicines online”.
If you can wait years to rank on Google then you can go for any high competition keyword. You will definitely make it to the first page of Google someday if you will keep on following SEO trends. - Craft SEO friendly meta titles. Meta title is the page title that will appear on search engine results as the blue link. Make your meta title readable, catchy with a focus keyword.
- URL structure– Your page URL should be SEO friendly. SEO friendly menas short with a focus keyword.
- Heading tags- Make the best use of h1-h6 headings and make your site content look organised for both users and search engines.
- Include focus keyword in headings and subheading– Yet another SEO tactic where you include your focus keyword in h1 and h2 heading as to give Google a signal that this is the keyword the page is based on.
- Optimize your page content for your target keywords- If you want your webpage to rank for “order medicines online” then use it several times in your webpage content. This would give Google a hint that this page is about that keyword used again and again.
But don’t stuff keywords. This practice s getting less and less important with Google able to identify page topic without keywords. Google punish websites for keyword stuffing so be careful while optimizing your webpage for keywords. - Use LSI (Latent semantic indexing) keywords in your content. This is yet another sign of page relevancy that Google considers.
- Use Images and Image alt tags– using image son website would improve your user experience and using alt tags for images will make Google know your image subject.
- Use Internal links and external links– Link internally to your own pages. This is a popular SEO tactic. Link externally to valuable resources would help your readers and may help in SEO.
- Create Quality content– There is a famous saying in the SEO world- Content is the king. You cannot rank on Google without quality content. So better create valuable quality content for your site. Content is the best way to build links to your site and gain authority as a start-up.
- Build Links
BackLink building is one of the most important SEO aspects. Backlinks are your site links paced on some other sites. When your site link is placed on some other high authority site in your niche, Goole perceives this as a sign of relevancy and you gain authority and page rank from backlinks.
Backlink building is a slow and hard process. New websites often fail to build backlinks and thus stop trying but this is a mistake. Backlink and quality content is the two most important SEO aspects which you can’t ignore. - Make your site secure- Use https on your site and make it secure. A site secure with https would make your users feel secure and will gain you there trust.
- Share your posts on social media– Sharing your pages on social media helps in getting your pages indexed fast and also increase your business exposure.
- Connect with Influencers– Start-up sites should try to establish a connection with other influencers in their niche. This connection helps you get quality backlinks, guest posting opportunities and social shares from high authority profiles.
Conclusion
SEO for start-ups is relevant and important. SEO is Crucial for start-ups with a low budget. SEO has helped many Start-ups achieve success.
This article was aimed to provide start-up owners with an insight into the SEO world. SEO is a wide subject and learning and practice t requires time. Does for start-up owners, it is always a better idea to hire an SEO agency and see their business ranking on Google.
Hope this article helps you. Thanks for reading. Let me know your thoughts on SEO ad start-up in the comments.
