Top 7 SEO Strategies for Startups to Boost your Succes

Establishing the company of your dreams is exciting, but it comes with its own challenges. There is a lot to accomplish, from developing new products to coming up with a marketing strategy to maximize your sales. Enhancing visibility on a search engine is often misunderstood as an additional cost in marketing strategies along with being low in priority.

The reason for the misunderstanding could resonate because SEO is time-consuming compared to other advertising methods, and its results take time to show.  While this is the harsh reality for competing startups, utilizing SEO can help give them a competitive edge. It may take time compared to other forms of marketing, but SEO is essential when building a startup’s inbound marketing strategy.

In the following paragraphs, we mention the most important strategies to successfully implement SEO in your startup. However, let’s first look closer at the context and relevance of SEO on the internet.

What Is SEO for Startups?  

SEO refers to the techniques designed to improve new businesses visibility on search engines to achieve organic traffic and rapid growth. It incorporates strategies that address the unique issues and opportunities that face startups.

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is crucial for improving a website’s ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs). It helps new businesses get customers, acquire leads, and expand profits. The paramount purpose for SEO for startup businesses is to grow brand awareness and trust while improving SEO content. In essence, SEO helps in the growth of startups.

The value of SEO for new businesses

Robust SEO can provide you with an unrivaled competitive posture, with the fact that 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine. This proves that if SEO is not prioritized by your startup, then you might be losing a lot of prospective clients. The impacts of SEO on startups are plenty. Let’s evaluate some of them.

Let’s put things into perspective. Startups usually work with limited budgets, making paid advertisement options costly. On the otherhand, SEO proves to be a low-cost alternative. It’s a well-known fact that SEO on average wins against PPC advertisement at a boasting ROI of 748% against 200% offered by PPC campaigns.

It enables you to compete with larger companies

In almost every industry, there are existing companies that have a well-established system in place. This means they have more resources than you and put your small business at a dire competitive disadvantage.

However, as noted earlier, you can defeat these challenges using SEO. Search engines prioritize relevance and quality over the size of the brand. Therefore, if you provide better content than your competitors, even small businesses can outperform larger corporations.

It develops trust and credibility among customers

Customers are more drawn to businesses that emerge on top of the search results. Obtaining higher ranks organically indicates to the users that your business is credible and offers value. Therefore, landing your company on the front page increases traffic and positions it as a reliable option.

7 Best SEO Strategies for Startups

1. Keyword Research

Now, you need to focus on identifying your target keywords. There are several approaches you can follow, one of which is competitor analysis, where you check the keywords targeted by the main players in the market.

Furthermore, you can center your marketing around keywords based on your customer’s actions or employ other methods. Regardless, conduct thorough keyword research with the full range of tools at your disposal. Typically, performing your keyword research involves three guiding factors:

1. Identify the keywords measurable in relation to your target audience. This can largely be done by analyzing the monthly search volume for a keyword.
2. Analyze the target keywords that capture trends for your brand, product, or service. Popular keywords among your audience do not necessarily apply to your startup.
3. The accompanying budget and schedule you have selected for the project determine the competition level for the keyword. A word that garners a lot of attraction is going to be very sought after. If choosing to focus on the most popular ones, it will most likely not be cost-effective.

2. Content Strategy

Creating content for your audience should start with addressing their needs, problems, and questions. Write for real people instead of bots, and use appealing prose throughout. Make sure to use white space effectively through short paragraphs and subheadings as well as bullet points for content that is easy to skim. Tools like Grammarly, ProWritingAid, and Hemingway Editor can improve the clarity and correctness of your writing.

After you have created content that is valuable, keywords should seamlessly be integrated into the content. Do remember to use the main keywords in the title and early on in the text within the first 100-150 words, but refrain from using it excessively.

Be sure to allocate some of your resources toward creating in-depth content on essential topics. For example, you can write an article serving as a guide to “Remote Work Best Practices” and write other articles that delve deeper into specific sub-topics such as managing remote teams or tools for virtual collaboration. Linking these articles assists search engines in parsing your content while further encouraging your audience to traverse deeper into your site.

3. Technical SEO

As for the advanced techniques of on-site SEO for startups, the first one has to do with the technical side, and there are two core aims of this step:

• To facilitate seamless indexing on Google or any other search engine, ensuring accurate recognition of all elements on the website.
• To enhance the overall content and website usability with the aim to optimally extend the stay duration of visitors on the site.

Indeed, or at least admitting that optimizing all the different technical factors takes a lot of work, especially when you’re just getting started, can be very daunting. You can check our previous guide of the technical SEO checklist here, but on this occasion, we will list the important ones you will need to focus on:

• XML Sitemap: The right sitemap is a prerequisite for Google indexing the website, and there are multiple ways to achieve that. Don’t forget to submit your sitemap to Google Webmaster Central.

• Title Tags: Every user-focused title tag should be active, so make sure you include the focus keyword in all title tags. Also, every title tag must be unique, so make them catchy enough to attract clicks.
• Meta description: While meta descriptions are not used to rank pages directly, they do influence CTR, which is a ranking metric. This means that meta descriptions should be crafted in a way that appeals more to the users than search engines. Remember to make them stand out.
• Headings and Subheadings: Proper headings are beneficial for content structure and readability, but they also improve search engine parsing.
• Page speed: Google states that over 50% of visitors will leave your page if it does not load within three seconds. Check your site with Google’s PageSpeed Insights, and make sure to optimize load speed as much as you can.
• Mobile optimized: There is no doubt that mobile-friendly/mobile-responsive sites are favored by Google when ranking on their SERP. Ensure that your site is mobile responsive and check it on multiple devices.
• HTTPS: If you have not done so already, migrate your site to HTTPS or HTTP with an SSL certificate. Google may prevent access to your site on Chrome if you do not use HTTP.
• Crawl errors: Log in to your Google Search Console and check for any existing crawl errors.

In addition, subdomains should be avoided unless they are absolutely necessary for the functioning of your startup website. Google may view your subdomains as individual sites. Therefore, they would need to perform separate optimizations. In this scenario, it is more appropriate to utilize subfolders.

4. Form link-building and cross-promotional marketing partnerships

Building relevant backlinks for your content, as well as creating strong relationships with influencers within your industry, improves SEO results for your startup. When a reputable site links your content, you do not only get traffic but also your domain rating increases, thus improving your chances of competing for keyword ranking.

The easiest way to earn backlinks is to have something worth linking to: content that is truly valuable. There is a high chance of attracting backlinks by including original data along with captivating multimedia elements such as images and videos. Semrush’s State of Content Marketing report shows that blog posts with more than seven images earned 55% more backlinks compared to those without them.

Moreover, articles that had at least one video attracted 70% more traffic compared to those that did not have one.  Engage in cross-promotional marketing strategies with industry leaders by using their content and tagging them on social media and in your marketing campaigns. This creates a cycle where, once you help them promote their brand, they will reciprocate the favor by promoting your content in theirs. 

5. Enhance your on-page SEO

On-page SEO optimizations ensure that everything on your website is organized in a manner that makes it easy for users and search engines to find, understand, and engage with your content. Start off by looking at your overall website architecture before diving into content and keywords.  

• Site speed. Your website should load well; it’s important for SEO and the user experience. To improve load times, images can be compressed without sacrificing quality, and website code can be cleaned by removing superfluous CSS, JavaScript, or HTML. GTmetrix, Google PageSpeed Insights, and Pingdom are great for analyzing your site and providing tips to boost performance.

• Content Structure. To enhance ease of navigation on your website, content offerings or services should be categorized into distinct sections. If you are a blogger, ensure your blog is categorized into topics or neat categories. 
• Design a sitemap. A sitemap helps search engines access every page on your site. It is a good practice to acquire a CMS with plugins that build sitemaps automatically.
• Meta descriptions and title tags. It is important to capture the content of the webpage, include the keyword, and remain within the 50-60 character limit. Make the title tag engaging to encourage clicks. While rankings do not affect meta descriptions, they are important to summarize the page in 150-160 characters to encourage clicks. 
• Mobile optimization. Over 60% of web traffic comes from mobile devices. To ensure your site is mobile-friendly, assess navigation ease using the Mobile Usability report from Google Search Console. Fix small text and buttons that are too close together.

6. Expand your reach through off-page SEO

Social media, influencer marketing, and online reviews all fall under off-page SEO. While social media may not affect your ranking directly, it plays an important role in your overall SEO strategy. LinkedIn, Reddit, and Quora can help increase engagement and traffic to your site, which is beneficial for your SEO efforts. Social media can help enhance your SEO in the following ways: 

• Improved brand recognition: Posting high-value content frequently will help capture the attention of prospective customers who wouldn’t have discovered your business via search engines.
• Increased backlinks: Higher social media exposure results in posting your business’s content on other websites, which will, in turn, link back to your site, improving your off-page SEO.
• Accelerated content indexing: If your content is being shared and discussed over social media, search engines will be able to index the content much faster because it is being shared often. 

Startups can gain a better understanding of customer interactions and boost social engagement insights with the help of AI-powered CRM tools.

7. Check the SEO progress with analytics

Advanced analytics tools allow for the measurement of the results of an SEO strategy for informed decisions and direction. The overall key performance indicators (KPIs) monitored include monthly pageviews, average time on site, overall ranking keywords, quality of top ranking keywords, and the amount of backlinks generated.

The Benefits of SEO for Startups

1. SEO is about Content, And Content Is King

Your business will always need a website that serves as a storefront in the modern day. In addition, it works as a really important promotional tool for your business. A well-designed website combined with engaging text will be a valuable asset in the competitive world today.

A common misconception for startup SEO is that it focuses on optimizing the topics only for search engines and not for readers, which is equally or more important to consider when conducting SEO. SEO helps optimize content, which is one of the most valuable marketing tools in a business.

2. SEO is Cost-Effective

When compared to startups, other forms of digital marketing, like the use of PPC advertising, social media platforms, and influencer marketing, SEO is more affordable, at least in the long term.

While SEO might not have an immediate impact like social media or paid ads, it lays a great long-term groundwork for your startup’s online visibility. Controlling a budget is one of the most important things for a startup and investing in an SEO campaign for your startup will be a great way to fuel growth.

3. Search Engine Marketing Dominance

Nowadays, we all know how important reading reviews and getting informational content is before making any purchases. Google processes over 3.5 billion searches a day, and that number is continuing to grow.

If you skip out on SEO, you are letting go of a vast potential market for your business. Fully understanding and embracing the fact that people will soon be spending large portions of their time online, it’s apparent that search engines are going to be an even greater pillar in our lives. Without SEO, your business will be difficult to find.

The previously outlined reasons are not the only ones, and there are numerous advantages to why practicing SEO is beneficial for your startup. We could even argue that in this modern era, SEO is not merely a luxury marketing strategy but rather an indispensable one for all startup businesses. 

Common SEO Mistakes Startups Should Avoid

• Paying no attention to the on-page SEO basics: Neglecting on-page optimization factors like title tags, meta descriptions, and alt texts can severely affect your ranking.
• Incorrectly overusing keywords: Placing excessive focus on keywords can lead to penalties being imposed. Rather, the focus should be on weaving them organically into the content.
• Forgetting about technical SEO: Broken hyperlinks, duplicate content, lack of sitemaps, etc., can greatly impact your visibility.
• Lack of patience: Expecting instant results is not productive. Treating SEO like a long-term, consistent effort is fundamental. 

Conclusion 

Standouts are both interactive and dynamic. As every step from conducting in-depth keyword research to creating tailor-made, user-focused content is interlaced together, a website is built to serve.  In this ceaselessly advancing world of the internet, startups deal with niche problems when it comes to being visible. It surely is a primary day-to-day challenge for many. Transform world challenges into opportunities with effective and impactful SEO strategies.

As always, make sure content optimization for search engines (SEO) is an everyday update instead of a one-time chore. You maintain competitiveness by updating content, checking performance indicators, and adapting to new algorithm changes. Improving user experience (like reduced loading times, responsiveness on mobile, and interesting videos/images) also works towards building trust while improving ranking.

Establishing meaningful professional relationships with high-quality backlinks can help enforce authority and amplify reach. As a beginner in the intricate world of SEO, focus on the value you deliver. Striking the perfect balance between content and search intent ensures addressing audience needs and guarantees success.

Focusing on these suggestions with determination allows your startup to reap long-lasting digital visibility and position it in the top search engine positions. While the journey may seem challenging, the outcome is astonishing and rewarding.