With the competition soaring in from all sides every passing day, businesses keep struggling to bring about the desired level of growth in their operations. This is especially true for small companies or startups since they need to make an impact hard and fast after getting into business to keep their investors happy.
Most small businesses and startups need to get their business operations moving quickly and generate revenue before the initial funds run out. Due to this, a lot of them take shortcuts when it comes to employing successful SEO methods in the hope of cutting a few corners on the way to search engine glory.
Unfortunately, search engines like Google are quite intolerant of people taking the shorter route to success. Therefore, this small guide will help you figure out a legit way of growing your organic traffic in six months with some foolproof SEO strategies.
If you’ve not been in the business for too long, then you may have your questions about the true meaning and importance of SEO. But there’s nothing to worry about, for we’re going to walk you through the tactics used in SEO for startups to make your life easier.
What Is SEO And Why Is It Important?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the technique most online businesses employ in their organizational routine to rank high on search engine result pages (SERPs). It basically explains the process of optimizing your content and website in such a way that search engines like Google can understand the data and give it the green signal to rank high for specific keywords.
SEO is an explicitly crucial tool for any startup to do well in the competitive business world because they need all the traffic they can get on their website to make their brand visible to the outside world as soon as possible. After all, the higher the website ranks on SERPs, the more people click on it, translating into better conversions and revenues.
Some of the other essential features of having an SEO backed website are its cost-effectiveness, and the negligible reliance on paid ad campaigns that only seem to burn money without appropriate results.
Having SEO for startups also saves the company from solely relying on the ever-changing landscape of social media and see how they can bring the desired results for themselves. Additionally, if your company sends hundreds of emails daily as part of a promotional list, SEO can help you save a lot of wasted time and effort.
SEO for Startups
Here’s a list of SEO tips and techniques that your startup can follow to amp web traffic and get a high rank on SERPs for the business:
Write Long, Meaningful Content
According to the most critical SEO ranking factors, relevant long-form content is the way to go if you want to grab the attention of users online. Considered to be the first step of the acquisition funnel, long blog content provides all-round information to the user. It improves quality, which ultimately results in more viewers and better conversions. Longer posts also help with a website’s dwell time, which is quite beneficial for your ranking because it is a sign for Google that people enjoy your content.
Do Your Keyword Research
If you’re a startup looking for some SEO fame, the smallest but most rewarding thing you can do is focus on your keywords and do ample keyword research. Using the right and relevant keywords in your content can make or break your business in the long run. Using relevant keywords is a necessary step in using SEO for startups to build their brand and help search engines index their website correctly.
While conducting your keyword research, focus on key indicators such as search volume, how easy or difficult it is to rank for a specific keyword, long-tail keywords, and LSI keywords to improve your site’s ranking, and so on.
Check Out The Competition
One of the simplest ways of ranking on SERPs is by creating content that provides ample value to the end-user, and in the process, wipes out the competition. However, before you start creating content that can kick your competitors to the curb, check out all they are doing with their business.
Look for the actual pages that appear on SERPs when you type in the keyword of your choice. Take a close look and carefully observe their writing style, see how long the content is, check their subheadings, the kinds of visuals they use, and find out how often they used the exact keyword in their content. Even though new competitors will show up eventually, keep your content optimized every few months to keep ranking high on search engines.
Link Building Techniques
Apart from the time-consuming task of keyword research, link building is another SEO technique for startups to boost their organic traffic numbers and turn them into massive conversions. Gaining quality backlinks can prove to be a daunting task, but if you know how and where to look, they’ll get you the results you need.
One of the easiest methods of getting quality backlinks is through guest posting, which helps a website improve brand awareness, generates more leads, and strengthens your overall backlinking profile. The other method is called resource page link building, where you reach out to other websites and ask them to include your content, which you think would be beneficial for their readers.
On-Page Optimization
On-page optimization forms the backbone of any effort that goes into SEO for startups, so it’s imperative that small businesses and new businesses get this part of their SEO efforts right for every published page.
Some of the elements that you would need to cover under this particular step are:
- Page URL
- Page titles
- Headings
- Content
- Keywords
- Image optimization
- Internal links
- Mobile optimization
- Structured data
Site Design
The importance of website design solely lies in its functionality. The UI/UX design is extremely crucial to a website because it impacts how the customers perceive your website, your brand, and, eventually, your overall business. It is your impression on the customers, which serves as the deciding factor for them staying on your page and finding out about your business. Else, they just might switch to a competitor website. This is precisely what makes it a crucial factor to look at while SEO for startups and small businesses.
In Conclusion
Although the steps mentioned above may seem time-consuming and quite exhaustive, remember that at the end of the day, it’s all about creating a process that works and sticking to it. As time goes by, you will be able to correctly grasp what works and what doesn’t for your company, and pick out the best SEO strategies to grow your business and see your revenue inflate.