Startups have a unique place in the digital landscape for many reasons, one of which is their ability to operate at a fraction of the cost of more “traditional” companies while churning out products and/or services of comparable quality.
The one downside, however, is how saturated the market has become: because of the ease of setting up a startup, thousands of small businesses have mushroomed across the online world offering slight variations of the same product or service. Aside from beating the competition through superior output, how else can a budding startup entrepreneur compete and find an edge over the competition?
Simple: SEO.
Search engine optimization refers to the process of creating a digital presence that makes it easier for people to find websites online. Think of your website as an online calling card and SEO as the most convincing salesman who hands people your contact details and keeps it on top of everyone’s stack of cards.
For startups, SEO shouldn’t just be an option; rather, SEO should be an integral part of any company’s digital marketing efforts, if not one of the first things to consider when putting up any kind of business. There’s been plenty of advice about how to start a business, what mindset to take, but technical aspects like SEO must be taken into account.
There’s no overstating the importance of SEO to your startup, so we’ve compiled a few facts about SEO and how it can help take your business to the heights of success
SEO Helps You Set Business Goals
Aside from the obvious benefit of driving traffic into your website, SEO is much more than that; it’s an important factor in driving revenue, generating profit, and helping you with your ROI. Properly executed SEO also helps your company create brand recognition, that ability of brands to be recalled by consumers easily, which, in turn, helps influence people’s decisions whenever they encounter you and your competition.
With the increase of traffic to your site, you’ll find that an effective SEO strategy won’t just bring in loads of people; it also brings in the right kind of people, meaning, targeted leads that you can turn into customers. Over time, as more and more people get to know you and your brand, satisfied customers will continue to spread your name via word of mouth, establishing customer loyalty and, ideally, business longevity.
The best way to ensure that you have proper SEO is to hire the services of a legitimate and trusted digital marketing company. I tried SEOgine.com recently and, while it isn’t cheap, it’s a great investment to make especially when they are able to boost traffic to your site (they’re open to both startups and small-to-medium enterprises. Sign up here to learn more about their services)
SEO Helps Your Brand Generate Topics
At the heart of any good SEO strategy is the constant generation of content. This can take the form of different kinds of media, including:
- Blog posts
- Guest blogs
- Podcasts
- Videos
- Images
- Tools
- Web apps
- Lead magnets
SEO uses these mediums to drive traffic into your website. Although product pages and e-commerce/shopping pages work too, being cited by other sites and having links to your site in other places on the world wide web are much more effective.
With all these kinds of media for you to churn out, you’ll need a system that can regularly generate topics for you, something that an SEO strategy does easily. SEO can do this by hearkening back to your business goals and combining it with common keywords that your customers use to find you.
An effective SEO strategy would be able to draw in targeted leads as well as large traffic volume. It does this by generating content that has both wide appeal and limited competition (it won’t hurt to pique the interest of social media influencers as well!).
When crafting your SEO strategy, always keep your business goals in mind. That way, you’ll be able to create a repeatable process of content generation and be able to target specific keywords that your market will be searching for on a regular basis.
SEO Provides You With A Blueprint for Technical Difficulties
Technical problems are inevitable when it comes to the online world. Startups that don’t incorporate SEO in their business plan, unfortunately, can find themselves dead in the water once a bug hits. Of course, Google and all the other search engines have taken great pains to ensure that they run their site as efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, badly-written content or worse, badly-executed SEO, can leave your site de-indexed and not ranking. Bad news!
Luckily, a good SEO strategy can help you fix that, or better yet, avoid it entirely. Clean, well-written, and technically sound SEO should always be part of your business development process. Coupled with regular site maintenance and the occasional look-over by an SEO expert, startups can actively avoid technical difficulties in the future.
A Necessary Tool for Digital Survival
There are many tips online as to how SEO can help your startup; I suggest reading about it as much as you can before consulting the experts. Remember: forewarned is forearmed!
SEO isn’t just a luxury anymore; it’s necessary for surviving the virtual jungle that is the internet. Utilize it properly, and you’ll not only survive, but thrive.
This article has been written by Micah Andres.
(Micah Andres has been writing content for marketing and creative purposes for over 10 years. He has worked on numerous projects for local and international clients and has written copies for both traditional and digital media. When he isn’t wearing his corporate hat, he performs stand-up comedy both locally and abroad, and has won comedy competitions in the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong.)
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As a Mompreneur & Lifestyle Blogger, I am constantly on the goal of being ready for the NEW re-birthing and renewing of Oneself as I believe we all have a purpose to fulfil on this earth and part of my mission is for us all to live a Purpose-Driven Life.
