A helpful article listing some important Search Engine Optimisation tips for start-up businesses.
Search engine optimisation is tricky for any business, but you’ve got a real challenge on your hands as a startup. You need to make an impact fast, get things moving and start building traction before those limited funds run out. Which is probably why a lot of startups take shortcuts with SEO, hoping to cut a few corners and speed their way to search ranking glory.
Sadly, Google has a fairly brutal history of proving it doesn’t tolerate corner cutting.
In this guide, I’m going to explain how startups can approach SEO to get fast results that last – and then how to supercharge your search strategy with automation.
Here’s an overview of what we’ll be looking at in this guide:
- What makes startup SEO different from regular SEO?
- What do search engines want?
- Building a website for SEO
- What makes great SEO content?
- Automating your startup SEO strategy
Note: If you’re looking for SEO tips specific to COVID-19, check out our post 13 SEO Strategies for SMBs During COVID-19.
What makes startup SEO different from regular SEO?
Absolutely nothing (other than the scale of the challenge). Google doesn’t care whether you’re a startup, a major financial institution or the smallest online retailer – all it cares about is connecting people with the most relevant content for each search query. The SEO requirements for a startup are exactly the same as the world’s biggest brands and search engines want to see the same things from you as any other kind of business.
What does make a difference for most startups is the scale of the challenge. You don’t have the resources of a large business, but your aim is to grow as quickly as possible and compete with the biggest names in your industry.
For many startups, this means doing enterprise SEO on a small business budget, which comes with a few compromises. The problem is, Google doesn’t accept compromises when it comes to search optimisation and you need to get the fundamentals spot on. The good news is, the sooner you get these right, the faster you’ll be able to build a self-sustaining SEO strategy that doesn’t come back to bite you in the budget later.
What do search engines want?
As mentioned, Google doesn’t care what kind of business you are or what your marketing objectives might be. Search engines have their own agenda and when it comes to SEO it’s all about awarding high-ranking positions to pages that provide the following:
- Accessibility: Before search engines can rank your pages, they need to be able to access them.
- Quality content: This means relevant, unique and useful content that provides the answers users are looking for when they type in a query.
- Great user experience (UX): Your website is an extension of the search experience and Google wants to see great UX from your pages.
- Engagement: Quality content and great UX should keep users on your site and engaging with your content, which is precisely what search engines want to see.
- Optimisation: All the optimisation essentials that make pages easy for search engines and users to understand.
Essentially, you need to create great content and experiences while covering the technical optimisation essentials – that’s what search engines and users want to see from you.
How do search engines measure these things?
The problems with phrases like “quality content” and “great UX” is they’re entirely ambiguous. So how do search engines actually measure these vague qualities when they only have rigid data to work with?
