Search engines such as Bing, Yahoo and Google are used by people daily to find new products, information and almost anything else you can think of. These daily searches create a great opportunity for businesses that sell products or services online. This is why search engine optimization (SEO) is a must for every startup that has a website.
Here are some of the benefits of optimizing your site for search engines:
- SEO enables your website to appear high in search engine results pages (SERPs) when people search for terms related to your products and services
- SEO builds credibility and trust with your prospects and customers
- SEO offers your customers a better user experience (UX)
- SEO leads to increased traffic, engagement and conversions
The following are 5 search engine optimization hacks for startups:
1. Define your goals
Whether you are a local business, SaaS or eCommerce startup, you need to have clear goals for search engine optimization. Some examples of broad SEO goals could be:
- Increasing your business’ authority in a specific subject
- Attracting more qualified leads to your product pages
- Increasing awareness for a specific audience that might be interested in your product
- Improving engagement; scroll depth, average time on page etc.
More specific SEO goals could be:
- Increase blog traffic by 40% within 6 months
- Increase email subscriptions by 15% in the first quarter
- Double the number of conversions within 12 months
2. Create a Google My Business listing
Getting listed on Google My Business is one of the best ways of boosting your online presence. When people are looking for businesses like yours on Google Maps and Search, they are more likely to find you if you are in the GMB listings. When creating your business profile, be sure to take advantage of all the features available including reviews, Q$A, photos and posts.
3. Use relevant keywords on your site
When people carry out a search on Google, Bing or Yahoo, they use keywords or key phrases. In order to make your pages SEO friendly, you need to include the keywords or key phrases you want to be ranked for. However, you should first conduct a keyword research to find the keywords that have a high search volume. Tools such as Google Trends, Answer the Public, Word Tracker and Google Search Console are great for keyword research.
Besides including keywords in your content, you should also add keywords to your descriptions, headings, browser titles, URLs and alt text for images. Optimizing such metadata will give you an even stronger online presence.
4. Establish authority online
Establishing authority online is important for building a strong reputation for your startup. This showing your prospects and customers that you are a credible and legitimate business. Besides having great web content, you can also build authority through social media and backlinks. Social media posts allow you to keep your followers engaged, while backlinks to your site show that your business is a credible source of information.
5. Track your results
To find out whether your SEO strategy is working or not, you need to track your efforts consistently. Some of the metrics you need to monitor include organic traffic, unique visitors, pages per session, bounce rate, conversion rate, click-through rate (CTR), domain authority, page authority and referring domains. Tools such as Finteza come in very handy for detailed web analytics.
