3 Easy and Actionable SEO Tips to Jumpstart Your Startup

You are a startup.

And you don’t have a magic wand to put your website to the top positions on Google, make a big figure sale, and become a millionaire overnight. Did I get you right?

In order to build a sustainable business in this fiercely competitive business environment, you need to place a priority focus on SEO from the beginning.

Why?

Consumers today work, live, and play in a digital world. Most consumers use the Internet to learn more about the products they want to buy online. The digital marketplace, therefore, must not be ignored by any online business.

Targeting Today’s Consumers

You want your target consumers in ways that help them find your website online when they search for products or services in your niche. That means:

• Touching a broader audience
• Making more sales (and thus more money)

SEO can help you do this by helping the right pages on your website show up higher in search than your competitors’ pages. Focusing on SEO and executing a high-impact SEO strategy can help you achieve SEO success for your startup, improve brand awareness, and position your business as an authority in your respective industry and market.

Unless you’ve spent a ton of money advertising your brand or you are lucky enough to have a universally recognized brand, consumers likely are not searching for your business directly on Google.

As a startup, both significant advertising dollars and a recognized name are both rare. So, instead look at SEO to boost your site’s search in a more affordable, more organic way.

So you must be thinking now…!

“Is SEO easy?”

I say ‘no’. It takes time, effort, and knowledge. Trial and error can be a part of it as well, but there are certain tried and true practices that can help.

Not familiar at all with SEO? This article is a great place to start: 12 Annoying SEO Mistakes Every Startup Should Avoid

Anyway, back to my point.

You’re likely already overwhelmed with challenges related to startups that pop up every day. But believe me, when you showcase your brand the RIGHT way online and give it a push with the RIGHT SEO methods, business falls into the place and this can ease at least a few of the burdens you face.

Ok. So, I’ve laid the groundwork. Still with me? Great! Let’s move on to discussing some actionable steps you can take.

Let’s get going.

#1. For goodness sake, get a reliable host

When I started my first online business, I opted for a low-cost, no-frills hosting service without any second thoughts. However, I didn’t take much time to realize my mistake and switch to a better one.

With Google’s April user experience algorithm update, speed is definitely still a ranking factor, so pay close attention to how quickly your website loads.

You can pay as low as $1 or even less per month for hosting.

But do you think will it be reliable?

Is it really important to use a good hosting service for your website?

Cutting costs is NOT the answer for your startup when it comes to website hosting.

Your server being down and poor loading speed are two major drawbacks that could negatively impact your online business. This can be exceptionally detrimental to your business, especially if you’re selling products directly from your site.

Here’s a scenario I want to put before you:

Somehow a prospect landed on your site and started having a pre-sales conversation with you over a chat. The site crashes mid-conversation without the prospect ever receiving a solid answer to their questions. The prospect leaves and might never come back to you since he lost his faith in you or became frustrated with your site.

In frustration, you reached out to your hosting service’s customer support and end up in the queue for an hour or more to fix the issue. Not wanting to wait and waste your time, you try via email and are greeted with an automated message saying, “Our typical response time is 24-48 hours.”

Believe me, this is one small issue that could happen. In general, there is a wide variety of technical issues that could happen to your website if you don’t host your website on reliable servers.

You might think it is just one prospect, but for every one person you know about, there are likely scores of others running away for similar reasons.

What if the same scene gets repeated? How much business do you lose?

Moreover, there’s no guarantee that your data or your customers’ data would be safe. Often, cheap hosting providers host your website on low-quality shared servers where you will be sharing the space with other consumers. Just imagine if there’s a DDoS attack or a threat to some website, everyone has an equal share of the consequences.

You get what you pay for. So, get a TRIAL, understand features, and look for reviews (honest), and never fall into the trap of cheap.

#2. Kill the myth about website creation

Myth:

You need to have a business website with a crazy ton of animations, widgets, and some fancy flashy elements to show up the competition.

Truth:

No, you don’t have to.

Be it WordPress, HTML, Wix, or any other – Create a website with a theme that is simple yet elegant and focused on the minimal to fulfill your business goals. The main purpose of your website should be to help visitors find the information that they came looking for. If your site is too cluttered, that will kill the user experience.

Go for a responsive website design that has various layouts with a mobile-friendly design. In the end, create a website that is rich in information (FAQs, features, video guides, etc.), navigation and stunning visuals that enable readers’ to connect with and trust your business.

But make it simple. A minimalist approach to your site’s design is best as it helps keep visitors flowing through the site and creates a positive user experience.

I always recommend building websites on WordPress as it has a great facility in terms of customization, security, and support from the theme providers.

As the standard theme providers like Astra, Divi and Genesis offer inbuilt agency templates these days, you can hire a website designer or agency to create your site, then receive training so your team can easily make updates with all the amazing builders available these days.

It is easy, plus, as an entrepreneur, it is good to have knowledge of various subjects. There are plenty of online tutorials to walk you through various processes involved in the site build. If you need a little support, bring in a freelancer to do some touch-ups.

#3. SEO matters – Make the Biggest Impact

According to Hubspot’s study, SEO is the lowest risk and highest ROI marketing medium. Doing SEO the wrong way, however, can have seriously negative effects. So, if you put your time and energy in the RIGHT way, you will be rewarded with fantastic results.

Some people might scare you by saying “SEO is expensive” or “SEO is dead” etc. – unrealistic statements. You can ignore statements like that. Trust me, SEO is here to stay.

SEO has been there and is going to be here for a very long time. So relax, add it to your business plan and pay good attention to it.

You don’t need big agencies or costly tools to get digital marketing done for your online business. All you need is to understand modern SEO techniques and implementation.

Or the best is to have a little chat with market leaders like the team at Gaenzle Marketing to get started off in the right direction.

Yes, there is competition, so it is with everything!

Yes, it takes time to yield results, so it is with everything!

Nothing comes overnight unless you win the lottery with a 0.00000000000000001% of stroke of luck.

Before you hump into SEO, make sure to check out these steps to keep you on the right track.

8 steps for SEO success for your startup

1. Set SEO goals.
2. Create a plan.
3. Get your website ready with top-notch content and user experience.
4. Do technical SEO (sitemap, on-page optimization).
5. Conduct a website audit to find and fix errors (if any).
6. Search for reputation projection opportunities through guest posting, blog commenting, social media marketing, and PR.
7. Build backlinks to your website from authority sites.
8. Stay updated with SEO trends.

SEO is challenging and fun if you plan to do it on your OWN. It should be seriously considered along with your business plan.

Do not fall for cheap (low quality) services that impact you badly in the long run.

If you want to understand more about SEO, I recommend you go through Moz’s FREE SEO learning center.

Wrapping it up

None of the above matters if you don’t put yourself in front and create a personal brand.

I realize that many entrepreneurs still shy away from putting their profiles on “about” pages or elsewhere on their company’s website, and I just don’t get that. People trust people more than they do the business, so show them who you are.

Most importantly, when you publish content for social media or your website, your main focus should be on ‘educating’ readers but not selling them your product. Of course, selling is important but educating consumers falls in the first priority.

When a reader understands your honesty, a relationship begins to build which leads to trust and ultimately purchasing.

If you’re still wondering why your business needs SEO, my point is simple: It is one of the finest ways to achieve your marketing goals and make more sales.

Do you have any thoughts to share with me? Let me know in the comments.

Mudassir Ahmed

After my first startup attempt didn’t go as planned back in 2014, I didn’t let go of my dream of running an online business. So, in 2016, Mr. Chandra Prakash and I teamed up to create Digimiles. Right now, we’re proud to say that we’re running it with a customer satisfaction rate of over 90% and serving some top corporates across India.