Last Updated on May 22, 2021 by Guest
What is SEO?
So you’ve just launched your startup business – great job! But how are you going to drive traffic to your website? How are you going to get your brand new business seen? Through the power of SEO.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing your website traffic through online visibility. To put it in simpler terms, SEO is the tool used to organize your website on Google’s search pages.
To improve your SEO, it is also important to understand how it works. Search engines such as Google or Mozilla Firefox have robots that analyze and sort through millions of data from each website. This robot then sorts your website according to quality of content and the overall user experience, including “crawlability” and mobile-friendliness, making the online experience great for internet users but hard for business owners.
There are 6 types of SEO. These include:
On page SEO
That includes your website’s content, keywords, and user experience. It is imperative that your website’s content is informative and uses keywords. Your website must also be user friendly. When creating a website or a blog for a website, you must include a keyword in the URL, heading of the blog, and even in the first paragraph.
Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO is the process in which you drive outside traffic to your website. You can do this by backlinking your website on other websites. There are several ways you can try to build backlinks: guest posts, PR, finding broken links, and asking to replace by your article’s link, using infographics, etc.
Social Media is also considered by some as a way of boosting your SEO. Search engines will see that people are talking about your brand on social media and deem it useful and worthwhile, boosting your website ranking.
When focusing on off-page SEO, it is important to build relationships with social media influencers, bloggers, and journalists. They can influence and lead people, getting them talking about your brand, adding backlinks, and grabbing search engine’s attention.
Technical SEO
Similar to user design experience, technical SEO focuses on your website’s responsiveness, i.e., if it can be used on mobile devices and/or how quickly your website loads.
Local SEO
If your business is physical instead of online, creating a Google My Business account where you can display your address, phone number, reviews, opening hours, and general information about your business can be extremely beneficial. It is important to list your business with images, descriptions, and authentic reviews from customers.
App Store Optimization
Similar to search engines like Google or Bing, App Stores also have an optimization process. Elements such as an attractive app logo and a descriptive name play an important role in getting your app seen. It is also incumbent to describe your app as accurately as possible and include your keywords. Your meta description should also include keywords.
Youtube SEO
When creating your YouTube channel and uploading your videos, it is important to create informative or entertaining content. The longer people are spent watching videos, the more likely they will comment or subscribe, contributing to your video ranking. Having a descriptive, keyword-rich title will assist Google in increasing optimizing your video.
How can SEO be beneficial for my startup business?
After understanding what Search Engine Optimization is, it is now important to understand how SEO can benefit your business in many different ways. Before embarking on your startup business journey, it is important to recognize SEO’s strengths and harness them.
Here are the top four ways SEO can boost your business:x
Expand customer base
When done correctly, SEO can boost your customer base as you’re able to target specific customers and demographics. In fact, SEO has been proven to grow your business twice as fast as businesses that do not incorporate SEO into their marketing strategy.
Increase in conversion rates
Perfecting the art of a well designed, user-friendly, mobile-friendly website provides your prospective customers with a great user experience. This user experience entices a prospective customer, compelling them to spend longer on your website, increasing their chance of not only buying your product or service but also becoming a loyal customer.
Brand Awareness
When your business is listed as the first headline on your chosen search engine, consumers are more likely to trust your brand in comparison to businesses that do not have a website or a strong online presence.
In fact, 93% of internet users have said that if they aren’t able to find what they are looking for on the first page, they do not bother going to the second.
Bypass Competition
Ever heard the expression, first in best dressed?. It is always important to keep an eye out for your competitors, especially in the dynamic and fluid online world. Investing time and effort in an SEO strategy may mean that you appear before your competitor, bypassing them in sales and profit.
Some final tips…
Now that you know what SEO is and its benefits for your business, it is now important to keep these steps in mind when developing your SEO strategy.
It is important to set SEO goals. Ask yourself questions like, how many people do you want to head to your website? What do you want your domain ranking to be this time next month? Questions like these will help you clarify what you want to get out of your SEO strategy. These questions may also help you target the right demographic and help you achieve brand recognition, a loyal customer base, and an increase in customers.
How will you increase your SEO? Using keywords are fine, but your business must have several topic generator outlets such as blogs, podcasts, and guest posts. You can attract attention by using these methods and thus increase your search engine ranking. When choosing which method you would like to use, it is important to keep your business goals in mind and choose methods that will work towards these goals and ambitions
It is important to look at how other people and people’s websites can help you with your SEO journey. Getting authoritative sources like blogger and influencers to use your link on their website will get your search engine’s attention as more people will visit your website, and your website’s URL will be associated with an authoritative source, making it informative and less spammy (Google’s bots love informative websites).
It is important to reach out to SEO specialists and staff when embarking on this journey as SEO’s technical side can get a little…technical. It is important to make your website as user-friendly and multimedium as friendly as possible.