SEO Marketing Tips for Startup Companies

Most startups are on a lean budget and spend most all of their budget creating a product or service. In most cases the product or service won’t sell itself. You need to get your brand out there, and create buzz, to attract clients when you launch.   In every startup there should be at least one person whose job is to increase brand awareness and work on marketing. If your startup has a small budget, it is highly recommend you hire an SEO Agency to partner with.  But if your startup cannot afford it below are some of the basics that need implementation.

Set Goals

The very first step is to sit down with the management team and find out what the goals of the company are.  The person charged with marketing the startup should have a clear vision on what the short term and long term goals are.   One of the most important questions you should define is how are you going to gain customers once your product or service launches?

People love a good story so start blogging from day one.  They want to follow along with your successes and struggles as they see your brand evolve.  Start early by blogging anything you can about the company.  What works great are behind the scene videos and blog post.  Remember at this point you are building a brand and not yet focusing on keywords.

Review Website for UX 

In the early stages you don’t have to spend $10,000-$20,000 on web design.  If you have the budget great but it isn’t necessary in a pre-revenue model.  However, make sure the website you do have is user-friendly and works fast on mobile as well.  Test it out and ensure the flow is good. Use some of the many online tools to ensure your website is truly mobile friendly and loads fast.

Invest in Content

The single biggest thing your start could do is make an investment into content.  Not just average content but in-depth articles that would answer questions around or similar to your customer base. This is the kind of content that will bring you visitors down the road and reduce your customer acquisition costs.

Stuart McHenry runs an Irvine SEO Company explains, “Most startups fail to create content at an early stage. They wait until their product is ready to launch then start focusing on SEO efforts. This couldn’t be more wrong.  Good SEO for Google takes time and should be started well before launch date.”

Focus on Longtail

Another huge mistake startups make are focus on head keyword terms and neglecting the longtail keywords.  Longtail keywords are better because they are easier to rank for and they convert better. Put a strategy in place to go after as many longtail keywords as you can.  Often times, in many niches, just creating content focused around these longtail keywords is enough to get those pages to rank.

How to Build Links

Creating amazing content is a must but you still need to build links.  Preforming outreach to bloggers and journalist takes time but should be a fundamental investment into your SEO marketing efforts. Create a list of bloggers that blog about similar content.  Shoot them an email and see how you can work together.  Bloggers might want to interview you or at the very least will let you contribute to their blog by writing for them.  Either way these are great link building opportunities.

Although marketing your startup can be hard work, it is essential to the success of your business.  Ensure your company has someone in charge and start early.