It is so critical to get your digital marketing on point, with global competition and services being delivered faster than ever, getting your target audience landing on your startup’s website is the first step but without SEO, how can you get it right?
What is SEO?
SEO means Search Engine Optimisation. It’s the strategies we implement to optimise a website’s content relevance, technical infrastructure, and link reputation so that the pages are simple to find, relevant, and driven towards search queries, intent, and trends.
When you get all that right, search engines will rank your website higher which means more people will find it organically and visit it.
Zero Limit Web found that on the first page alone, the first five organic results account for 67.6% of all clicks…so it’s pretty important.
How Does SEO Work?
Google’s search algorithm uses more than 200 factors to rank websites (Backlino). With this is mind, it’s essential to invest in SEO for your startup’s success. But, how does it work?
H3: How do Search Engines Rank Websites?
The foundation of SEO is how search engines get their results. Search engines are made up of 3 parts;
- Crawlers (also known as spiders or bots)
- Index
- An algorithm
First, the crawlers travel the web via links that connect pages to one another. The crawler is looking for data, headings, and links. This data is collected and put into the index, which is a ginormous database.
The index is updated according to when you update things or how important Google feels you are.
This is where the algorithm comes into play. The algorithm ranks the index on different factors based on how useful it is for the searcher. The algorithm looks out for site speed, quality content, site security, and more.
Types of SEO
There are two types of SEO, on-page, and off-page.
On-page SEO is all about what you can control on your website such as site speed, keywords, headers, images, meta descriptions, structured data etc.
Off-page SEO is the work done on other websites that will influence your rankings, particularly links and social media attention.
We suggest you read this blog on how to use digital PR in your SEO strategy for all the off-page goodness.
Can you Fast-Track SEO?
If you want to buy into black hat strategies. They’ll usually work initially but the integrity and reputation of your website will be challenged which will impact your SEO moving forward. Black hat strategies include copies of content, keyword stuffing, and links from other sites with content that isn’t aligned.
You want to build a sustainable startup with white hat SEO that focuses on your human audience – they are the ones purchasing your service or products at the end of the day. White hat strategies are focused on relevant content, valuable links, purposeful page titles, and quality information.
What is Holistic SEO?
Holistic SEO is the holy grail. It’s what every agency should be advising you to do with your startup’s SEO strategy and if they aren’t, get a new agency.
The holistic approach means you focus on the big picture with the user at the center. It entails the following:
- Thorough keyword research
- Technical SEO
- A great user experience
- Quality content that is useful
- Mobile optimisation
- Security
- Accessibility
If you’ve got a solid SEO strategy in place and wish to focus on the user experience the foundation should consider site structure, technical brilliance, and fantastic content.
Why Does SEO Matter?
SEO gets you in front of the people who are going to invest in your products or services. There is zero point in having an all-singing, all-dancing website that Google doesn’t show to your prospective customers.
It’s Google’s way of establishing whether your startup’s website should rank for the keywords your customers search for.
Why is SEO important? Because it’s fair. SEO takes away the ability to coerce rankings into results that businesses want. If your website is ranking it’s because you’ve put in the work to get it there. People appreciate that and they are more likely to trust your reputation.
User experience is improved with SEO because the higher you rank, the more traffic your website will generate which encourages loyalty from customers.
Furthermore, SEO is cost-effective. It drives qualified leads over a long-term period creating an organic funnel for your startup.
Finding the Best SEO Agency for your Startup
According to a Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google, Andrey Lipattsev, high-quality content and link building are the two most important signals used by Google to rank your website for search.
What makes a great SEO agency? Choose an agency that:
- Has a clear strategy process for SEO
- Employs a range of experts in SEO, digital PR and content marketing
- Boasts client cases studies that are relevant and successful
- Shares useful and relevant content
- Has a fantastic culture that fits with yours
Trust an agency that can show you results and can help you scale your startup at the pace that you want to set.
Conclusion
Why is SEO important? Because it gets your startup noticed, increases your organic traffic, and encourages lead generation.
Grow your startup by integrating an SEO strategy that works for your customers and takes every aspect of SEO into the approach and you’ll be golden! Learn more about SEO best practices here, we even have a great free resource to help you nail your on-page strategy!