Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a powerful tool to harness for your startup, and yet it is a marketing strategy that is underutilized and often misunderstood. Not only is SEO effective in connecting you to your ideal client it is also an extremely cost-effective way to gain leads if you take a holistic approach to build your SEO strategy.
What exactly is SEO?
SEO is the process of leveraging keywords and phrases to help drive more relevant traffic, leads, sales, and ultimately revenue and profit for your business. This is significant because right now there are millions of people searching for answers to their burning questions on google. Questions that your product or service may be able to answer or help them with. When we connect with prospects as their search result, we can be assured that they are qualified and in a better position to become a paying customer. In fact, organic search traffic is very specific, high-intent traffic.
How can you leverage SEO for your business?
The first thing you need to realize is the importance of consciously designing a keyword strategy for your business. This will determine the exact words or phrases that will help you tap into your ideal clientele and ultimately help you generate qualified leads. To begin this process, it's useful to understand exactly what you are hoping to optimize your website for. This can be a complicated process but there are plenty of software solutions to help get you started for free like semrush, moz, or wordstream.
As a rule of thumb, good keywords or long-tail keywords or words or phrases with high search volume and relevance but low competition. But I am getting ahead of myself...
For the highest perspective, keywords should all link back to your ideal client avatar and (more importantly) their pain points. SEO is all about creating content that helps you answer questions and help with the challenges that your ideal client has. That is how your brand can add value and build the relationship with your prospective client.
On-Page vs Off-Page SEO
Once you have determined a keyword strategy, there are two key areas to focus on for optimizing your SEO: On-Page and Off-Page. Let's start with the On-Page.
On-Page SEO refers to incorporating your targeted keywords into your website's content and should be taken into consideration when you or your team are creating title tags, meta descriptions, main copy content, and alt phrases for images as well as your URL structure and overarching site architecture.
Off-Page SEO refers to link-backs that build authority for your website. It involves any activities that drive traffic to your website from other websites. In practice, these tactics include guest blogging, social media, PR, influencer marketing, and simply producing high-quality, shareable content on a regular basis.
Who Should I Hire to do SEO?
SEO cannot and should not be handled by one person. It is an overarching discipline you must make sure is infused into everything you do for your marketing. This is an extremely important idea to understand because SEO and content marketing is the backbone of all your marketing efforts-- the channel that has the potential to contribute the highest percentage of traffic and a steady stream of qualified prospects.
Here are just some of the areas that SEO touches in your business:
Writing
Off-page PR
Technical Know-How
Basic HTML/CSS
UX and UI
Analytics and Tracking
Mobile optimization and more...
SEO is a team sport, it requires strategy and resources to win. This is why it isn't usually the first place that startups focus on when launching and building their businesses but I think that is a mistake.
SEO on a Shoestring Budget
While our goal is to grow a strong SEO program for your startup, the truth is there is so much value in just getting started. This could be as simple as writing a weekly blog that adds value to your target client or spending some time to understand keywords as they relate to your product/service and the questions your prospects already have. Dedicating resources or time to figuring this out will pay off handsomely in the future.
That is because SEO is like compound interest. It does take a while to get going, but once you do you'll begin to see how organic traffic begins to increase, delivering free leads into your sales pipeline. It's well worth the investment.
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Victoria is a Marketing Mentor to early-stage founders. She has built compelling brands around the globe and has worked as a marketing director across several verticals. She is passionate about helping women think BIGGER about their businesses and giving them the tools to grow. She'd love to connect on LinkedIn or email her at hello@ugliboss.com.