The look of confusion given around a decade ago when asking a startup whether they invest in SEO was a reality for most marketing companies. Most businesses did not understand the importance that search engines would play in their overall success. Now in the age of mobile businesses now comprehend the value of being ranked ahead of competitors for certain keywords related to the business. Cash flow is not high for most startups so investing copious amounts of money in SEO simply might not be an option. Investing in this type of marketing will be important at some point but making the decision during a startup’s infancy can be tough. If you are not experienced investing you can take a look of some online business ideas for beginners. The following are reasons that early stage startups should consider investing in SEO.
Start Ranking Now
A startup in its infancy is going to need to find customers and long-term clients. Unleashing a SEO marketing campaign can help the business start ranking in search results for related terms. For those that have large competitors it can take quite a long time to even compete in the search engines. Do not delay this as ecommerce websites will need to start ranking for specific products in order to become profitable. Otherwise people will just opt for a competitor or utilize a large online retailor instead of your site. The most important part of this is to target the correct keywords so allow someone to do keyword research keeping in mind those companies that are considered close competition.
Brand Awareness Is Important
One tough part of being a startup is creating brand awareness as this can be important in specific industries. Larger companies might not want to work with a B2B startup that they have never heard of. SEO can help with this but content marketing can as well as this is an integral part of SEO. Marketing in general is important for this as a good social media presence can help with brand awareness as well. The last thing a startup wants to do is create a brand that nearly nobody knows about. Certain niches like that of gaming can be marketed easily through online platforms like that of Reddit which has a large gaming community. Writing for industry publications can also help with brand awareness as well as showcasing company knowledge which will be discussed below.
SEO Can Be Affordable
According to Skyler Malley the CEO of FirestarterSEO.com “SEO is the lifeblood of many businesses as their customer demographic usually resorts to online research to find what they need.” Finding the right SEO company does not have to be difficult but it is possible that the startup wants to try out a few different companies. This will allow the startup to find out whether the workflow of a specific contractor or quality of work is up to par. An all-inclusive SEO service can allow a company to outsource marketing so they do not have to fund a marketing department which is expensive without guarantee of positive results.
Showcasing Company Knowledge
As mentioned above contributing to relevant industry publications can be a huge help as far as SEO goes. A backlink in one of these articles can help a company rank much more quickly than if it was published on a site that was slightly relevant. The social media presence of the site also comes into consideration as engaging with readers can easily be done via the comment section or on social media. Being able to showcase the knowledge of staff can be a great way to drum up sales as well. A good off-site publication schedule for a month can allow a company to start ranking for keywords as well as get content in front of the eyes of their target demographic. Quality content must be written as this is something the search engines take into consideration as well. The days of writing content simply for SEO purposes are over as poorly written content published on irrelevant publications can lead to a company being penalized by Google.
Set Goals for SEO Campaigns
One thing that a lot of startups make a mistake in doing is that of not setting goals for their SEO campaigns. Communication of these goals can help a company helping out with SEO customize the campaign to help achieve these goals. A lot of those just starting out think that SEO will help regardless which in some cases is true but it does not deliver the best ROI on marketing spend like it does when goals are set. With all of the great tools that help gather data there is no excuse not to track all money spent on marketing with the ability to see how it converted in sales or website traffic.
Startups in their infancy need to allocate money for SEO as it can help grow their business immensely in a reasonable amount of time. Failure to focus on SEO can allow companies that might have inferior products or services to continue to thrive when compared to your startup. Take SEO seriously as it is essential in today’s business landscape to be successful.
