The tremendous expansion of technology and communication have made it simple for almost anyone to build an online business from the comfort of their living rooms. If you have a fantastic idea for a startup, you can present your plan to the world, get funded through a crowdfunding platform, and receive feedback from the people who are genuinely interested in your products and services.
But, just because the internet is providing plenty of opportunities for starting a business, growing it and turning it into a successful company can be a bit more challenging. With so many other startups out there fighting for the same audience as you, how can you gain the visibility your business needs to thrive?
That’s where search engine optimisation (SEO) comes into play.
Let us elaborate.
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How to Gain Visibility for a Startup
From the moment you’ve created your startup’s concept and are ready to present it to the world, you need to make digital marketing a priority. Any other company selling a product or service that’s known or “mainstream” could, theoretically, survive without online marketing. But for a company trying to sell a brand new idea, a marketing strategy is vital, simply because the public is not yet aware that it exists.
Of course, there are numerous specialised platforms dedicated to reaching investors and people who might use your product once it’s available. The most notorious ones are Kickstarter, Fundly, GoFundMe, or Patreon. These platforms are dedicated to getting crowdfunding for new ideas and reaching potential customers. Some platforms connect you to professional investors.
While platforms like these will give you some visibility, they can only do so much. If you want to make your idea known to your target audience, then you will need to market it. Here are some strategies for gaining reach:
- Press releases
- PPC (pay-per-click advertising)
- Email marketing
- Traditional marketing
- Referral marketing
With so many available methods to get your ideas known, is SEO really necessary? The answer is Yes. SEO is free, it gets you organic traffic and it’s a long-term strategy that will systematically boost your results.
Relying solely on startup platforms, social media, and more traditional marketing strategies, without using SEO, only means that you are not harvesting the huge potential of the latter. In fact, you may be slowing down the progress you could have.
How Does SEO Help Your Startup?
Search engine optimisation (SEO) means perfecting your content and website so that it’s more visible for search engines (therefore, the people using search engines). There are many ways to do that, and the good news is that SEO can be done at a basic level by anyone with minimum Internet knowledge. You don’t have to get into technical SEO or have a super complex SEO strategy, but it’s very important to implement at least the basic methods.
Ok, so your product or service is not yet known by the public. The only people who will visit your website directly are you and your team, friends, and family. No one else knows about it yet. It doesn’t mean that your project can’t appear in the search results. No matter how far your idea goes outside of the box, it must respond to a very familiar, real, and known problem or need for your target audiences.
Through SEO, you get to reach the people who need your product and service. And it’s not only about brand awareness and visibility. In the long term, showing that you are aware of your audience’s needs and values builds trust in your brand, and that’s the best credential for your product/service.
Main SEO Goals for Your Startup
Here are the basic things you should aim to achieve through SEO:
Ranking for the Right Keywords
If you want your startup to be found by the right people, you have to be aware of what they are looking for. Also, you should have a very clear idea of what you can offer to them: Who can benefit from using your product/service? What can it be used for? What can it replace?
Keyword research is one of the first steps to take. Find out what search terms are the best fit for your brand and build your content around the search intent. Your website ranks higher when the people visiting it find what they were looking for in the search engine box.
Building High-Quality Links
Link building is one of the best ways to boost your SEO. As a startup, you should connect to your peers, affiliate your brand to relevant other companies, directories, and influencers. Get known in a community that understands your idea and can promote it by linking to your website.
Generating Traffic Through Valuable Content
Content marketers exist because the services they offer are vital for SEO. Creating and publishing SEO-friendly content is paramount for gaining visibility. By publishing blog posts regularly, you show your audience that you understand the industry, the place your product can have in their life and that you have the expertise.
Write about things that are relevant to those who visit your website. Tutorials, behind the scenes information, statistics, problem-solving, are the points of view that potential customers of a startup want to read about. How does your product help? What does it bring?
Conclusion
Startups definitely need SEO for their success. Your SEO efforts will not only bring more eyes to your idea, but they build trust and reputation. We at Australian Internet Advertising are aware that a startup, as a small business, can’t afford to spend huge amounts of time learning SEO from scratch and by trial and error.
This is why we offer affordable SEO services for your startup, and we can guarantee palpable results in a more than reasonable amount of time. Contact us for more information.
