How should startups approach SEO?

Startups are heavily reliant on digital marketing. It is impossible to get a company going without any form of traction online. 

There are many ways startups can promote their product through digital marketing. One of the common and well-known ways to promote a website is search engine optimization. 

Users today lean heavily on search engines to navigate the internet. Optimizing search engine visibility organically is a smart way for startups to gain traction. 

The real question is this: how should startups approach SEO?

A practice as established as SEO does not have a secret formula of success. Beyond a basic set of fundamentals, there is a lot of room for innovation. This makes SEO both challenging and rewarding for startups. 

In this piece, we dive into the ideal approach a startup should take. 

Step #1: A value-driven approach

SEO for startups doesn’t have to be complicated. Many startups tend to take the conventional, bloated approach to SEO. 

This means more content, more backlinks, more optimization, and so on. 

This is one of the big reasons startups tend to fail at SEO. A quantity-driven SEO strategy works well for established companies. Startups need to be lean and fast on their feet. 

They need to deliver value, not numbers. 

SEO is made up of many moving parts. Let’s take link acquisition as well. Instead of spending endless sums of money on paid guest posting, a better idea is to pay for one guest post that helps generate real traction and lends authority to the website. 

The same is true when it comes to churning out content. The idea is not to post a lot of content in the blog section. You should instead use your content team for more meaningful channels like email marketing, ad and UI/UX copywriting. Only write blog content after doing original research on a particular subject. 

Step #2: Measure the impact of every action

Startups are generally bootstrapped for resources. It is thus very important for startups to measure the impact of every step they take during an SEO campaign. 

This helps them separate useful techniques from less productive ones. A simple example again is authority metric optimization. Let’s assume you keep acquiring links from high authority websites. This increases your authority according to metrics like Moz’s DA and Ahrefs’ DR. However, unless an increase in these metrics brings real numbers in terms of traffic, there is no point in working on them.

You must always compare the impact of each action you take during a campaign. 

Step #3: Look for niche influencers

Startups don’t generally have the resources to run blanket marketing campaigns. They therefore need to work with influencers who can help them reach a wider audience. 

Influencer marketing is expensive. However, you can balance your SEO budget in a way that allocates a significant part to influencer marketing. Once your product is introduced to early adopters, your startup will begin to take off and you will slowly see exponential growth for your mobile app. 

In conclusion

This article explains the approach startups must take to SEO. 

For beginners, SEO can be hard. It is thus important to join the right online marketing institute. DelhiCourses.in is a great place to take up a digital marketing course in Delhi where you can learn the ins and outs of the practice.