SEO for Start-ups - is it worth the investment?
January 24, 2020
Let’s set the record straight; the days of spammy content and directory abuse are long gone because Google’s (News - Alert) algorithm punishes all websites that still use these strategies. At some point in the past, SEO was about spammy link-building, but since then, it took some great hits, it made considerable changes to rebuild its reputation.
Search engines and SEO have changed since their early days and now they focus on high-quality content and reliable information. Semantic search is a new trend in SEO because it improves the accuracy of search engines by identifying the user’s intent.
Even if SEO is known for its success, many start-ups still refrain from using it to reach their audience.
Why?
Common excuses start-up founders use to avoid SEO
After reading many articles to find out the reasons start-up founders avoid using SEO, we identified three significant excuses.
Let’s debunk these them together.
They don’t afford SEO
HubSpot published a study that reveals that SEO is the lowest risk, highest ROI B2B marketing channel. SEO is worth it because it offers incremental gains and colossal income. You don’t have to spend money on buying software to do your job, and you can work with professionals who ask for competitive prices. Be wary of the companies that talk a big game but cannot refer to previous clients. Whenever someone sounds too good to be true, they probably are. Read reviews and testimonials to find out what results their former clients had.
SEO is too competitive
The truth is that few industries lack competition nowadays. SEO is very competitive, but it’s not something negative. Building an organic presence is top companies’ priority in all world regions, so the longer you postpone it, the higher your competition’s advance will be.
Start-ups enter a competitive market, no matter how unique the business is, they need to use all the tools available to gain brand recognition reach the public.
SEO takes too long
SEO may take some time to deliver results, but it guarantees long-term success. Don’t forget that you run a start-up with a limited budget, so you have no money to waste on paid marketing. The leads you get via channels like PPC disappear the moment you stop paying. It would be a mistake to waste your start-ups’ funds on paid marketing. SEO allows you to make some mistakes because they cost no money. According to Forbes, the average period to see SEO results is between 4 and 6 months.
SEO is different now
The way people use search engines changed, so SEO evolved. Online marketing in 2020 is different now. SEO continues to be a critical part of digital marketing for organizations from all industries, but its use varies from a business to another.
If, in the past SEO was an isolated strategy, nowadays, you’ll find it hard to draw a line between SEO, PR, social media marketing, and content marketing. They all work together to drive leads.
For example, outreach has two goals, it promotes content publication on website directories with a broad audience (the PR goal) and includes links from trustworthy sources to boost performance in search engines (the SEO goal).
Hire a reputable SEO Company to assist you when you launch or relaunch your website because you need to optimize it to reach your target audience. SEO experts build keyword-led metadata, internal linking and complete 301 redirects.
It’s expected SEO to change even more in 2020
To understand what SEO can offer to your start-up take a look of what’s ahead for it in 2020
Google launched the BERT algorithm in 2019, and it drew plenty of attention because now, SEO companies need to consider it when they optimize pages. Nowadays, the focus changed to user-centered optimization and the technical delivery of content. They check the mechanics of how websites are crawled, indexed, and served in various search environments.
Internet users can now select from more options on how they want to search for things, so SEO experts need to ensure they deliver fresh content and architecture. Content must address the reader rather than responding to a keyword search. It’s expected keyword research tools to be less relevant in 2020 because SEO intends to talk to customers to find out what they want to receive.
Content affects all aspects of SEO, from the links you build to the structure of a web page. To get results in 2020, you need to write content relevant for your audiences. The day when the best content wins is close, and companies need to hire people who know how to write valuable content.
Your New Year’s resolution should be to publish the best content on the Internet for your niche. This allows your website to compete for long-tail searches and boost site authority. This type of content is exactly what Google is looking for right now, to deliver its users the best results to their queries.
In 2020 Google will check your company’s E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) and reputation. Expect only reputable companies to rank first results in engine searches. SEO plays a crucial role in building a reputation, so no start-up should ignore it.
» More TMCnet Feature ArticlesTop Ways to Grow a Business Without Spending Much
You need money to make money. You must have heard this statement over and over again in the corporate world. It is actually the primary reason many people are afraid of actualizing their entrepreneurship goals. But what if we told you that you can actually grow your business without spending a fortune? It’s true. Many have done it and registered massive success. Shopify, MailChimp, Shutterstock, and Grammarly are some of the examples of corporations that were started and grown with little or no money. If you want to join this list, here are five awesome business growth strategies that don’t require a ton of money.
Maximize on SEO for organic traffic 
Source:thephatstartup.com
This one needs no introduction. If you really want to increase the visibility of your business online, SEO will do the trick. To do this, you need a website obviously. When starting out, go for a minimalist design that won’t dig a deep hole in your wallet. Once you’ve created a stunning website, optimize it for search engines. Many people think hiring experts is the only way to score good rankings on Google but you can learn simple SEO techniques online and get your website on the first page of Google by yourself. It takes a bit of time and commitment but you’ll get there eventually.
Choose an affordable platform for your website
Speaking of your website, the platform you choose to build it can hit your bank account hard or help you save a pretty coin. When you are looking to grow your business without spending too much, go for an affordable, yet quality platform. WordPress is a good example. It is the most popular platform for websites in the market, powering over 31% of small and large business’ websites. All you need to open a WordPress website is a domain name and a hosting account.
Source:bestseocompanycanada.com Utilize a user-friendly contact channel on your website
Customers aren’t patient these days. At least not when they have myriad options for what they are looking for. If you don’t make it easy for your prospects and existing customers to contact you, you might be losing on a ton of new markets. Be sure to have a contact form on your website. Although WordPress websites don’t have contact forms, you can use contact form plugins such as WPForms Lite and WPForms Pro.
Your current customers are the lowest cost to channel to market and grow your business. Here are a few tricks that you can use:
More reviews increase the trust levels of your business and market it even further. Point your customers to Google Business Page, Yelp or comparison sites like Getapp so that they can share their experience of working with you or buying your products and services.
You don’t need software to implement this strategy. Simply ask your loyal customers to spread the word about your business to their close associates. If you see it working, consider rewarding your customers by creating a referral program.
Show your customers that you care about them by sending thank-you emails, adding them to your social media community, and giving them a few freebies. Giving your customers freebies, for instance, can prompt them to spend more than they might have before you had such programs in place.
Encourage your team to use more efficient ways of doing their day-to-day tasks without over-relying on the standard ways of doing things. For instance, encourage them to make the switch using spreadsheets to business dashboards that are easy to use and collaborate on. And instead of spending the whole day on payroll-related accounting processes, ask your accountant to start using an automated payroll service.
Similarly, encourage them to take a few calculated risks. If you only bet on strategies that are guaranteed to work, you may miss a lot of opportunities to grow your business and generate more revenue.
And if you notice any significant changes, don’t forget to reward them for their achievements. Giving your employees a 10% bonus is better than incurring a 40% increase in your operational costs. On the other hand, don’t be punitive if your team makes a few mistakes along the way.
Source:impactbnd.com
According to the Maui Mastermind, the content you add on your website matters more than you’ll ever know. Users judge your ability to deliver your promise by what you display on your website. So if you don’t have a clear plan for your content marketing strategy, you might want to develop one. Identify what your prospects are looking for and choose your keywords accordingly. Content marketing can really help you market your business even on a tight budget.
An email list will help you communicate and reach out faster to your existing and potential customers, especially if you want them to know about a new offer or changes that you’ve recently made in your operations. However, don’t just build an email list for the sake of it. Focus on using it as a platform to not only communicate with your subscribers but also to supply them with resourceful content. And you don’t have to send frequent emails to effectively engage your subscribers—even weekly or biweekly email newsletters are just okay. Additionally, you don’t have to create information from scratch. You can still engage your subscribers with curated content.
Source:surepointit.com
Finally, social media platforms have billions of engaged audiences. Apart from connecting with friends, people use social media to shop and look for service providers. Kylie Jenner, the make-up Mogul grew her billionaire empire from the ground up through Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube. That’s how powerful social media is. Create your business’ social media profiles on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn and post stuff about your business on a regular basis. Additionally, make sure your blog posts are shareable via social media for more traffic.
Pro Tip: Don’t stretch yourself too thin when it comes to taking advantage of social media. Do some research to figure out what platforms your potential customers use and focus on a few of them. Remember that you get what you pay for when it comes to using social media to grow business. So, don’t expect to reach a lot of customers without promoting your postings.
Final Thoughts
Source:bobyhermez.com
If you have a tight budget and want to grow your business, rest easy. These tips will make your dream a reality. Also if you can, hire a coach to help you navigate the murky waters of growing a business without money. Instead of resorting to unsustainable practices like borrowing, you can ask your coach to help you map out strategies that can help you double your profits, increase the effectiveness of your marketing, streamline your internal operations, and generally guide your business as it grows.
If you can’t figure out the best coach to partner with, make a list of 20 potential candidates. Then take your time to reach out and ask them a few questions with regards to their availability and how they can help you grow your business. From their responses, narrow down your list until you find the best mentor to partner with.
7 Local Link-Building Strategies Guaranteed to Boost Your Business
Congratulations! Now you can quadruple traffic for your local business.
What kind of impact would that amount of traffic make on your local brick-and-mortar store?
A tremendous one, I am sure!
The good news is you can enjoy that effect with the help of local link-building.Local link-building is the process of getting other local websites to link back to yours. Once you start building local backlinks, they will become a sign of trust among search engines. If you achieve enough links, not only will you attract highly targeted search engine traffic, but you will also beat your competitors in the SERPs.
Want to know how? Let’s begin by taking a look at what studies are saying about local link-building.
Why Do You Need Local Link-Building for Your Business?
It’s simple:
So, by incorporating local link-building, there will be more chances of consumers visiting your brick-and-mortar store on the same day they found your business online with a local search.
Let me tell you a local story to back up these facts.
EZ Rankings shared a case study in which they improved the local online presence of a school named Art’Com Sup in the Moroccan market. Previously, the school was struggling to make enough sales. With the mixture of local link-building and other local SEO strategies, the website’s traffic improved by 48%, which led to 2X more sales. As a bonus, the bounce rate on their site was reduced to 25%. Today, Art’Com Sup’s local keywords are ruling the first page of Google.
Amazing! But it sounds too easy, right?
Well, the key reason they generated local traffic is because they built high-quality local backlinks to their site.
How Does Local Link-Building Contribute to Your Local Rankings?
First, let me give you a brief explanation of what a Map Pack (i.e.,“The Local Pack”) is? The Map Pack is the box of the first three local business results, along with their location, pulled from Google Maps. For example, when you search for “Street Food Brooklyn”, Google shows you a Map Pack of three results at the top:
You must be thinking:“Why are you telling me such common knowledge?” Because, according to RankRanger, 29% of all Google searches show a local pack in their results. So, if you want to earn organic links from search engines, you will have to rank for the Map Pack first.
In 2018, Moz ran its annual study of Local Search Ranking Factors,in which they found having a Google My Business profile as the #1 factor to rank in the Local Pack, followed by Links and Reviews at #2.
With the support of your Google My Business profile and local backlinks, search engines will see your website as a trusted source. As a result, Google will reward your website with Local Pack rankings. This will generate organic traffic, which will later turn into new customers. Finally, you will enjoy sales growth!
For that, you have to build local links to raise relevant SEO traffic and increase your local authority.Here’s how.
7 Link-Building Strategies to Increase Traffic and Sales for Your Local Business 1. Start with NAP Citations.
NAP stands for “Name, Address, and Phone Number”. NAP citations are the places that list your name, address, and phone number. Local directories like Yelp and Superpages are examples of NAP citations.
NAP citations are one of the key local SEO ranking factors. They are a great place to start your local link-building journey, as you simply need to submit your business information to reputable online sites.
One of the most essential places to submit the NAP of your local business is Google My Business (GMB). For everything you enter into GMB, Google matches it with your website and displays your accurate business location to its searchers.
From there, Google sends traffic to your website after your business starts to appear in local searches. Call it a Google Backlink—one of the strongest sources of backlinks you will ever get.
After submitting accurate information to GMB, you will make headway for recognizable online directories like Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare, and Superpages to expand your network. (Note: Google not only verifies your GMB NAP from your website, but it also matches your GMB NAPwith other sources where your business information exists. So, make sure your business NAP is same across all sources, including third-party sites.)
To find more local opportunities to enter your business information, search for “your city + niche + directory” on Google. For example, if you offer financial services in London, type “London Financial Services Directory” into Google.
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If you can manage links from your local church groups, cultural groups, business services companies, or Chamber of Commerce, then you will have a significant impact on local SEO rankings by earning natural visibility from your local target market, which will turn into more in-store visits, and, as a result, more sales!
Let’s say it’s quite a bit easier to get backlinks from your local Chamber of Commerce. All you have to do is find the Chamber of Commerce in your local area. For example, type “London Chamber of Commerce” into Google. Search results will show you the local association sites that promote businesses of particular industry.
Look at this example of a Chamber of Commerce Backlink for a car wash business:
Image Source: London Chamber of Commerce
Some Chambers of Commerce ask for annual fee, while some offer a lifetime membership, depending on their policies. Either way, they come with the benefit of super-relevant links, which increase your traffic. As a complimentary, they allow you to put your NAP along with your link.
Another tip to follow is to write to other local organizations on your site and ask to trade links. You can put their link on your website in exchange for them putting your link on their website.
One more option is to write a piece of news that is relevant to your local community and share it with a local newspaper, along with your link and NAP.This will give you great exposure for only a few minutes of writing.
3. Reach Out to Local Bloggers and Influencers.
If your neighbor shared a great experience of a newly opened local restaurant, would you give it try? Of course!People like to experience the places, products, and services that have been reviewed by their neighbors, family, and friends. These days, sharing experiences online has become big business for bloggers and influencers. They share their experiences via reviews, blogs, videos, and more. You can take advantage of this by gaining links from local bloggers and influencers who are relevant to your niche.
Here are a few ways to find local bloggers and influencers in your local area.On Google, type in:
For example, if you offer taxi services in London, you can try searching for “London Travel Bloggers” or “London Tourist Reviews”.
Acquiring such links are as easy as reaching out to local bloggers and influencers. Some of them may ask for money, while some will be happy to offer an honest review in exchange of a free meal or any of your free services.
4. Sponsor Local Events.
Local events are always on a quest for sponsors. In exchange, they offer mentions of and links to the businesses who sponsored them.
For example, this local “Walk to End Epilepsy” site has a page that links to their sponsors:
It’s not necessary to donate cash. You can consider donating your products or services instead. For example, how about offering free lunch if you have a restaurant?Or organizing a tour to some good local places if you’re a travel agent?
Type the below given queries into Google to find local sponsorship opportunities:
Visit the sites offered by SERPs and see if they’ve linked back to their sponsors. Once you are satisfied, contact the organization and ask if they can sponsor your business, too, in exchange for your freebies.
5. Publish Local Press Releases.
Local news sites crave local stories. They’re always on the hunt for stories to fill their pages and give their audience new food for thought about their local area.If you can offer them these stories for free, then you will get good exposure and backlinks from local users. The only catch is you will have to give them something interesting to publish. A press release on an upcoming anniversary, event, reopening would be a safe bet.
Look at this Riga Street Food Festival news on The Baltic Times website:
Contact your local publications and newspapers and ask if they will publish your news article or story. Give them a press release a few days in advance so that they can prepare for the story.
6. Track Your Brand Mentions.
If local users are talking about your business online, then half the work of getting backlinks is done. You just need to track online mentions of your brand and make sure that users have linked to your website, as sometimes users talk about your brand but forget to include your link.
Use a free tool like Google Alerts and set phrases to receive alerts for your brand; this way, you can monitor your mentions. If you find brand mentions without your link, send a thank-you email to the user(s)who mentioned you and request that they include your link.
You can monitor your competitors’ mentions the same way. Customers who mention your competitors are more likely to give your products or services a try. For example, if a local food blogger published a review of your competitor, you can contact them and ask if they are interested in trying out your food and posting a review for your restaurant, too (with your link attached, of course!).
7. Spy on Competitors’ Backlinks.
Don’t forget to follow your competitors’ backlinks, too. Tools like Ahrefs and Moz’s Open Site Explorer give you a list of sites that link back to your competitors. This can be a whole new source of websites to visit, connect with, and add to your growing list of backlink sharers.
In Conclusion
Local link-building is one of the most important strategies to build traffic for your local business. It spreads awareness among your local population and invites them to try out your products or services. Once you start generating organic local links, your local SEO will improve, and Google will reward your site with higher local rankings, and a place in The Map Pack, too!
Now, it’s your turn to try out all the discussed strategies and come back to let us know what worked best for you!
Author: Manisha Sukhyani
Manisha Sukhyani is a professional freelance writer with 6+ years of experience. She offers writing services to businesses of all size. In leisure time, she loves to write on marketing and psychology topics. Reach her on Twitter and LinkedIn.… View full profile ›
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