If you’re a startup, you’ve already got your hands full. Don’t let your website give you a tension headache. Once you understand how SEO works within your website, you and your startup will be well on your way to bringing in your target audience, gaining some quality customers, and getting a higher ranking on the SERPs.
Creating a Solid SEO-Friendly Website for Your Startup
Don’t get so excited that you push off important details, like a website that works great with SEO. It’s not worth it to cut corners here.
Think of your website as your brick and mortar store: you want it to be clean, engaging, and in a great location that gives you optimal traffic and sales.
In creating this utopia of store-design, keep these five things in mind:
Your Host
Don’t skimp on a hosting agency that works in order to save a few bucks. Hosting is so important to your users. If your page takes too long to load, I’m talking over five seconds, your user be out.
Your host is usually the culprit of you page-load time.
You should also be sure to sign up for a package that makes sense for your new business. You may have a limit on how much traffic you can get, know where you are in the process so you can update accordingly.
Make sure your host has awesome safety measures. You don’t have time to think about security, and frankly, it’s not your job to.
Your Design
Search engines aren’t people, so they can’t “see” what your page looks like the way we humans do. However, you need to still appeal to them, the way you do to us.
The search engines can read how well your page navigates, as well as how your pages lay out if they’re correctly marked. You also need to keep in mind your user experience (UX) and engagement signals.
If your users are bouncing from your pages, the search engines know and they won’t be keen on recommending you to other possible users.
Your Content
The content will make or break you. Search engines are necessary because of content, they go hand-in-hand. You have to provide content that the search engine is looking for. Creating a stellar SEO strategy will help you in the process.
Your On-Page Optimization
This is a major component of your SEO strategy with several working parts; however, once you’ve got it mastered, it’s pretty easy to keep in check.
Every page of your website should have the following covered:
- Page URL: It should be understandable, descriptive, and include your main keyword where possible, usually incorporating your page title, formatted like this: www.yoursite.com/your-page-URL.
- Page titles: This is the title for the search engines showing as blue link text in search results – it should be understandable, descriptive, and include your main keyword where possible.
- Headings: Have your content separated in logical chunks, each with the appropriate heading tags (h1, h2, h3, etc.).
- Content: Be creative and unique and relevant, while staying specific to the subject.
- Keywords: Use keywords in your page title and headings wherever possible and use synonyms and other related words throughout the body.
- Use images: Use relevant and creative images to break up the bodies of text, making sure you optimize each image on the backend for speed and naming (using keywords in naming images will help with SEO).
- Internal links: Include links in the main body of the text to any relevant pages on your website.
- Mobile optimization: Make sure your pages are optimized for handheld devices.
If your startup follows these rules, you’ll have a website that can be easily edited and manipulated throughout its evolution, while continually giving the search engines what they so desire.
Best Practices for SEO Content and Startups
Ummm, just make quality content. It’s really as simple as that. You want your content to be excellent, of course, but you also need kinda a lot of it.
In order to stay consistent with your content, do this:
- Give value: If you’re not providing useful info to your users, you won’t be a true player on the search engines. Be of high-quality content.
- Be link-worthy: Link building is a great way to prove to the search engines that you’re a voice to be heard. When other quality brands start sharing your content, you’re giving the people what they want.
- Make yourself shareable: If you’re producing all this excellent content, make sure your users can easily send it to their friends, family, marketplace… wherever. It needs to be easily shareable.
- Be varied and visual: Content shouldn’t just be copy and blogs, in order to keep up in today’s climate, create quality videos, images, and multimedia content to maximize reach and engagement.
- Optimize yourself: Make sure you’re up to par behind the scenes, too. Optimizing all of your content so it works to best of its ability.
- Have calls-to-action: Being awesome is a plus, but make that count through CTAs so your readers become customers.
Being a startup already makes you a groundbreaker, so use it to your advantage through clever, reliable, and relatable content. And, it never hurts to check out what other startups are doing.
If you’re feeling the pressure and would like some help with your SEO strategy for your startup, give us a call, we work well with pressure.
