50 SEO Tips for Startups

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1. Make Use of Free SEO Tools

If you want to use SEO to the best of your advantage, try to go with the Free SEO tools. Several SEO tools come for free.
Few of them are:

• Google Analytics
• Ubersuggest
• Google Search Console

All these tools are highly useful in tracking your site’s performance.
Google Analytics reports on several factors that are affecting your site. It is one of the most reliable sources of high-quality data.
Google Search Console helps you to improve your site’s presence on the search results. It helps you identify the errors that are restricting the flow of traffic to your site.

2. Target Long-Tail Keywords in Blogs

Blogging is great for boosting SEO quality. And the use of long-tail keywords in blogs is a great way to attract traffic.
For example, if your site is about beauty products, you can write blogs about skincare routine. Though the term is generic, it is a nice start.
First, add this term into Google Ads Keyword Planner. You will get ideas of several long-tail keywords.
For e.g.: skincare routine for dry skin, skincare routine for men, and skincare routine for the morning. This way, you can target a wide section of customers.

3. Fix a Budget for SEO

If you want to do SEO for your startup, you need to fix a budget right from the beginning. Without a budget, chances are high; you cannot reap the maximum benefit of startup SEO.
Not all startups can set aside a substantial amount of their capital for SEO. So, they need to identify the areas of focus.
The SEO firm will plan the strategies based on that. Their staff will direct your limited resources to the opportunities by giving the strongest impact. This way, you get to use SEO in a channelized manner.

4. Tap Off-Site SEO Opportunities

Startups can utilize off-site SEO opportunities to increase visibility.

• All you need to do is offer your shareable content to other reputable websites.
• As they get the information to engage their readers, they share the link to your website.
• As they endorse your site, Google finds you trustworthy.
• It increases your site rankings in Google.

Apart from this, you get to build connections with more businesses. With time, it boosts your authority.
However, this is possible only when you post high-quality and engaging content.

5. Do Not Ignore Social Media

In today’s age, you cannot ignore social media. You need to open accounts on the major social media platforms and regularly update them.
Apart from posting impressive content, you also need to add high-quality photos and videos.
As people start following you on social media, they try to find out more about you. It brings them to your website.
As more people visit your site, you gain authority in the market. Besides, social media is a great way to connect with potential customers.
You get to enjoy increased organic traffic and more conversions.

6. Do Not Restrict the Audience

Irrespective of your business type, a startup owner should always act globally.
You should not restrict your site to English. Rather, you should translate the content to other languages to find potential customers.
A multilingual website often attracts more traffic over time. It also helps you obtain backlinks from local sites. Besides, content in other languages finds less competition in regards to keywords.
As a result, you gain organic traffic easily. Now, you may consider translating content to be a costly and time-consuming affair. However, it requires fewer efforts when compared to producing the content.

7. Answer Your Audiences’ Questions

When you answer your audiences’ questions, you engage with them.

• To start the process, you need to identify your users’ questions in their minds.
• After you form a list of those questions, you publish write-ups answering them.
• You need to ensure that the answers are reaching the people.

With the help of Google Search Console, find out the keywords that are suitable for your content. Now include them in your articles.
By doing this continuously, you impress the users. It gets reflected in your ranking on the search engine result pages.

8. On-Page SEO Is Important

On-page optimization helps your startup secure a better rank and earn organic traffic.
The search engine crawls your site regularly to identify the best spot for you on the result page. Now, unless you have high-quality content and a user-friendly website, you cannot compete.
Your website should be informative as well as easy to navigate. Be it text, image, or tags, optimize them.
Include the main keywords in the meta description tag and title tag. Keep the URL short and simple. It helps the search engine find you and the users to identify the topics you are focusing on the Internet.

9. Create Engaging Content

Creating content that serves the purposes of customers is essential to retain them.
You can achieve it with thorough research. It will help you identify the users’ needs, keywords, and how your rivals are faring.
As you find out the answers, creating valuable content no more remains a herculean task. However, you need to be consistent. It ensures that your website has fresh content.
Creating & posting relevant content is one of the easy ways to impress Google. Moreover, the more the content, the greater the reach of your website.
As you continue providing valuable content, people also start trusting you.

10. Focus on Inbound Links

Just like outbound links, inbound links help you gain traction. Through interlinking, you link contents to different pages on the same domain. It increases the chances of retaining people for a longer period.
Users get to discover new content on your site. Besides, Google gets to understand your site better.
Internal linking helps you maintain a hierarchy on your website. You give priority to the pages you consider most important in the lot.
You can do this by locating a few innovative keywords on each page. Ensure that these words best describe the content of the pages.

11. Inform People About Your Products

A startup needs to make people aware of their products and services. When you are new in the market, you have to make efforts to let people find you.
Everyone wants their website to be unique and creative. However, in the attempt to be unique, do not lose focus on simplicity.
Your website should be able to define you clearly. Users should understand what you have in store for them.
You cannot be vague about your services. Search for the relevant keywords and incorporate them in your texts. It helps users find you.

12. Include Infographics on Your Website

Creating Infographics is one of the best ways to attract more visitors to your website.
Nowadays, people are always on the go. They want information in an easy format that they can grab quickly.
What can be better than infographics?

• First, they are pleasant to the eyes.
• Second, they present information in an engaging format.

For many people, visual data are easier to remember than texts.
It increases the chance of them coming back to your site and sharing the link as well. Both of these factors contribute to your search engine ranking.

13. Do Not Ignore Voice Search

With each passing day, the demand for voice search is increasing. However, it is not exactly like regular searches.
To exploit it, you first need to understand the basics.

• Some people ask short questions. But, many often use complete and lengthy sentences.
• To tap them, you need to optimize your site for both question phrases and long-tail keywords.
• Most of the people make the voice searches on mobile.
• So, you need to have a responsive design for your website.

It will ensure users find no difficulty in accessing your site from any device.

14. Use Visual Media

Visual media is any day more engaging than texts. Besides, today’s consumers prefer videos, pictures, and infographics more than texts.
You can provide information in long article formats, or you can pack that information in a video.
An ideal website uses every medium to the best of its advantage.
You can now target SEO with videos too. Use relevant keywords in video titles and descriptions.
You can also share the link to your website in the description box. It is a great way to increase visitors to your site.

15. Increase Your Website’s Speed

Yours is a new website, and you may not be aware of its loading time. However, you cannot ignore this.
Your website needs to have the optimum loading speed.
Nobody likes to wait. Even a few seconds of waiting can result in the loss of many potential customers.
Also, a slow website will result in high bounce rates.
For Google, such sites are either misleading or uninteresting for people.
Higher bounce rates will affect your ranking.
There are two easy methods to increase the speed of your website.

• Remove the unnecessary codes.
• Decrease the size of the pictures.

16. Target Quality Backlinks

While building backlinks, it is always advisable to focus on the quality of the backlinks. Targeting popular industry directories is a good place to start.
You can arrange for the press to cover the launch of your new products. Interviews and blogs are also great options.
The more the coverage from famous and high-value sites, the better is your domain authority. You remain in the news, and this improves your Google rank too. Besides, quality backlinks also increase referral traffic.

17. Keyword Research Is Important

Keyword research is vital, and you cannot afford to miss this out. Without keyword research, you cannot get a hold of the market.
Many startups push keywords optimization until they settle down properly. However, you need to do thorough research for keywords from the early days itself.
The sooner you make the efforts, the better it is for your website. Initially, it may be a little difficult. However, this is no rocket science.
With time, you get the hang of the procedure. Once you find the specific keywords, make changes to your website to incorporate them.

18. Set Your SEO Goals First

Your SEO goals must be achievable. Most startups get so busy in other business aspects that they often forget to set the goals.
Many also lack the guidance to identify what they can achieve with their resources.
You need to set your targets first.

List of things that you want to focus:

Brand awareness, bounce rate, or higher organic traffic?
Specify the rate of improvement that you desire.
For example, Target for 20 percent more traffic in the third quarter or a 15% decrease in bounce rate.
Setting SEO goals helps you to strategize within your budget. Ensure that your SEO goals are in line with your business goals.

19. Google My Business Is of Great Help

Google My Business (GMB) listing gives your business the much-needed online exposure.
The first thing you need to do is create a GMB listing for your startup.
Once you create the list, you get to use several GMB features to describe your business better.
Make use of features like Posts, Q&A, photos, and reviews.
GMB listing helps you reach to your potential clients.
Your phone number, website, and other information remain a click away. Besides, Google prefers businesses having GMB listings. And you get to enjoy all these benefits free of cost.

20. Keep a Tab on Your Rivals

Being a startup, it is not always possible to get the whole picture from the beginning.
Your SEO strategies may suffer because of a lack of proper knowledge.
The best way to avoid this is by analyzing your competitors. Thorough research will reveal details about the things they are focusing on the web.
You will find out how they are successfully running the show. You can also find the topics of their content that are drawing traffic and the keywords they are targeting.
Once you get an idea, you can use this information to up your game.

21. Keep the Website Simple

Users and search engines should face no difficulty in navigating through your website. To achieve this, you can ditch the mega menus as they cause SEO concerns.
Mega menus help you to accommodate several options. However, it can be time-consuming for the users to navigate through them.
Google values user experience. Having mega menus on the website may not provide users with the best experience.
The best way out is including only those pages in the navigation menus that you want users and Google to focus on your site.

22. Your Site Needs to Be Mobile-Friendly

Nowadays, most people prefer mobiles over desktops for accessing information through the Internet.
If you want your startup to have a strong online presence, you need to make your site mobile-friendly.
The best way is to build your website by following the responsive web design approach. This way, your site adjusts to the size of the screen your user is viewing it on.
You do not have to build several websites. In a mobile-friendly website, users do not have to unnecessarily zoom in and out to view the page’s content. Also, the loading time is less. All this goes in your favor.

23. Identify the Niche Keywords

You are setting up your startup to offer certain products or services that have a niche demand. To use SEO optimally, find out the keywords that resemble that niche demand. It will make it easy for you to set the strategies.
First, identify your target market. Develop content that will serve the user’s needs.
Initially, it is cost-effective to penetrate the target market. As you gain a hold in the market, you can expand your audience base with time. This strategy will help you create a name, even when you have to compete with popular brands.

24. Choose Keywords Carefully

Some keywords can be misleading. Therefore, before you finalize them, always check their search intent. It will give you a clear picture of how they are going to benefit you.
Never use keywords that have no relevant search intent. It may appear a way to draw traffic, but it will increase your bounce rate.
Google will notice this and demote your rank. Eventually, you will end up getting no traffic to your webpages.
To avoid these problems, check the top few results that the keywords are showing. If the results do not include the contents of your domain or products, drop the keywords.

25. Use a Spreadsheet

When you are searching for relevant keywords for your website, you have a lot on your plate. It makes it essential to organize them to avoid any confusion properly.
The use of a spreadsheet can help you. Ensure your spreadsheet contains keywords, search volume, search difficulty, and the like.
Once you have entered all the data on the spreadsheet, you can use colors to sort them out. It will help you to focus on the relevant ones.
After identifying those keywords, you can now brainstorm for the topics of content.

26. Comment on Relevant Blogs

Being a new player in the market, you need to spread the word about your business.
One of the effective ways is commenting on other people’s blogs. Not only do you earn links, but you also get to draw people’s attention.
More people visit your site, and your organic traffic increases. With time, your audience base increases.
Apart from this, you get to build healthy partnerships.
All these help improve your ranking on the search engine result pages.

27. Developing Partnership

Develop healthy partnerships with other companies. No one can survive alone in this competitive world.
Write informative contents that other sites can use.
Find out a way to secure a mention on their social media accounts. As you work with other sites to promote relevant content, you get a chance to build domain authority. It increases the flow of traffic to your site. Also, your audiences start trusting you. Eventually, your leads and conversion rate will increase rapidly.

28. Optimize the Images

As you optimize the images on your websites, your page loading time decreases. Also, it becomes easy for search engine bots to find you. To optimize the images, you need to provide the Alt tag and caption for each picture.
As you name the images, try to use the relevant keywords. Better not to incorporate complex characters in the names.
The name of the image determines its URL’s length. Hence, try to keep the name short.
Reduce the dimensions of the picture according to the content area. Also, ensure that the size of the image does not exceed 300 kb.

29. Check Your Performance

There are multiple ways through which you check whether SEO is working for you. The number of people visiting your site tells you about organic traffic.
If the number is increasing, you are on the right track.
You can know whether you have built authority, expanded your reach, or engaged with users.
The bounce rate and the time users spend on your site determine engagement. The more the number of healthy links, the higher is your market authority.
You can determine your market position through conversion rate and your Google rank.

30. Use SEO Audit Tools

SEO audit tools help you gain insight into your SEO strategies. In the long-run, regular SEO audit helps you keep your strategies up-to-date.
The audit exposes the areas where you are going wrong. Thus, you get a chance to work on them.
Tools like SEMrush do the audit for free. Use them to review your goals, keywords, contents’ relevance, and shareability.
You can perform technical analysis and find how well your website is faring on mobile phones.
SEO audit also reveals how your competitors are ahead of you. In short, it helps you to focus better on SEO strategies.

31. Use Analytics

Never ignore the analytics report even if it appears insignificant to you.
Google analytics navigate through a sea of data and provide you with several reports. Delve into the details and find out the ways you can boost your sales.
You can even use the spreadsheet to categorize the results. It will help you identify the areas that need reworking and those in need of a little boost.
For example, the pages having a high bounce rate need fixing. If the report showed a sect of audiences is showing more interest, you work to boost the engagement rate.

32. Use Authoritative & Relevant Forum Postings

Postings on credible and relevant forums is another way to improve visibility.
All you need to do is to add a relevant and useful link on the forum threads. However, you need to have proper planning to use forum postings as an SEO tactic.
Every forum has its own set of terms and conditions. You need to abide by that.
First, you need to find forums that are relevant to you.
Post contents to engage with the audiences and not to directly promote your products.
Forums usually have designated sections for promotional activities. Besides, do not forget to add your signature link.

33. Keep an Eye for Broken Links

Links can break often. It is not unusual. However, you need to repair them immediately.
You can also add new ones. Broken links affect your site’s performance and user experience.
On top of that, they affect your relationship with Google. Your ranking may suffer pretty badly because of broken links. It calls for regular broken link analysis.
Fortunately for you, there a plenty of free tools like Moz Pro and Screaming Frog SEO Spider to aid you. These tools identify the broken links and fix them quickly.

34. Republish Previous Posts

A visitor liking your present article or posts has no idea of the previous posts. However, seasoned blog posts can also boost SEO.
All you need to do is update them and bring them to the notice of the people again. The best way to start is by identifying the keywords.
You can focus on many keywords – one main and a few seconds. As you post the updated version of the old posts with the relevant keywords, they start performing well. However, you need to track the posts’ performance.
You can also submit an indexing request to Google to divert its focus to your updated posts.

35. Optimize Local SEO

Many startups tend to ignore local SEO. However, it is a great way to gain attention.
People trust Google for searching for products and services near them. The ideal way to start is by creating a Google My Business account. Besides, you need to focus on local keywords.
Researching the taste and preference of your local customers can give you a good start. Also, use the online business directories and optimize your site for voice search.
Next time, when users search for your products near them, Google will prioritize you.

36. Do a Competitive Analysis

Competitive analysis forms an integral part of any company’s marketing plan. This analysis helps you to find the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors.
You identify the opportunities as well as the threats.
You find out:

• How are they drawing more traffic to their sites?
• What are the keywords that are bringing them a good result?
• How are they managing their content to up their game?

You use all this information to re-strategize your SEO plans and develop an edge over them.

37. Define Your SEO Strategies

It may be difficult for a startup to devote time to both developing products and strategies. In such a scenario, developing strategies often take the backbench.
However, to rank better on the search engines, you need a strategy from the beginning.
A startup needs to understand what it wants to achieve and the role of SEO. Accordingly, they need to strategize.
Unless you formulate proper strategies, it is hard to achieve the SEO goals.

38. Focus on Code

Code influences the way search engines to find you and how quickly your page responses. It also affects user experience. Therefore, you need to use clean and fast codes and stay away from bloated codes.
If you are building your website, the best way is to create your templates for the new pages. This way, you do not have to type the same code repeatedly.
Also, ensure that you know how to edit elements of a page from one place. It will save the efforts to manually making the change to every page.
Optimize your site by using proper titles tag and meta descriptions.

39. Automate SEO

Automating SEO helps you save time and energy. Some of the SEO tasks that you can automate are keywords search, social sharing, audits, and the like.
The benefits are plenty.
You do not have to do keyword research manually.
You get notifications every time a link breaks or pages take time to load.
There are social automation tools to expand the reach of your content.
You can also automate performance reports. It will help you to understand your audience’s behavior. Besides, you can automate tasks like URL formatting, image resizing, and page creation.

40. Eliminate Error Pages

A page that no longer exists affects your site’s performance and Google rank. If people share the link of that page, it will affect your link authority. Therefore, you need to fix the issue ASAP. The problem occurs when you change the location of your content or the URLs.
You can use Google Search Console to locate the error pages. After you remove them, update it through Google search console.
To be on the safe side, use 301 redirects. Whenever users land on the error pages, the website will guide them to the most relevant page.

41. Collect Testimonials from Customers

Customers’ testimonials are a powerful way to optimize your site for search engines. Apart from testimonials, you can maintain a series of case studies and reviews.
All these contribute towards your better ranking. Besides, these articles help you improve your sales.
When people find positive reviews from real customers, they tend to trust you. Now, you can either ask the customer to give their reviews or share their feedbacks.
Apart from this, you can request them to participate in case studies.

42. Open a Channel on YouTube

YouTube is the second biggest search engine as of now. Besides, it is growing every passing year.
Why not tap it?
By opening a YouTube channel, you can easily increase the flow of traffic to your website. However, you need to optimize the content.
According to studies, over 55% of Google search results contain YouTube videos. Not to forget, Google is the owner of YouTube.
When you have an SEO-optimized YouTube channel, your ranking is bound to increase.

43. Analyze Your Existing Content

SEO is a continuous process. Uploading any content or blog post does not mean your responsibility is over.
You need to analyze the existing content to identify gaps regularly. Now, either you update them or remove them. It is essential to remain up-to-date.
You can also conduct a content audit to find out its performance. A content audit informs you about word count, page title, page URL, meta description, and the like.
You also find out the relevancy of your content topics. It helps you to improve your performance, which gets reflected in your ranking.

44. Try Improving Click-Through Rate

Click-through rate (CTR) influences your ranking. It refers to the percentage of people who click links when they appear in front of them.
CTR is an important metric that tells you whether you are targeting the right customers or not.
Studies have found a pattern in which CTR affects your rank.

• If your CTR is above the expected level, you will likely secure a spot between the top five on the result page.
• If you fail on this, your rank will drop.

45. Make Your Website Footer Useful

Website footer links are vital for SEO. It calls for a strategy to include items in the site’s footer. Try to accommodate relevant keywords in the footer.
Apart from this, the anchor texts need to be descriptive. Your potential customers should find the answers to their queries there.
You can use your site footer in multiple ways. You can incorporate links of your products, blog posts, or other value-added pages.
Having the proper links helps people smoothly navigate through your site.

46. Target Featured Snippets

You should always target the featured snippets as offered by Google.
Positioned on the top of the search result page, it gives you an advantage over your rivals.
The competition is tough, but you can grab the spot if you strategize properly. The quality of content plays a vital role.
You need to give the exact answer to the queries of the users. The answer should be descriptive yet crisp. The way you present it is also a determining factor.
Featured snippets are one of the easiest ways to gain organic traffic to your website.

47. Find Your Competitors Backlinks

To grow organically, you need to find high-quality backlinks.
Do you know that you can use the same links as used by your competitors?
You can also source the links from the location your competitor is using.
Search engines, especially Google, do not mind you stealing the links. It is undoubtedly one of the best SEO hacks.
You can use a backlink checker to get hold of those links. However, exercise caution as you pick the links. Not all are relevant to you.

48. Tap Undiscovered Keyword Ideas

SEO tools always give you endless keyword ideas.
What if your competitors are already targeting the keywords given by the tools? It increases competition.
You can ditch it by finding the untapped keywords. According to studies, on average, around 20% of Google searches are new.
Brainstorming is the first thing you need to do to tap that opportunity.
You can also talk to your customers. Engage them in Q/A rounds to find out the words they prefer to use while searching for a product or service.
Apart from this, track the social media platforms for brilliant keyword ideas.

49. Set Your Keywords

It may take time, but it is a great way to find organic traffic for your website. When you introduce any product, service, or technique, name it.
Define the concept, create the content, and promote it through every channel possible. It can be social, paid, or owned channels.
Once the idea starts getting traction, people search for it. The more they search, popular the keyword becomes and more the traffic you gain. It is not always necessary to follow the keywords available in the market; you can always create one.

50. Provide In-Depth Information in the Content

Google always gives priority to the website having in-depth relevant information.
Content still rules over all other SEO techniques. When you create unique content covering every angle of the topic, users find it relevant. Not only do they spend more time on your webpage, but they also share the link.
Word count is directly proportional to the website ranking. However, no way it means you can benefit from writing irrelevant content.
The moment users find it, they will leave your website. It increases the bounce rate and decreases your Google rank.
Get in touch with us for more tips for your startup.