In this guest blog post, Designli CEO/Co-Founder and friend of the Founder Institute Keith Shields lists out some of the most common SEO mistakes that startups make and how to avoid them, resulting in a content strategy that's tough to beat.
You’ve worked hard. You’ve got your website built out with ten pages of awesome content. You’ve got at least twenty original and mind-blowing blog posts built out and queued. You’ve worked harder than you’ve ever worked to figure out how to sell your service or product or get your company out into the market and reach thousands of people.
And then?
Nobody clicks through your website. Nobody comments on your blog posts. Nobody likes your Facebook page or shares your content. Does any of this sound familiar?
Focusing on and investing in SEO, whether it be capital, or personal time and energy, can be the difference between your website, app, start-up, or other company sinking or swimming. No, seriously. SEO is the key to getting people to even know about your business. What good is an amazing service or product if literally no one knows about it?
Instead of focusing on the common SEO mistakes that too many people are making, we’ve outlined below the proper steps to take to overcome potential SEO short-falls.
1. Utilizing Analytics and Determining Your Metrics
Before anything else, you need to establish what metrics you’re going to use to measure your success: be it how many people sign-up for your emails or newsletters, how many app downloads you get, how many people react positively to your in-app messaging, how many products you’ve sold, and so on, you’ve got to know upfront what you’ll be measuring to make sure you are reaching that goal.
And you’re going to need proper tools to be able to measure those metrics. There’s are some great lists compiled here and here that help you figure out what tools you need to measure your analytics. This is extremely important because this is going to help you figure out what SEO is working for you, and where you’re lagging.
2. Consistent Quality Research
Begin your SEO set-up by starting out with quality research. Look into the keywords that your target audience – know who your target audience is, by the way – that they’re likely to search. Look up SEO best practices (like what’s on this list), especially for your industry. But don’t stop at the beginning – you’re going to need to keep up with all the new trends of SEO, and researching isn’t a one-and-done process.
Don’t forget to consider facts about your business, like location and the consumers you want to reach. Keep up on your potential customers or website end users by conducting demographics research, locations research, keep up on modern and changing trends, and stay ahead of the curve by constantly keeping a close eye out for consumer behaviors, patterns, and preferences, as they’re always changing.
3. Optimize Content – It May Be Great, But It Can’t Be Great on Its Own
You’ll need solid content that will make people want to come and read what you have to offer, or quality content that excites a potential buyer about what you’re selling. Remember that successfully marketing a product and reaching your audience is half the battle. Great visual design, great blog posts, quality pitches for your products are great, but you’ll need to implement plenty of SEO best practices if you’re going to get people to even look at your stuff.
Also, be sure to look out for duplicative information in regards to content. You don’t want every single page to have the exact same information, as that’s not only a huge turnoff but it’s also not making creative use of all of your digital or physical real estate. Furthermore, search results are going to be muddied by duplicative information, and might direct your consumers to the wrong area.
Also, don’t be afraid to hire somebody who’s an expert in this field that can help you along. This list will help you get started, but it’s certainly not going to be what a consultant would provide. It might be pricey, but it’s a worthy investment, especially if your sales are driven entirely by your online presence and getting people to your store.
4. Don’t Overstuff Your Keywords like a Thanksgiving Turkey
Also don’t underutilize your keywords, as they’re crucial for SEO. Also, be careful about using competitive keywords that everyone is using. If you’re selling spare airplane parts, try to get creative and move beyond “airplane,” as those keywords are going to inevitably return everything from flights to more established airplane parts companies that’re well ahead of you.
The key is to not overuse your keywords either. You want to be absolutely sure that you’re implementing what you can, and tagging your blog posts, your pictures, your tweets, your products, and so on, but you don’t want every other word to be “airplane” and “parts,” because that’s not only going to end up being bad content in and of itself which is a huge turn-off, but it’s going to reduce the complexity of your company, website, content, or product into simple, non-unique descriptions that won’t set you apart from your competitors. Remember the part about research? Do your due diligence and figure out the best keywords for you, the most used, the underutilized-but-still-viable, etc.
5. Improve Your UI/UX, Web Design, App Experience, Marketing, and Branding
Obvious but you’d be surprised how many people overlook this step. Use free resources at your fingertips like social media posts, emails, newsletters, landing pages with email signups and so on to get the word out about your company. Make sure your website is top-notch. Honestly, there’s almost no bigger turnoff than a bad website. Make your app extremely user-friendly, and seek feedback.
Don’t forget about your brand! It’s not just the way your company looks, but it’s the way you communicate with your customers, and what the relationship with everyone else including your employees is like. Figure out a solid vision-based framework to organize everything around.
And, yes, don’t forget about your social media presence. You don’t need Snapchat and Instagram and Pinterest and Facebook and Twitter and Vine and on and on, but you do need to strongly maintain everything that you do have access to. It’s better to have no Facebook than a page that is never updated. Work on figuring out who even uses your services.
And lastly...
The most important thing to remember is to keep your expectations realistic. A strong SEO isn’t going to solve all of your problems, but it’s definitely going to draw people to your site and ensure that you have consumers and end users engaging with you, your digital presence, and your company. It’s a worthy investment, whether of time, or money, or other resources, and there are plenty of helpful resources online (like Yoast SEO for you Wordpress users out there) to help you get along and not cost you a digital arm or leg.
