SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and content are two essential areas for startups. SEO can help your startup gain more visibility, while content is crucial in educating visitors and, hopefully, converting them into customers. Startups often have limited budgets and resources, so they must make the most of their marketing efforts. SEO allows startups to reach their target audience at a low cost while increasing their visibility in search engines.
In this guide, we’ll take you through everything you need to know about SEO and content so that you can optimise both for success!
What is SEO?
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving your website’s visibility in search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.). More specifically, it’s using specific strategies to make your site appear higher in organic search results, increasing your site’s visibility and reaching potential customers searching for products or services related to your business.
SEO can also help startups to improve their website’s user experience. By optimising the website for search engines, startups can enhance its speed and make it easier for users to navigate.
Getting started with SEO and keyword research
You may have heard or read about what SEO is before. You may have even tried to do it yourself and felt overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information. But don’t be afraid—SEO is not as hard as it seems!
The first step you should take when getting started with SEO is understanding what it is and how it works. You can find several great resources online (articles, webinars and even free videos on YouTube) that can help you understand keyword research, which will be one of the most crucial steps in this process.
Keyword tools are essential for determining which “special words” will get you results on Google. Many free tools, like Ubersuggest and Google’s Keyword Planner, will help you find the best keywords for your content while ensuring they’re not overused by other advertisers (which would make them less effective).
Writing content that converts
Content is more than just a tool for capturing and holding a visitor’s attention. It’s a necessary strategy for increasing your visibility—which, in turn, drives new traffic to your website. Now, how can you write content that does exactly that? Let’s get to it!
Use the right keywords
You may be tempted to simply use your business name and industry jargon, but you’re missing a massive opportunity if you do that. If you don’t have time to do keyword research, you can hire an SEO consultant to help you out.
If you want to do it yourself, you’ll need a keyword research tool; I recommend Ubersuggest (if the budget is tight) or Ahrefs and SEMrush if you have a little more to play with. These last two are the most used in the market and will help you out with further more than just keyword research.
Write in a conversational tone
Your content should be written in a casual way, as if you were talking to a colleague about your favourite topic (your product). Don’t write like an encyclopaedia entry; no one wants nor has time to read that!
Break down the article in headings
Headings are one of the most important parts of articles. We will not get into much detail because this deserves a piece of its own, but all articles need to be broken down into different headings. Heading 1 (H1) is the main title of the piece; in this case, “The ultimate guide to SEO and content” is the H1. Heading 2 (H2) are the primary subtitles. In this article, “What is SEO” and “Getting started with SEO and keyword research” are two examples. Lastly, heading 3 (H3) are the sub-subtitles; “Use lists and headings”, for example, is an H3 title.
Include a call to action (CTA)
At the end of the article, make sure to add a section that lets visitors know how they can get in touch with you—whether that means signing up for more information via email, website form, or social media.
Getting your blog to rank well
More and more people are going online to find answers. If they don’t see what they were looking for on your website, they will move down the search results page until they find what they need elsewhere. Keywords are essential to rank well, but so is the quality of the article and its structure.
Make sure that any text-only parts of pages aren’t too heavy and avoid long paragraphs of text by breaking things up into shorter sections with headings and subheadings where appropriate. Lastly, but not less important, choose a font size that’s comfortable for users to read at various sizes (for example, 16px) and make your website mobile-friendly.
Repurposing content for SEO
Repurposing content is a great way to create new pieces from existing materials and a great way to boost your rankings on Google.
If you have a blog post or page already ranking well on Google, use it as the basis for other content. You can use your existing text, images and videos to create new content like infographics, reports or e-books.
Let me share an example; you could start a podcast about a topic you’re an expert on and record episodes around said subject. Here’s everything you can do with the piece of audio:
- Podcast episode; share it on all podcast platforms
- Record the podcast with video and post the episode on YouTube (YouTube is the second most used search engine, it’s crucial for SEO to do well on YouTube)
- Create a social media carousel with the most important takeaways
- Generate 15-30 seconds video to be shared on social media (TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn)
- Create an article, report and/or e-book about what you talked about
- Build a newsletter around the podcast and share members-only content
Get others to link to your content
Getting other websites to link to your content is one of the most necessary parts of SEO. Google uses links as a primary sign of a website’s trustworthiness; therefore, getting other websites to link to you can significantly impact how well your site ranks in search results.
There are many different ways that you can get links from other sites, such as guest blogging or including social sharing buttons on your blog posts.
Make the most of Google Analytics
You can get a lot of information from Google Analytics, and the best thing is that it’s free! The tool offers a wealth of data about your site and its visitors, but there are some things you should look at first:
- Traffic Sources > All Traffic > Overview
This will tell you the top 10 sources (Organic, Direct, Social, Referral…) where people come from to find your content. With this information, you can determine where to put your marketing efforts when it comes to promotion.
- Content > All Pages > Overview
This will tell you how many times each page has been seen on your site—the more it has been viewed, the more popular it is! These stats give insight into what people are interested in reading, which helps determine what kind of content should be created next.
If you want to go the extra mile, you can set up Google Search Console on your site to get information on your site’s organic traffic. Google Search Console collects and analyses all organic traffic from Google, from countries, search queries, clicks, impressions, and average position.
SEO is essential for startups
SEO is an investment in your future, a long-term strategy that can help you get more traffic and leads, build trust with your audience, and position yourself as an authority in your niche.
It’s one of the most tedious and time-consuming tasks, but with some knowledge and practice, you can get your blog or website to rank well by writing great content that people want to read. We hope this guide has been useful in helping you understand SEO better and you learnt a few tips on how to get started.
