When you’re a startup, SEO is critical to achieving many of your core objectives, especially when it comes to search engines like Google. You need more than just visibility in organic search results. You need visibility for the search terms and phrases that actually matter.
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Search engines represent an ocean of unmet demand that startups need to navigate in order to accomplish their goals. In the beginning, SEO can assist with market research by examining historical Google search volume (number of times a given keyphrase was searched for) for a swath of keyphrases tied to potential startup pursuits. This process provides valuable insight into demand and competition.
SEO assists startups with reaching 4 major objectives
- Scaling customer acquisition
- Finding and expanding product-market fit
- Monitoring and responding to competition
- Monitoring and responding to reputation
Scaling customer acquisition
This simply means getting found by the people that mean the most where it means the most. Translation – visibility in organic search results (Google) for the search terms and phrases critically important to your startup. For example, you might be a SaaS startup that needs to reach developers more than customers. SEO research will help dial in the right mix of keyphrases and content to meet that need.
SEO research during the scaling customer acquisition stage involves finding and evaluating the most relevant and related keyphrases to optimize for. When the ideal phrases are decided upon, content on the website is optimized so that it displays in organic search results. If content does not already exist on the site that’s a good fit, SEO will assist with the creation of intent-based content development.
Keep in mind that an ongoing SEO effort will be required to acquire visibility for the targeted keyphrases and even more so to maintain and improve search result positioning over time.
Finding and expanding product-market fit
Once visitors reach your website from organic search results their behavior can be monitored and measured to evaluate and adjust market fit. Tracking if a visitor converts into a customer or client and how long they spend on a page assists with determining which product markets should be focused on.
The reoccurring analysis involved with SEO is designed to not only evaluate market fit but also identify areas of opportunity. Which, often presents new ways to reach key target markets. An example of this would be utilizing long-form blog posts to reach specific search engine audiences or to gauge the interest of a potential new market verticle.
Monitoring and responding to competition
Robust SEO workflows involve tracking and monitoring top competitors in search results. This type of monitoring enables the analysis of many useful metrics that aid in responding to organic search competition.
This process often involves:
- Monitoring competitors that rank for the same keyphrases in Google search results
- Comparing website landing pages, messaging, level of optimization and backlinks
- Identifying areas of opportunity and improvement
- Implementing an optimization strategy that addresses and responds to competitive threats
Monitoring and responding to reputation
Search results expose what’s being published about your startup online. From videos, reviews and news to social media and company listings. Reputation monitoring provides startups with valuable intelligence geared toward aligning brand image with customers, clients and the general public. It’s also an exceptional way to keep track of what your competition is up to.
Receive alerts and respond to:
- Blog post references
- Company, product and service reviews
- News article references
- Social mentions
- Startup listings
- Video mentions
Examples of where your startup should be listed:
Achieving the right type of visibility for your startup in search engines pays dividends. Especially when it comes to organic search results. The 4 major startup SEO objectives – scaling customer acquisition, defining product-market fit, managing competitors and monitoring your reputation, represent the core components of a solid startup SEO foundation.
SEO for your startup
We’re an SEO consultancy with over a decade of experience helping startups create, implement and manage conversion-driven SEO strategies and workflows.
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