SEO tips for Start-ups
30/11/2012
Many university courses are offering students the chance to create business plans from scratch in order to encourage entrepreneurial pursuits in these tough economic times. Economic downturns often spark a revolution of new start-up businesses. If you are thinking of starting up, it is important to think about your online presence and marketing through SEO and PPC as there are packages which can benefit start-up businesses and get them off the ground! Here are some things that start up’s should consider when thinking about SEO.
- Build your site on a platform that is SEO friendly and has a degree of optimisation built in from the start. Many start-up businesses use templates and out of date styles of web design in order to keep the cost low. However, building a site on a CMS which comes with built in optimisation sets your website up nicely for the future as you will not need to worry about moving the site to another CMS as your business grows. Also, your site will automatically rank better, provided in the content is up to date and relevant to your audience. This is a sound investment and will eliminate future problems.
- Look at competing websites that are ranking well and analyse what is making them successful in terms of their content, optimisation and interaction with clients. You will automatically get a feel for what your site needs to include.
- Set some goals for your website. It is unrealistic to say you want your site to rank number one on Google for a particular search phrase as there is no such thing as absolute Google rankings. Each Google user has a ‘personalised search’ which is different for everyone and depends on their search habits, location and demographic. It would be more realistic to say that you want to generate a particular amount of leads through the website in a particular time frame and work towards this goal.
- Research the keyword terms that you want to rank for. Remember that ‘long tail’ is often better as customers are further down the sales funnel. For example, those searching for ‘yellow bananas’ are probably speculating and are not ready to buy whereas those searching for ‘buy yellow bananas in Canterbury’ are ready to make a purchase. Remember that a higher search traffic volume doesn’t always equate to a higher quality of traffic.
- Call upon the expertise of an experienced SEO agency. SEO is a very strategic and deliberate practice which is a very time consuming activity when done properly. As a start-up you are probably the MD, CMO, CFA and everything in between and so applying your time efficiently is a big issue. Let an agency handle all the technical stuff and leave yourself more time to focus on the leads and growing your business.
10 years ago Cornish Web Services was a ‘start-up’ company and have only ever used SEO to generate leads via our website. This means we know the activities that start-ups should be involved with in terms of their internet marketing strategy and have proven that our SEO services work wonders for start-up businesses. Our CMS has been built with optimisation and mind and we offer start-up SEO packages to get your business off the ground on a low budget. For more information please visit www.cornishwebserivces.co.uk or contact us via our online contact form.
