A good SEO strategy doesn’t only attract your audience. The point is to catch Google’s attention and appear on the first page of the Google search results – which lets your customers find your website easily. However, getting Google’s algorithm to see you isn’t an easy task. A marketing team needs to produce a high volume of content, such as blog posts and articles, social media content, Ebooks and whitepapers, how-to guides and tutorials, videos and audio recordings, infographics, or other visual content.

Producing all these pieces of content and organizing them into an effective strategy requires time and resources. It’s enough to make most startups and new businesses wonder if all the work an SEO strategy requires is actually worth it.  

How Does SEO Affect My Business?

An effective SEO strategy makes your business visible to the audience you want to reach. Even if you are running a small or new business, optimizing your content and targeting your audience with keywords helps you stay competitive in the top Google ranking positions. 

The same principle applies to established brands. For example, Trenitalia, the official website of the Italian train service, is the most competitive company in the rail industry. You’d expect this website to be number one in search results. But, when you type something like, “book train from Rome to Florence,” Trenitalia appears at the end of the first page if not, the second one (which is where none wants to end up). 

Since the Trenitalia web page doesn’t optimize its content or have a solid SEO strategy, you won’t find its site on the Internet unless you search the brand. Of course, as a National rail company, Trenitalia won’t fail because of a weak SEO. However, search results lead ticket buyers to different platforms, like Omnio or Trainline. Since Trenitalia doesn’t appear, travelers will buy their tickets on side platforms that take a percentage of the purchase. 

For startups or small businesses that do not have that brand awareness and recognition, however, it’s crucial for your audience to visit your website to purchase products – and not get sidetracked by competitors. 

Which Types of Businesses and Startups Need SEO?

Each business is unique, and you must find the best strategy to promote your product. In addition, SEO rules are changing every minute, and it’s impossible to find a perfect recipe to make it work. Industries like manufacturing and retail, healthcare, and home services have the most competitive SEO strategies because people are more inclined to search online for those kinds of service providers. 

If your business fits the following characteristics, it could benefit from building a solid online presence:

  • Businesses with SKUs: Entrepreneurs who run location-independent businesses, such as eCommerce stores with hundreds of SKUs, can rank for each product, producing multiple pieces of content with different keywords. 
  • Local businesses: Obtaining more foot traffic requires using local SEO and search tactics, targeting customers based on the geographical area. Keep voice search in mind and mobile SEO when using this approach. 
  • Growing in popularity: A company that launched a new online service or website and aims to grow authority in the field should definitely increase its SEO efforts. 
  • Industries with high search volume: Transportation, personal finance, credit cards, health, wellness, or tourism have been in the game for a while. However, as mentioned earlier, having a longer online presence doesn’t necessarily mean having a good SEO strategy. 
  • Remote Startups Businesses: SEO strategies for remote businesses are key for customer visibility, along with gaining brand authority and a wider audience. 

5 Components of an Effective SEO Strategy for Your Business

The good thing about SEO is that you can monitor your rankings regularly to see how well you’re improving over time. You can track on-site visitors, how your competitors are doing, how your marketing campaigns impact online sales, and how well they lead visitors to your site. If you want to be successful, however, you need a strategy that works for your business. 

Here are five components every SEO strategy should include:  

1. Keyword Research and Targeting 

Keyword research is at the core of any good SEO strategy. The key is to target keywords with low competition and high volume searches. For example, let’s say you’re a vegan food eCommerce business selling recipes and ingredients. Targeting the keyword “vegan food” isn’t the best way to stand out from the competition. Google won’t see any difference between your business and hundreds of others trying to rank for the same key terms. Instead, targeting specific keywords related to ingredients or meals will help you stand out more. In addition, it will help to target a wider audience over time, increasing qualified website traffic. 

2. Local Search Engine Optimization 

The exact mechanism applies to local SEO, especially for mobile users. For example, let’s say you have a clothing store in different cities. Targeting local areas with your brand is a more effective strategy than just promoting your items with keywords. The goal is to build a presence on Google and Yelp listings to appear among the first results for local searches. With this method, you can increase your trust signals and rankings and encourage more local foot traffic. 

3. Mobile Optimization

Nowadays, most online actions happen on mobile phones, and Google is aware of it. If a website isn’t mobile-friendly, most likely, customers won’t return or buy from that site. As a result, SEO bots prefer mobile-friendly websites, and 80% of top-ranked websites are mobile-friendly. Especially with eCommerce and online services, SEO strategies are more effective when combined with mobile websites. 

4. Content Creation

People used to do their searches using specific keywords. However, that has changed over time. Today, most website visitors tend to search based on topics or questions. That’s why quality content always wins over quantity. Would you come back to a website that specifically answers a question or questions you searched, or to one that has tons of content but no concrete answers? 

5. Link Building

Finally, link building is the last pillar of any solid SEO strategy. To catch Google’s attention, it’s important to use internal links to related content on your website and backlinks to other relevant, high-quality sources. Link building helps you create a linear architecture on your website and absorb the SEO juice of the outside sites you’re linking to. Consequently, a Google bot can see how much relevant content you offer on your page, suggesting your page in the first result slots. 

Here are some methods to create a solid site architecture with external link building: 

  • Guest posting and writing, high-quality content for other websites that include links back to your related website content. 
  • Creating a blogging network to facilitate outreach within your industry or niche.
  • Exchanging backlinks with other high-quality sites. 
  • Contacting experts in your industry and requesting they publish content that links back to your site as a reference. Just make sure the links your requesting are high-quality and applicable to topics these experts typically cover. 
  • Skyscraper technique

Conclusion 

Despite the industry you are in, SEO is integral for every startup business. While there are other methods aimed at growing your online presence, like online ads, affiliate marketing, or webinars, few have the power to fuel rapid brand awareness like SEO. 

There are a lot of things a startup business must overcome in order to be successful. Don’t let brand awareness and exposure be one of them. Implement the tips mentioned above, and you’ll start to see your content rank higher and more site traffic. Good luck!

Author Bio

Costanza Tagliaferri is a Writer and Content Marketer at DistantJob, a remote IT recruitment agency, and ThinkRemote, a new media platform about the joys and challenges of remote work. She has covered a wide range of topics, and now she is focusing on technology, traveling, and remote work.