Lately I’ve seen that a tight relationship between SEO and startups has been something of a foregone conclusion within the SEO industry: “Of course startups should be engaged in SEO!” Perhaps, and perhaps not. In fact, some start-up communities have taken up a stance in direct opposition to this, stigmatizing SEO as manipulative. Personally I’m just a humble consultant who has never started a company of his own, so I think it would be presumptuous of me to arbitrarily declare SEO a high priority for any start-up in any field.
If doing SEO isn’t a foregone conclusion, then, it bears further discussion as a marketing strategy. I want to approach this topic from a different angle. In any successful startup there will be someone with good business sense, someone who can look at the evidence in front of them and make their own decision about what is best for their company. So let me put some premises on the table about what SEO offers the start-up and why start-ups are uniquely positioned to leverage their position for SEO.
What SEO Offers
(Measurable) Audience Embiggening
The end goal of SEO is to increase the number of people arriving at your site through organic search results. There are also other metrics that are intermediate factors helping you accomplish this goal, such as your actual rankings in search results. These are things that you can measure, and report successes in increasing.
In addition, there are two different sets of keywords to look at when assessing the organic search channel—branded and non-branded terms. It's a powerful thing to demonstrate that your branded search traffic is increasing—it suggests that more people are looking for your brand online, which is a Good Thing.
On the other hand, the implications of receiving non-branded search traffic are numerous. Such traffic suggests that a site has increasing visibility for relevant search terms. If the start-up is defining new language, it suggests that users are picking up on that language. If it is increasing its share in an existing space, it suggests that the site may be cutting into the market share of competitors in organic search.
Reinforcement Of Extant Marketing Strategies
Optimization for SEO has the potential to enhance the effect of your other marketing strategies. If you are anticipating driving a lot of social interaction with your site, having your pages and URLs optimized for SEO will ensure that as people share your site you get the most value from that sharing. If you are link building through outreach and maintaining relationships with people in your industry, all of a sudden you have assets through which you can promote social content or editorial or anything else you might be up to.
Makes sense, right?
Why Startups Can Leverage Their Position
Agility
A startup—particularly at the outset of operation—has a great deal more flexibility than a more established competitor in the market. The obvious dichotomy here is between the large, established competitor and the start-up underdog. The start-up clearly has more agility than the established competitor, without a doubt. Consider:
But what about the 18-month old company compared to the 2-month old? If you don’t even have a website live, you’re even more flexible than an 18-month old company with a website up and an investment in a particular architecture or format or strategy for content publication. Oracle might be a giant awkward mess to manage from an SEO perspective, but even Dropbox by now has a more rigid infrastructure and user expectations and a great deal of variables which it must consider. Setting a course at the outset, which includes SEO will ensure that you are well positioned to be successful in organic search when you've achieved the same size and user base.
As part of overall SEO efforts all of the elements in the following (non-exhaustive) list might need to be manipulated:
- Keyword targeting—which terms you have chosen to represent your products, content, and brand.
- Site structure—how information on your website is structured and how you present that information to users. Are your products and pages properly differentiated?
- Content strategy—what information are you going to publish on your site? None? All of it? Who will be responsible for this?
The earlier SEO can be integrated into the business model the better.
Novelty
A startup is bringing something new to the market, something with novelty (though hopefully it has some staying power as well).
In fact, novelty is what linkbait is all about. It’s something new and fresh and interesting—whether it is something explicitly new or a new take on something familiar. A new product, or a new face on an old product.
I mean, check out Y Combinator start-up Matterport. They’ve got a little Star Trek-style scanning device that makes 3D representations of any object or environment. This is some link-worthy content if ever I've seen some. We talk in SEO all the time about content marketing, which can be an expensive or confusing marketing route for a start-up. The thing is, in the early days, if you’ve got an interesting product that is your content. Ignore this at your own risk.
And again this matches up well with efforts you will be making on other fronts. If you've got a really interesting start-up idea, you'll almost certainly have been getting links on TechCrunch or Mashable. If you're minding your SEO on-site, you'll be getting the full benefit these novelty-based links can drive to your site.
Efficacy of Partial Implementation
Practicing SEO is a bit like practicing meditation—full enlightenment is an ongoing journey requiring a lifetime of work, but also a little bit will go a long way. It may be impractical for your business to drop $10,000-$20,000 on a link bait campaign or plan a content strategy that reaches six months out. But if you could manage to do a quick technical audit of your site, even doing that will get you one step closer to success. SEO isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. It is fully capable of scaling with your company.
Next Steps
I think it goes without saying that I think the above premises suggest that SEO is really something that start-ups ought to be engaged in. If you have come to a similar conclusion, I suggest reading this longer essay on the merits of SEO for start-ups. If after that you’re feeling game, checking out the following resources:
- https://www.slideshare.net/tomcritchlow/seo-for-startups-9682262
- https://moz.com/blog/seo-for-startups-top-7-lessons
- https://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/link-building-tips-for-startups-a-new-free-appsumo-video/
These reflect a higher-level look at the problem of SEO in the startup context. Then try to take some first steps, such as:
- Running through a technical audit checklist for your site, whether it is already live or pending publication.
- Reading (or having someone on your team read) the SEOmoz Beginner’s Guide to SEO.
- Benchmarking your current position if your site is live. Which terms are you ranking for, or just tracking words for which you would like to rank. SEOmoz's Pro Campaigns are a great way to get started doing this.
- Keyword Research—what are your competitors trying to rank for? Have a go with the Google Keyword Tool and see what terms it suggests are related to those you think might be valuable.
- Get your first ten links. There are a huge number of tactics available to you—this blog itself has an entire category dedicated to link building.
Thanks for reading, and good luck in your entrepreneurial endeavors! Reach me in the comments below or on Twitter.
I think the best point in regards to SEO for startups is the cost of SEO vs. other media. I mean a key area for startups is PR, you need to get contacts with big tech websites to get your brand out their, you need to leverage the big players in the start up space to help syndicate your content, becuase like any start up you will get big if you get well known investors on board.
Overall you need to work ways in which you can leverage PR and SEO to effectivly target start ups and offer them an effective on going price point. I do agree with the stigma that some people place on SEO, I have talked with some start ups who are very anti-SEO and think it is almost the devil, but the objective of dealing with these style of people is to change their perception on SEO via training and things such as this.
Agree with James, the most positive thing I can think of regarding SEO and start up is the cost. The start ups that I've worked for had, as start ups without major invest. tend to have, low overheads and so no cost SEO is super appealing. The fact that, unlike PPC, the cost is purely one (time) and the reward can come over and over again, day on day, month on month.
I've never talked to anyone who thought of SEO as the devil, more of an untouchable and unlikely possibility. Not only "too hard" or "too time consuming" but also etheral and impossible as well as Google, pre-determined brand, untouchable.
The people in this case were obviously burnt in the past by a prior SEO agency who has offered the world in terms of "low cost" + "Guaranteed results", when these things do not turn up that is when you start to have problems. Hence I said it is about setting the right expectations from the start and about setting the right cost for the specific client and not offering the world and providing nothing.
Thanks for this post Ben, and thanks for the great references in it.
SEO surely can be and should be used by any startup, as it is not just a necessity in order to be found for your main keywords, but especially because SEO is a "state of mind", a data driven way of making marketing. Therefore, IMO, if you do good SEO you give a clear frame to your marketing efforts.
Said that, I consider that SEO is maybe not the most important marketing tactic to use, or it wouldn't permeate too heavily all the online marketing of a startup.
In that sense, Inbound Marketing (or whatever you want to call it: permission marketing, earned marketing) should be the way to go for a startup, because content+social+seo+cro is the perfect combination, especially for them. Their product/service/distribution system is or should be their main content, social their breakout force tool and SEO for the middle/long term SERP's domination. And we should not forget Branding, which can be the "hidden" secret formula of success for any startup
Then, we should also consider that startup does not mean exclusively "web based business". All the contrary, the biggest % of startup are in other fields (i.e.: bio-technology, energy...), so, we should never completely forget that offline marketing exists still and it can be very easily linked to your online activity right now.
Offline Promotion + Online Promotion = More Brand retention
plus some WORD OF MOUTH promotion and you have a business.
I don't believe ignoring SEO is a choice if you're looking to breakthrough in the market. At the same time, startups need to figure out how to go about investing in SEO as it will not be all that feasable for them to incorporate it within their marketing budget. Hence, your advice of scaling SEO with your growth is spot on.
On another note, I believe its a great time for startup SEO companies to build strategic partnerships with other startups to create a win-win situation.
Thanks for the resources.
Really well written! You covered so much ground and made it an easy read at the same time, no mean feat on such a divided topic. Loved your angle, I hadn't considered start up enterprises in terms of having such agility and control genius...........the SEO glass is half full !
Thanks so much
Jessica Constantine
Really Enjoyed your Post while Reading, such an informative post for me, it is good for new clients and helpful for them, thanks.
In my time as an SEO consultant I've worked with a wide range of businesses and inevitably, I've worked with a lot of startups. I'd say that SEO should be part of every business' marketing strategy (though I guess I would) however over the last year or two I have come to conclude that SEO isn't right for every startup business or rather it isn't right for every startup business to put too much emphasis on SEO especially if they are in a competitive industry, that's because if a startup isn't doing other forms of marketing they can often find the results SEO brings them, even when they achieve the top stops, to be less than fruitful or they've spent so much time and money getting those sector winning keywords they've spent all their marketing budget and probably more than the profits they've made in the process.
Most business owners are still getting over the myth that SEO will set their business on fire abnd propel it to the next level, it won't because every other business is doing it and lots of them will have more funds to do it too. The startups that can really benefit from SEO are those in sectors that are underdeveloped or those that have products and services that are so amazing they naturally get those links - invariably a lot of startups will fall by the way-side. I think that's only natural though.
Embiggen is a perfectly cromulent word.
Your agility diagram is right on the money. Start-ups and new websites need to just start pumping out content as often as they can. You have to build a strong online presence and authority, and content is how that gets done. New sites have the luxxury of being able to cut through the red tape that often bogs down older and slower companies.
Nice work! Stories about the "little guy" scrapping it out to get to the top are always a winner. And you hit the nail on the head regarding agility; if smaller companies embrace this and spin it to their advantage they can do much more with fewer resources.
Really Experienced your Post while Reading, such an useful post for me
Thanks so much
I think with shoestring budget, SEO is a good option to establish web presence. Often startups rely more on other marketing technique like PPC to generate leads but for long run, I personally don't recommend it. SEO and social media could fetch some fantastic results if conducted properly.
Really Knowledgeable your Publish while Analyzing, such an useful post for me, it is fantastic for new clients and valuable for them, thanks
I think it really depends upon the business. Inbound marketing is not the panacea of all things that lead immediately to the bottom line. I am stressing immediately here. I have been optimizing web sites and doing seo/sem since 1997, so in no way am I dissing my craft or its effectiveness.
Start ups need and run on cash. Sales/jobs/client deals bring cash in the door. It really depends on the market, the product and the organization.
Hey Mary, I do agree with your point.
It depends on business to business, and moreover its not always possible for a start-up to take time and cash out for SEO.
Thanks for the contribution Benjamin. I am building a start-up now myself. I gave you my thumb-up, however I wish you listed more details on how to use SEO for start-ups.
My goal now is to get 100 daily visitors to my new website. When this limit is reached, there will be a next goal of more visitors.
As an SEO guy myself, I am planning to incorporate SEO and content strategies. What I would also recommend to other people like me who are building start-ups is to focus on the quality and establish firm bonds with your target audience.
Hi Slava,
I am sure your start-up might be doing great. It is difficult for a start-up who don’t have any knowledge of SEO to do very well in it or start searching for how to do it and as a result start-ups do neglect SEO and later realize that they should have worked on it too.
Really enjoy reading this. Also thank you for the extra resources that you have included with this blog. I think that the earlier you include the best practices of SEO with your startup you will gain more benefits. Thanks a lot for the post.start ups need and run on cash. It really depends on the market, the product and the firm.
Thank you for ths article,
i am working in a SEO company, this company s start before few months, and your posting is helpful for me. thank you.
Great post Moz, i am going to link to it from my SEO Blog if thats ok?
Interesting take on the potential of seo for startups. In the past i have encouraged clients entering new markets to use a focused search engine marketing campaign for high value keywords in order to generate initial traffic while the site's optimization climbs the serps ladder, especially for new websites with low initial pagerank, however i have also found quick successes for some clients using seo techniques and longer tail keywords with low competition levels.
In any case, i've summarized your take on the importance of seo in a recent blog post on <a href="https://mgboyd.com/2012/05/29/brand-journalism-strategies-for-saas-startups/">brand journalism strategies for saas startups</a>, and have bookmarked this post for a delicious stack of brand journalism resources i offer to my site subscribers.
An inspiring and practical read, cheers.
Hello..
I think SEO Services gives many internet marketing and Business options for improve your Business position. SEO provides very effectively programe to growth your business.
Great post Benjamin - and the word 'Embiggening' made me laugh!
I think SEO should be part of an overall internet marketing campaign for start-ups; a campaign that encompasses branding, content creation, social media, conversion rate optimisation and general PR. I guess the problem for most small companies is where to start, and having the budget to invest in this kind of campaign.
Thank for SEO article provides and I am also impressed your SEO article. This article is very helpful for our business.
Hi Benjamin Estes, I think that SEO definitely is the answer to start-up online businesses, if you have a good seo plan for example you can try link building is a excellent way to improve the ranking of a website, excellent article really interesting information, I trying to use all this methods in my personal site webdesignsolutions-cr.com
[link removed by staff]
Such a good point - many start ups now are considering this to be the majority of their efforts.
As usual, a really good post. Agree with all you said and all the comments which refer to the cost-effectiveness of SEO versus other methods of bringing people to your website. SEO is after all, one of the 3 mainstays of Inbound Marketing's Attract Phase - the other two being Social Media and Pay-Per-Click.
The other 3 phases of an Inbound marketing strategy (when its power is enhanced with the addition of Marketing and Sales Automation,) what we call Inbound Marketing Automation (IMA), are: Engage (where you use your content to make sure people engage with the site and don't bounce away), Convert (where you convince them via the content that your content is valuable enough to register on site to get (name and email), and Nurture and Qualify until the prospect has explored enough of your site to earn a suitable Score and Grade to be promoted to your CRM and assigned to a sales rep.
But having said all of this, one thought about using SEO for startups. If your company has developed a new technology, one which shifts the paradign of how things were done before its arrival, people are not going to know what to search for when thinking about your solution. They will search for the older ways of solving their problem, not necessarily using the terms you use to think of it. In this case, you need to educate people first - a much tougher proposition. Although you should still do your SEO exercise, you will need to add other elements such as Social Media marketing into the mix, to generate higher traffic volumes.
For a product that is new or some new technology is to be promoted, internet marketing through social media should be the first platform as it will educate people that this is new product or service introduced.
After this people will know what to search for and then SEO will make more sense.
It's 2012 and I believe that any startup would ignore SEO at their own peril. I would not presume to state a startup should commit primarily to SEO, but when people are going online to find you and your product/service (and they will be), you must be easily found. SEO has its place in any well considered marketing strategy.
If a startup refuses to implemet SEO at some level in their marketing plans I would not waste time arguing with the decision. Chances are other poor decisions are being made and the startup will no be around long enough to to develop a mutually beneficail relationship in any case.
Right said Jeff. Start-up should at least do Local SEO aptly so that people can find them easily.
In relation to using keywords in content marketing should we just be using one keyword per post or article and should we be changing the actual anchor text around? I have read that if you use the same anhor text to link back to your site several times without using any other anchor text that your rankings for that keyword will suffer. Is that right?
When you are planning a blog post, for instance, you should always think what is the main keyword you want to make it rank for.
Once decided, though, you should somehow forget it... if not, the risk can be to use it all the time, which could make you writing looking unnatural and somehow spammy.
Just remember to use your keyword in those "places" that really counts:
Remember that Search Engines are quite good in uinderstanding the topic of a page thanks also to semantics. Therefore you don't need to always repeat your keyword. Write naturally, as you would do always... synonims, antonyms and related words/phrases... all of them will help you make your content ranking for your main keywords and many other secondary ones.
So... remember SEO but forget SEO copywriting :)
Thanks. I have been using the same 4 or 5 keywords as the anchor rext in my author bio when I write blog posts and I have noticed that my rankings for these keyphrases have fallen from page one to a lot further down the rankings. Should I be mixing up the anchor text more like just using "click here"? If I did that I don't know how I could help my keyword rankings though.
It sounds like you are including key words about yourself in every post, I hope this post about handling multi author websites helps.
https://yoast.com/wordpress-rel-author-rel-me/
(Although it does seem to mention Google+)
Really enjoy reading this. Also thank you for the extra resources that you have included with this blog. I think that the earlier you include the best practices of SEO with your startup you will gain more benefits. There is also need for the change of bad perception of SEO. It would be good if new clients can be forwarded to resourceful website like seomoz. That will help them to get an good introduction of SEO.
I think Yes, With help of SEO we can achieve good, generic and relavant traffic. I also agree with Live traffic medium like Social Media Integration with SEO ( It's too good ).
Strategic Line of Success:
Website -> SEO Help -> Social Media Integration -> Traffic -> Revenue
Thanks Benjamin for nice post sharing with us.
Start up businesses should use SEO as one part of their marketing efforts, in terms of whether it will be manipulative will be determined by their available marketing budget and timescale required for results.
This can be cost effective and powerful when combined with social media marketing.
SEO for startups is clearly a no-brainer. I don't believe there is anything "unethical" about any SEO - even black hat. If Google wants to take you off their search engine, then that is their perogative - if you don't get caught and you manage to sell more legitimate product then great for you/your clients.
That being said, SEO is completely legitimate anyway and even Google themselves recommend it.
SEO techniques really helps to rank a site, but you must perform the SEO strategies such as blog commenting, link submission, forum posting, social bookmarking and a lot more. You really have to spend time to do it or you have to spend money to hire a company that offers such services.
I would suggest that the single most important thing for a start up is to find the right appeal. That is, find the one thing that makes your proposition more attractive to a prospect than your competitor.
"I have seen one advertisement actually sell not twice as much, not three times as much, but nineteen and one half times as much as another. Both advertisements occupied the same space, both were run in the same publication and both had carefully written copy. The difference was that one used the right appeal and the other used the wrong appeal." Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples
You can test your appeal through PPC headlines and then test and measure.
Once you find your appeal you can start to concentrate on SEO so you know you are targetting the most profitable keywords.
If you start straight out with SEO then you may be targetting the wrong key phrases.
So, in my experience SEO is important in a start up but not as much as 1)being different 2) having the right appeal and 3) having a great value proposition
Hi Jamie,
You have rightly mentioned three points which are important for a start-up. 'Having the right appeal' is something that takes lot of time and effort and most cricial thing for a start-up.
Valid points. Although, one of my best friends owns a tech startup called lovetanks (it's based around the concept of the 5 love languages.) As most startups, he runs it on a limited budget, and he decided not to investin SEO (from the start.) Obviouslly, we all understand budget limiations. However, the terms love languages, and love tanks get about 300,000 monthly queires. As far as I'm concearned, that's easy money that he could be makeing.
I think Startups are like any other company. If you sell a product, or service, then you'll bennifit from SEO.
Thanks.