One of the biggest challenges for early-stage software as a service (SaaS) companies is balancing short-term and long-term growth tactics. Time and time again I see the daily grind incentivizing teams to prioritize the short-term tactics.
It could be connecting with that new hot prospect you found on LinkedIn, or hitting an old colleague for yet another referral, or sending cold email after cold email…sound familiar? I am not saying these don’t work, but let’s face it; this just keeps the hamster wheel spinning.
Hey, no one is going to blame you for having some serious hustle. But remember the classic startup dynamics; team members are wearing multiple hats, operating with minimal to no structure, and feeling the stress.
With that in mind it’s not surprising that often when the conversation about SEO strategy comes up, I hear a lot of hesitance. It is usually perceived as:
- Time-consuming and unlikely to achieve results fast enough.
- Expensive.
- Irrelevant now due to Perplexity and ChatGPT.
The irony is that for SEO for startups is still one of the more cost-effective ways to drive a predictable flow of inbound leads. It’s also not that hard to get started and develop a body of content. And Perplexity and ChatGPT? Well, where do you think they get the material to train the models on? Plus, it doesn’t necessarily take all that much time to start working.
The bigger issue is that many startups simply don’t know where to start. Without a solid foundation, your website will struggle to attract any significant volume of organic traffic.
This guide will walk you through the foundational elements of an effective startup SEO strategy, breaking down the key components that will help your SaaS company gain visibility, attract leads, and grow sustainably.
Why SEO Is a Good Investment for Startups
SEO is a lifeline that can help you outpace competitors without needing to auction off your coffee machine to fund advertising campaigns. Investing in a strong SEO strategy can amplify your online presence, bringing your brainchild’s brand recognition to the spotlight.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
You know the saying, “work smarter, not harder”? SEO screeches that mantra from the rooftops! While paid advertising can quickly turn into a never-ending cycle of pay-till-your-wallet-screams, SEO is the gift that keeps on giving. It scales without hitting diminishing returns.
SEO notoriously offers a hefty return on investment, sometimes in the realm of 1000%. This means your late nights optimizing keywords could keep dropping prospects into your funnel long after the initial setup. Organic traffic is not only less expensive to acquire but might also double your revenue compared to other channels.
Capture Active Buyers Already Searching for Your Product or Service
By optimizing your content for search queries that align with what people are actively looking for, your startup lands right in front of those individuals who actually want what you’re offering. This is the magic of SEO, it places you directly onto the stage of relevant searches. A smart SEO strategy can hoist your startup alongside colossal brands on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
Build A Brand That Your Customers Trust
Google rewards quality consistency, and appearing on the first search page often tells users one thing, “we know our stuff.” As your website climbs search rankings, users won’t just scroll by, they’ll stop, learn and develop a positive impression of your brand. The reputational boost from effective SEO turns your online presence into a magnet for customers who feel assured they’ve found a credible voice.
The most common startup SEO misconceptions
As startups navigate how to approach implementing a search engine optimization strategy, it’s easy to get tangled in myths. Here’s a rundown of some of the most misleading myths about startup SEO.
Misconception #1: It is extremely time-consuming and takes years to see results
While SEO is not a get-rich-quick scheme, noticeable improvements in search engine rankings and organic traffic can be visible in a window of 6 to 12 months. Think of SEO like tending to a garden; though it takes time, the initial sprouts often appear a few weeks in.
Meaningful improvements might happen within 3 to 6 months, but committing to consistent efforts beyond that is crucial. Like any strategic endeavor, SEO’s results are swayed by factors like competition and domain authority. So, while it doesn’t take years, patience (and a little faith) in your SEO strategy will eventually bear fruit.
Misconception #2: SEO content marketing is expensive
Many startups are led to believe that effective SEO demands draining the company piggy bank with expensive outside expertise and production facilities. However, the secret sauce to SEO is not a hefty budget, but rather, quality and strategy. It’s possible for startups to achieve SEO success while keeping spending in check by focusing on crafting relevant content that aligns with search intent.
Instead of cranking out a high volume of content and hiring a small army of writers, focus on creating pieces that offer true value to your audience. You can optimize these pieces for specific target keywords with affordable dedicated tools like Frase or MarketMuse. A well-crafted post will engage users better than a wash of mediocre articles, leading to better organic traffic and SEO performance.
Misconception #3: You need a lot of backlinks to rank well in search engines
Some think of backlinks as benefitting from quantity, having more means better ranking. However, it’s more about the quality and type that count. Search engines now prioritize high-quality, authoritative links, like those from reputable and trustworthy websites.
A few quality backlinks from respected sources will outshine mountains of low-quality links from dubious sites. Overloading on poor-quality links can make your link profile unimpressive and potentially harmful. For startups, focus on crafting valuable, shareable content to naturally attract backlinks from authoritative sources, thus boosting your search rankings in a legitimate way.
Misconception #4: SEO is irrelevant due to ChatGPT and Perplexity
This just isn’t true. Artificial Intelligence often draws from online articles posted by vendors just like you! Hence, if you can get your content to rank well it will in all likelihood be included in AI output.
The jury is still out on the best strategies to optimize for AI, specifically, but rest assured for now the more high quality content you put out, the better your chance of appearing in results. As time goes on we will undoubtedly start to see more and more dedicated products and services targeted at this application.
Launch your startup SEO strategy with in-depth market research
A solid SEO strategy all starts with in-depth market research. By getting a solid grasp of your audience’s needs, preferences, frustrations, and responsibilities, you can anticipate search behaviors.
Audience research
Understanding your audience and what they are searching for is the key to a great SEO strategy. One of the best places to start is collecting insights from your sales and product teams, who can help you delve into customer problems and interests.
Once you have a sense of what your audience is interested in, research tools exist to make your life easier. Some of these are even available for free, like the Ahrefs keyword generator tool. The idea is to translate what you audience cares about into the keywords they are searching for.
Use audience research tools
Audience research tools are your digital wingmen in this mission. Take Google Trends, which lets you peek into popular search phrases, giving you a sense of what’s hot or not across different times and regions.
SparkToro shows you where your audience hangs out. Think social media channels, podcasts, and even their favorite subreddit haunts.
Amplitude can help you unearth real-time insights into what what your existing website users are most interested in.
Google Search Console can also be a trusted resource from the horse’s mouth, revealing the queries that lead users to your door.
And let’s not forget tactics like review mining; Kelsey Formost from Tagger Media swears by it to unearth customer pain points, the perfect fuel for SEO keyword optimization.
Similarly Giuseppe Frustaci of Stick Shift Driving Academy struck SEO gold by tracking questions through paid search query reports.
When you embrace these resources, you gain great insight into the unique challenges and interests that define your target market. So power up with these tools, and start creating SEO content that speaks directly to the hearts of your audience!
Ask them directly
“Talk to customers” might seem like the oldest trick in the book, but when it comes to SEO for startups, it’s a game-changer. Mining gems like customer service data and even Google’s “People Also Ask” section gives you fuel for impactful content creation. By listening to genuine customer feedback and analyzing competitor reviews, you can craft content that caters to real needs, not just imagined ones.
Keyword research
Keyword research is the technical powerhouse behind any SEO strategy. It’s like finding the map that leads you directly to the treasures of customer engagement. The good news is there are tons of tools out there to help like Moz, SEMRush, or Ahrefs. These will guide you to understand what keywords the clever little minx called your target audience is using. Discovering these phrases ensures that your SEO efforts actually resonate.
Factor in search volume and keyword difficulty
Now let’s talk about the perfect marriage of keyword selection: search volume and keyword difficulty. Think of search volume like counting the number of party attendees interested in your shindig. The more, the merrier, right? But, here’s the rub: you’re not the only host in town!
Enter keyword difficulty, the ultimate competition between your content and the rest of the internet. This difficulty scale, from one to 100, is your spotlight, showing how hard you’ll have to bust a move to take the top keyword spot.
The secret sauce is balancing high search volume with a manageable keyword difficulty. Prioritize those lovely keywords based on how well they fit into the customer journey stage you’re targeting. This careful calibration ensures your SEO plan isn’t stumbling over itself more than it’s hitting high notes.
Build Backlinks
In SEO, backlinks are a hot commodity. Everyone wants them, and they’re not always easy to come by. But building backlinks enhances domain authority and boosts your content’s ranking in search engines.
While it might be tempting to pay for these links, and there are a lot of vendors out there offering these services, organic strategies will always serve you better. Think of it like baking a cake from scratch instead of using a boxed mix.
Build Your Site’s Topical Authority
Before you go off and start building backlinks, we need to talk about the importance of establishing your site as a topical authority. The heart of this lies in creating topic clusters, which you could think of sort of like assembling a dream team of superheroes each with their unique powers.
Start with a pillar page and add cluster pages on related subtopics. Tools like Keyword Overview and Semrush’s AI-powered Keyword Strategy Builder are handy, helping you assess and enhance through strategic keyword research and internal linking. Topical authority not only sets the stage for increased search engine rankings, but it also invites organic traffic to your virtual doorstep.
Obtaining links
When you’re ready to go off and start getting links, do your best to prioritize the most authoritative and relevant sites. This is where studying competitors’ backlinks can reveal hidden opportunities. You will also want to monitor unlinked brand mentions for your own company, and actively seek mentions in relevant directories and roundup articles to increase visibility.
When you’re really ready to get fancy with it, seeking collaboration opportunities with other brands based on their website and social media presence can be a great way to build up a great library of links. And don’t be shy about inviting key influencers for interviews on your blog, too!
Keep Optimizing and Updating Your Content
SEO is always changing. As time goes on, cobwebs grow on your content and SEO performance. Hence, you need to regularly optimize and update your content.
Seasonal content audits are crucial, especially for tech industries where relevance is slippery. For example, think about how fast things are moving with artificial intelligence right now!
Consistently referencing your research tools is important to put the spotlight on content that needs a makeover. Make sure you prioritize pages that have lost their groove (ranking).
Link Internally
Internal linking is an element of SEO that gets little love but packs a mighty punch. These are not only for visitors but also work wonders in helping search engines navigate your site.
By thoughtfully connecting supporting pages to a key pillar page, you create a roadmap that highlights the golden nuggets of content you’ve got stashed away. Tools like Ahrefs’ Webmaster Tools can be very valuable, revealing prime anchor-text opportunities to string your pages together.
Analyze Your Competitors’ Links
As mentioned above, referencing the competition is always a good idea. Keeping an eye on them might sound a bit like cheating, but in the world of SEO, it’s just good sense. The same premise you apply to monitoring your own content applies to this, too.
Look out for their presence in top lists or reviews. You might even be able to swoop in and scoop up some orphaned links from their old pages.
Get Reviews
Everyone loves a good rave review, especially when they’re about your brand! These are also pivotal in making your brand shine on the SEO stage.
Favorable reviews on platforms like Google or Yelp can win over the hearts of customers while serving as an ace in your SEO deck. They boost not just product visibility, but also lend a helping hand to your site’s organic traffic.
Don’t overlook those not-so-glowing reviews. Responding calmly and professionally can create positive impressions that you care about your customers and still work in your SEO favor. Engaged customers drive more queries, more visits, and more organic love!
Digital PR
While doing a lot of press releases has fallen out of favor, conducting digital public relations with online media can create a lot of links back to your site. When a reputable site like Crunchbase or TechCrunch mentions your startup, it’s an opportunity to be leveraged for organic traffic.
Some of these backlinks might be “nofollow” and not give direct juice to your SEO rankings, but the buzz can still lead to an uptick in your topical authority and even more brand awareness.
Even if a story didn’t give you the rank boost you wanted, the continued mentions create opportunities for networking and further visibility. If startups have anything going for them besides innovative ideas, it’s the novelty factor that often makes them appealing to the press. Don’t be shy to leverage this and seek out opportunities for coverage.
Common SEO sins
Let’s talk about the biggest SEO missteps startups tend to make and how to avoid these potential disasters.
SEO sin #1: Prioritizing your own messaging over search intent.
As we talked about before, understanding what your audience is actually searching for is very important. Yet, some startups have a tendency to prioritizing their own company messaging over what users truly want. I’m all for being on message, but unfortunately this approach just doesn’t work.
Search engine rankings are all about balancing your content for a combination of your message and user intent. The latter should always, always, always, be weighted more heavily. Anticipate what users crave, and make sure your content is not just promotional confetti, but a helpful, relevant guide.
SEO sin #2: Ignoring technical SEO
This scenario is all too common: a startup builds an absolutely stunning, show-stopper of a website, but it’s slow to load. Cue the technical SEO police! Ignoring this crucial aspect is a very bad idea that can put you at a huge disadvantage to the competition.\
Technical SEO ensures search engines have a smooth experience when they pop over for a visit. It’s all about optimizing your space so that Google can effortlessly crawl, index, and rank your pages.
Factors like page load speed, mobile-friendliness, and site security are not just jargon, they are seriously important aspects of SEO. Failing to address these can put a dent in user experience and send your conversion rates plummeting.
SEO sin #3: Neglecting brand authoritativeness and expertise
When it comes to SEO, search engines are big fans of the “know-it-all” type. Neglecting brand authoritativeness and expertise is a major problem. Startups that skip building authority miss out on a golden opportunity to flex their muscles and be rewarded with organic traffic.
The search engine gods love a brand that is a pro at what it does. To rise in the ranks, your startup needs to flaunt its smarts. Ensuring your content showcases brand authority and expertise isn’t just wise, it’s essential for crafting a formidable online presence.
If you could use some help getting your SEO strategy off the ground, don’t hesitate to get in touch.