If you have recently launched a new company, let me go ahead
and introduce you to your new best friend … It’s SEO! The goal of search engine
optimization is to get your website to appear in the search engine results
listings whenever users enter certain phrases into their search boxes.
For example, if you run a pet training tips website, you
want your site to appear at the top of the results whenever a search user
enters “pet training tips” into the search bar. Achieving these top rankings
puts your site in front of as many eyeballs as possible, leading to an influx
of new traffic—and potential new customers—to your website.
Unfortunately, simply
writing good website content isn’t enough to secure these top spots alone. Not
only are you competing against hundreds of thousands of websites online, you’ve
also got to navigate the maze of ranking signals that the search engines use in
their algorithms to determine where sites should appear in the search listings.
The following five rules represent only the briefest of
introductions to the field of SEO. Start by applying these techniques to your
site and then, once you feel comfortable understanding the theory behind these
strategies, continue to seek out new opportunities to learn SEO and leverage
the practice on your site to increase its search results visibility.
Rule #1: Make Sure
Your Site Can Be Indexed
If you implement only one SEO rule on your site, make it
this one!
To see why this is so important, you must first understand
that search engines rely on automated programs known as “bots” or “spiders” to
move between internal and external website links, storing copies of the
information they find in the engine’s “index.”
Given the size of the Web, these indexes are massively huge databases
from which the search engines’ algorithms pull pages to appear whenever users
submit search queries.
Because these programs are automated and travel through
website links (referred to as “crawling”), it’s up to you to make sure their
path is clear. If the search engines can’t fully explore the pages on your site
(whether due to broken links, hidden content, or any other crawl issues), your
content won’t be captured in the index and won’t be displayed in the natural
search results.
The easiest way to identify issues that prevent the search
engines’ bots from crawling your site is to set up an account with Google’s
Webmaster Tools program. Once your site is enrolled, logging in to the
program’s dashboard will show you a list of any “Crawl Errors” that should be
addressed.
Rule #2: Focus on
Both Industry and Branded Keywords
Next up, you need to be aware that the practice of SEO
relies heavily on the identification of individual “keywords.” That is, the
specific search queries for which you’d like your site to appear in the natural
search results.
Again, keep in mind that the search engines’ indexing
programs are automated, which means that they must rely on arbitrary signals to
determine what your content is about and whether or not it’s any good. One of
these signals is the presence of keywords in certain key areas.
Continuing with our earlier example, if you want your
website to appear in the search results for the keyword phrase “pet training
tips,” you can increase your chances by including this search query in several
different places on your website (as in, in your title tag, in your headline
tag, and in your body content).
But since you can’t possibly optimize your site for every
single keyword phrase out there, webmasters must take a number of different
factors into consideration when deciding how to allocate their targeting
efforts.
As a startup, you’ll want to split your time between two
types of keyword phrases: industry and branded keywords. Imagine, for a second,
that you’re a startup accounting software firm to see how this principle plays
out in real life…
·
“Industry”
phrases include broad, generic search queries, like “accounting software” and
“bookkeeping program.” Getting your site to appear in the search results for
one of these phrases will put your new brand in front of people who are already
looking for the type of product you offer, even if they don’t yet know your
company’s name.
·
“Branded”
keywords include phrases based around your company’s name, tagline and URL. As
a startup, people might not be entering these queries into the search engines
yet, but by optimizing your website for these terms, you’ll be well-positioned
to receive additional traffic as soon as your startup gains brand recognition.
Rule #3: Choose
Keywords Based on Search Intent and Other Metrics
In addition to choosing a mix of industry and branded
keyword phrases, you’ll want to keep the following keyword characteristics in
mind when determining which search queries to optimize your websites for:
·
Search
volume: - Keyword research programs can give you an estimate of the number
of times every potential keyword phrase is searched for each month. The higher
this number is, the more potential traffic you stand to gain by ranking well in
the natural search results.
·
Competition:
- These same research programs will tell you how “competitive” potential
keyword phrases are (that is, how many other sites have optimized their pages
for these search queries). Unless your startup is particularly well-funded,
avoid high-competition phrases and focus on keywords that are likely to lead to
quick wins in the search listings.
·
Search
intent: - Obviously, the keywords you choose to focus on should be related
to your site’s mission. Don’t target the phrase “Las Vegas travel” on your pet
training tips website, no matter how attractive its combination of search volume
and competitiveness may be.
Once you have taken all of these different factors into
account, you should have a short list of at least five to 10 keywords to target
on your startup’s website. Then, add these keywords to your website in
accordance with on-site SEO best practices described above and with those found
on other SEO training sites.
Rule #4: Make Link
Building a Priority from the Start
Another key priority for startups should be to start
building inbound backlinks to their sites as quickly as possible, as both the
number and quality of the links pointing back at a site plays a big role in its
overall natural search performance.
A few of the
different ways you can go about building these critical connections include:
·
Providing guest posts for other websites that
include a link back to your pages.
·
Contacting sites that review products in your
industry and asking them to include your startup’s offerings on their pages.
·
Sending press releases to major news services
whenever your startup has an achievement to celebrate.
·
Disseminating viral-style content on social
media networks (with the intention that it will be shared on your followers’
websites).
·
Adding your website to any relevant business
directories within your industry.
Of course, these are just a few ideas for building links
back to your startup’s website. For others, take a look at my complete list,
“101 Ways to Link Build in 2012” (don’t worry, all the techniques described in
this article still hold up in 2013!).
Rule #5: Publish
Awesome Content
Finally, one of the best things you can do to optimize your
startup’s website is to publish awesome content to your company’s pages. This offers several key advantages:
·
When you publish awesome content, others in your
industry will link back to it naturally, minimizing the amount of manual link
building you need to do.
·
The more content you have on your website, the
more opportunities you’ll have to get ranked for different keywords in the
natural search results. This can lead to substantially more traffic than your
original target keyword list can account for.
·
If your content is good enough, readers will
share it amongst one another in a viral fashion, quickly improving your young
company’s brand recognition.
To ensure that any
content you publish meets this “awesome” criterion, set aside enough time
to produce great content and review every piece you intend to publish carefully
before adding it to your site. If you are not confident that your potential
content pieces will pass muster with your target audience, scrap them and
replace them with higher-quality articles.
Clearly, as anyone who’s been engaged in the process of SEO
for any length of time will tell you, these strategies represent just the tip
of the iceberg when it comes to website optimization. If you’re new to the
field, start with these five rules, but then make it a priority to learn and
apply more in-depth techniques in order to skyrocket your startup’s natural
search performance.
Source: - http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-for-startups-5-rules-to-apply-now/59439/
