As a founder in 2025, you can now start a business in Lagos, Accra, Nairobi or Delhi and reach customers in New York, Toronto and London if you understand how to navigate SEO for startups to get your business in front of your customers.
But this is never a walk in the park. For most startups, the competition is really tough. With random changes in search algorithm, SEO strategies and innovations like AI, this is not exactly a great time to shop for organic visibility online but, some startups are acing it.
As someone who’s worked with a number of startups over the years, I’ll be sharing some of the key SEO strategies for startups and how you can use this top optimize your website to get leads and conversions.
What is SEO for Startups?
SEO for startups are key search engine optimization strategies used to optimize the web pages of a startup website to increase the visibility of the page in search engine results page.
The main goal of optimizing SEO for startups is to attract website traffic, gain new leads and deliver on conversions.
Why Should I Set up SEO for Startups?
As millions of people continue to use their smartphones, tablet and laptops to search things online, a number of startups have already positioned their brands to get more visible to these searchers using search engine optimization.
If you’re not positioning your startup for increased visibility then you might be losing the following to your competitors:
- Reach: Search optimization increases your chances to organically reach a larger number of audiences as a brand over a long period of time
- Website visits & Leads: Without setting up search engine optimization for startups, you lose the chance to get new website visits and leads over to your website.
- Customers: With the right search optimization strategies for startups, you can get your business in front of willing customers regardless of their location.
As a startup, it is crucial to optimize your website for visibility, irrespective of the location of your customers.
Define your Goals & KPIs
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Search engine optimization is a powerful strategy that can drive visibility, website visit and conversions for startups but you need a robust strategy that is based on clear goals if you want to setup SEO for startups successfully.
So, you want to start with identifying and clarifying your goals. Although search engine optimization is always mostly targeted towards driving improved visibility for your brand, sort out what it means for you.
Does SEO translate to improved visibility, more website clicks and customer acquisition or is it merely targeted at getting organic visibility across the search engine results pages?
When you get this part right, it becomes even easier to set up an SEO strategy tailored to deliver on this specific outcome. And you can easily measure the impact of your optimization over time.
Failure to sort out your goals can lead to a more erratic process and even less returns on investment for your startup.
Identify your Keywords
A number of startups in Africa and across developing countries are using search optimizations to generate visibility, website visits and lead generation but you cannot achieve this without using your keywords strategically.
Keywords are popular search phrases that users type into the search engines, to look find specific information. They are very important for content creation in particular and search engine optimization generally.
To set up SEO for startups, you must understand then identify and use the right key words and search phrases frequently used by your target audience to search for things relevant to your startups.
It might be difficult to find the right keywords in some cases but there are tools that can get you the right keywords as used by your target audience.
These includes tools like
- Ahref Keywords Generator which gives you an idea into the top search phrases used by searchers for a particular topic or word
- Google Keyword Tools: Gives you an indepth idea about what words users are using to search for specific items with the number of searches over a period of time
- Ubersuggest: Covers keywords suggestions, competitor analysis, including keyword popularity and difficulty to rank
- Google Trends: A peculiar tool that offers insights into search trends across specific regions over a specific time.
There are a handful of other free and paid keywords research tools. Using any of these or any other preferred keyword tools will give you an idea into what your audience are searching for.
With this you can use they search phrases to optimize your website including specific pages and content.
Optimize Content & On Page SEO
While it is now possible to launch a startup in your room and get seen across the world, you need a strategic content and on page optimization to get your business right in front of your customers.
As a rule of thumb, content optimization is a very key aspect of SEO for startups that cannot be ignored. You want to implement this regardless of the fact that you’re just having your website today or it’s been existing for years.
Usually, on page SEO involves optimizing the entire website to get it positioned for improved visibility and website visit. It starts with the entire website itself. From things as simple as updating your website title tags, meta description, header tags etc.
Head over to your website name and subtitle to get it fully updated. After you’ve done this successfully, update the header tag for the entire website as well. This is targeted at your website’s home page.
As soon as this is completed, you want to get on individual pages on your website. This includes your static pages. Also update the title page, SEO title and meta description tags for these pages.
When this is done, head over to the content on the page, use the header title correctly on the body of the text. Use the keywords you already identified in step 2 above to optimize the header and the main body of your content.
You’ll repeat this same step for main content optimization on the page. This is targeted at your blog posts etc. as much as possible, do not over use your keywords.
Focus on creating valuable content that is informative, entertaining and educational while being strategically created to meet the needs of your target audience. This is very crucial.
Implement Technical SEO for Improved User Experience
User experience is a very important indicator that can improve or reduce your chances at getting an increased visibility and clicks from the search engines.
Website metrics like speed or loading time, mobile compatibility, user interface etc. are part of the key measures used by search engine platforms to score a website in terms of user experience and overall placement on their search results pages.
While setting up SEO for startups, use the following to improve your user experience and technical SEO:
- Website Speed: Start with improving your website speed to reduce your load times. Use image optimization, browser caching and code minification to improve your speed.
- Crawlability & indexing: Ensure that your website is indexed and is currently being crawlable by the search engine. Set up your sitemap and robot.txt files for easy crawling if they are not automatically set up already.
- Improve website security: Install socket layer security protocols to encrypt user data on your website.
- Submit on key Webmaster tools: Submit and claim your website on key webmaster tools like Google search console and Bing web master tools
In addition to this, improving your website architecture, internal linking arrangement and overall navigational set up can improve your ratings as far as search engine optimization for startups is concerned.
Create Relevant Backlinks
Backlinks are crucial signals that can build authority and trust for a website, regardless of the relevant industry it belongs to.
As you get set to implement SEO for startups, I want you to work on building a solid backlink profile that will get you the credibility and visibility you deserve but even more, you have to be very strategic.
For example, start with building linkable content that other websites can easily link to. This kind of content must be well researched, packed with relevant information and data that is very useful in the industry.
Then focus on earning backlinks from reputable and relevant websites. This will add credibility to your web pages, increasing your chances at overall visibility.
While building search engine optimization for startups, I have noticed a number of new startups who attempted to get backlinks from just any websites. In most cases, this will backfire if you earn backlinks from spammy, irrelevant and low-quality websites.
As much as possible, prioritize backlinks from high quality and well relevant websites. Use backlink strategies like relationship building, guest posting and skyscraper technique to stack up backlinks from high authority and relevant websites.
Optimize for Local SEO
Local search engine optimization can get your brand in front of audiences in your locality or specific regions. This is perfect for startups with walk-in-stores or those targeting local clients.
When you’re building SEO for startups, use this as one of your core strategies – optimize for local search visibility. Even if you’re not targeting local clients, it’ll get you to rank for your choice keywords starting in your location.
You can start with getting your Google Business profile all set up and optimized. After this is done, set up local citations. List on local directories and business pages. This gets you a well-coordinated and targeted visibility.
In addition to that, consider using local keywords as a part of specific pages on your website. This could be plain website pages or content.
Diversify your Traffic Sources
As much as possible, do not rely on a single source of traffic to your website as this can cause a lot of issue if there’s a disruption from that source.
So while optimizing SEO for startups, consider diversifying your traffic from organic search engines. Try other channels like social media marketing, audio and video platforms, paid advertising etc.
Outside increasing your overall traffic, it will give you options and opportunities to have alternatives, should there be any disruption on your search traffic.
You can start with social media marketing. Create a page for your brand on the top social media platforms used by your target audience.
Optimize the pages with links to your website then start creating and sharing content on those pages, including content that links back to your website.
Repurpose and share your content on other platforms like forums, community pages and other channels. This will expand your reach, increase your brand visibility while also driving traffic back to your website.
Where you have the budget, consider paid advertising. This can lead to faster and well targeted traffic to your website.
Final Words
As you just learned, you can launch a startup from the small corner of your room and sell to clients all around the world but you’ll need to master SEO for startups and then use it to strategically position your business in front of your target audience.
In a nutshell, all you need to get started is set up an SEO audit, outline your goals, get your keywords right and then optimize your on-page SEO, technical SEO etc. and you’re good to get started.
But remember, it is crucial to measure your outcomes so you can always tweak your strategies and then work with SEO experts where you’re still unsure how to get your startups showing up across the world.
Now it’s your turn. What are your challenges when it comes to setting up SEO for startups? Drop your comments below.
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