A Quick SEO Checklist For A Startup

Starting up your own business is a good thing. However, one of the critical things that you need to have for your business to be a success is a website that is on the first page when users are searching for terms and products related to your business.

Since this is the case, here is a simple checklist with some information that you are going to want to apply to get the results you want, and give you an idea of the level of effort involved in each.

Finding the Proper Keywords – Medium Difficulty

This is a tricky one that will take some work to do. It is where you are going to go through and find the keywords that you want to rank for. This is often going to start off as your business brand, but also what you are selling.

That is where the hard part comes in because if your company is selling dog treats it may be difficult to rank for the general term dog treats. In addition, you should also focus on and collate a variety of long tail keywords and search terms related to dog treats.

It is important to note that if you are using the titles as the treats’ names, then you would want to include the information or keywords you found in the tags and description of the product. This way you will start to be able to rank for those terms with those pages. That is something you can apply to any website or startup.

On Page Optimisation – Medium Difficulty

This is where you will go through and check each one of your pages for proper optimisation and inside of that; you will want to look at several factors.

Keyword density is something that you will want to keep between the one and three percent mark. Yes, this may seem a little odd, but if you go over that, it can be considered stuffing, and if you are under that you may be under optimised, and not show up for the terms that you intend to in the search results.

Latent Semantic Words is something else that you will want to take a look at as well. This is going to be terms that are related to your main keyword, but not the actual word itself. For example, hotels would be something like motels, lodging, rentals, and such that are related but not the exact same word. This, in turn, allows the search engines to know more about what your page is about.

Images are another aspect that you need to consider when you are looking at your pages. You will want to make sure your images are optimised as well. This includes looking at the title, the image alt tag, and the description. All of these need to be filled out with the keyword or LSI words to help the search engines know more about the page.

Content length and readability is another aspect to consider. When you look at the length of your content, you want to make sure it is long enough to get your point across without being overly wordy. At the same time, though, you want to make sure the content flows smoothly to guarantee the visitors understand what you are trying to say.

Off Page Optimisation – Hard Difficulty

This is one aspect that you are going to need to do right or you could end up causing yourself some major issues. Typically, off-page optimisation refers to putting your site in a position to gain backlinks. These backlinks are essential to ranking well in organic search. Here are two of the basic ways to do this and they are generally the most helpful as well.

Outreach programs are one of the best ways to build links back to your site, but they can also take a large time commitment and can take a while to begin to be placed. This method, which is generally considered safe is where you are going to reach out to other site owners and offer to do a guest blog post on their website. This will be done in return for a link back to your website. This does take time, but if the sites are an authority site your rankings are going to skyrocket.

Social media is where you are going to create profiles or pages with your links on the various platforms. This is sometimes called a social fortress, and helps show search engines that you’re “real”.

All of these are going to make a difference in how well you are going to rank, but it will also help you in getting the word spread about your website and helping visitors to find the site. Don’t be afraid to send a “like” of your own to your social media content; this can help the social media platforms be aware that your post is there and should be seen.

Being able to run your startup and make money is a good thing. The problem for a lot of people is they need to have a quick SEO checklist for their startup to have a website that is going to get them up and noticed. With this basic list, you’re ready to get started in developing your online presence.

How can startups best perform their SEO?

Given that 93% of online experiences begin with the search engine, SEO is something that just cannot be ignored.

Staying at the top of search results is also critical as statistics show 75% of online searchers do not visit the second page. Having a SEO goal to feature in the top four is critical because 96% of clicks occur in the first four links.

It is obvious that startups need a smart SEO strategy to leverage the immense opportunities that exist on the digital platform.

Here are some of the ways startups can best perform their SEO:

Set SEO goals. Your SEO goals have to be well-aligned with the overall marketing objectives. SEO goals can be related to:

• Improving engagement.
• Reaching a wider audience.
• Building brand awareness.
• Generating interest.
• Establishing your startup.

Focus on website architecture: A strong online presence can boost offline sales by as much as 78%, and 47% of consumers browse online before they talk to the company’s salesperson.

Before building the website, plan the architecture thoroughly and ensure each page is necessary. Every page needs to be linked to other pages, with no duplication or irrelevant content.

The URL or website domain name is also a critical aspect to consider. By including the right keywords and avoiding a lengthy URL, you can ensure a higher ranking of your website.

Research on keywords: Start by creating a list of ideal keywords. If this list has many of the popularly used keywords, it can be difficult for you to achieve a top ranking as a startup. You can use a tool for keyword research or perform a manual search to test what the first pages look like for the keywords you have shortlisted. Long tail keywords have better chances of coming up higher in search rankings. This allows you to grasp how SEO works for your target audience and how pages rank for your keywords.

Page title and tags: The page title gives search engine crawlers specific information about the website. Ensure the title has the target keyword but refrain from stuffing it with keywords. Ensure headings and subheadings are formatted correctly and have the right keywords.