Search engine optimisation or SEO is the magical way of getting traffic on your website for FREE. With most brands, whether D2C or B2B, products or services, local or global, everyone has been forced to get into the digital marketing domain and SEO is a critical part of it.

What is Search engine optimisation or SEO for startups?

It is the process or steps you follow to make sure your website ranks high on the search engine pages results or SERPs. 

So for example, if you are a skincare brand focusing on natural ingredients, when someone searches for “natural face wash ” on Google, you would want your website to appear on the top of Google search results.

In this example, “natural face wash” is the keyword the user is searching for and all the results will revolve around that. There will typically be shopping ads at the top of the page, some other sponsored results and then organic results. Don’t worry if you don’t understand these terms, we will explain them during the course of the blog.

Before we dive into the search engine optimisation and what needs to be done for it, let’s understand what is Google (or any search engine) trying to do. For Google, it is important that the users keep coming back and keep searching rather than moving to any other search engine. It is very similar to any brand trying to retain customers. Hence, Google is going to try and offer the best customer experience, which in this case means offering the best and most relevant search results. 

So how does Google do it? There are more than 200 parameters that Google tracks for every website and basis these parameters, assigns a score to each webpage. Based on the scores, the rankings get decided. Of course all of this happens in a fraction of second and the results are available at the click of a button. While there has never been an official release from Google on the important parameters, over the years, experts have identified some key parameters that are needed to rank high on the SERPs.

One also needs to understand that the process of SEO is slow and takes months for the website to appear on top of Google rankings.

Now that we know what Google is trying to do, lets dive into key elements for SEO. For easier understanding, let’s divide it into the most popular 3 parts:

1. On-page SEO
2. Off-page SEO
3. Technical SEO

On-page SEO for startups:

As the name suggests, these are things that you do on your page to make your website rank higher.

A) Keyword research

Search engine optimisation or SEO begins with keyword research. What we need are keywords that have high search volumes and very low competition. “Natural face wash” is an example of keyword.

How do you find the best keywords?

You can create a Google Ads account and use their “Keyword planner” under the “Tools” section. It is free to create an account and use the tool. 

One of the other way to find out keywords is to use the suggestions from Google. See the predictive searches that Google suggests while trying relevant keywords and include them in your planning i.e. to find out the volume and competition for those keywords.

There are many other tools like Ubersuggest, ahref, keywords everywhere and so on which offer some free suggestions and then there are paid options as well.

B) Inclusion of the keyword on the page for improved SEO for startups

Once you have narrowed down the keywords (one for every page of the website), there are different places where the keyword needs to be inserted on the website page to tell Google what the page is about.

1. URL – the first location is the url or the webpage address. This is something that the user might not even notice while browsing through the website but is critical for search engines. So, lets go back to the example of the natural face wash. The website address would ideally be something like https://www.brandname.com/natureal-face-wash. This very clearly tells the search engine that the page is “relevant” for the keyword

2. Page title – the second place one needs to put the keyword is in the page title. Usually, you will find this in the backend of the website and should ideally be less than 70 characters. This is an indication to the search engines what the page is about. This isn’t something that the users see / notice unless they hover the mouse over the tab in which the page is open. With usage through mobiles increasing by the day, this has become kind of irrelevant from the user experience stand point. So for a product page of natural face wash, the page title would be something like “best natural face wash for a fresh look”

3. Header tags – there are 6 types of header tags going from H1 to H6, H1 being the most important. Usually, the top 3 i.e. H1, H2 and H3 indicate to the search engine as to what the page is about. Ideally, you would have only one H1 tag on the page. H2 can be a higher number, like some headings on the page and H3 can be a pointers in the content or answers in FAQs and so on. Again, these are not something that the users can see. Usually, there is preset format for these tags in the website templates. So when you set a particular text as H1, it will be bigger in size and bold automatically. Hence, you have to be careful to not make the page look weird or unauthentic to the users. Similarly, H2 would be smaller than H1 but still appear bold and standout. All these settings can be changed if one has an understanding of coding and can change the theme codes.

4. Generic content – the content should be about 2000 words long and should have the keywords at the beginning, the middle and the end. But one has to make sure that it doesn’t seem as if the content is written only for search engines. Using the keyword too often where doesn’t naturally fit in is known as “keyword stuffing”. Again this is one area where the user experience remains critical and you have ensure a balance between the keyword appearing often enough but not too much 

5. Meta title – Meta title is what appears in the search results, as the clickable link. Again, having the keyword here is critical. Here it is also important to keep in the mind what is the search intent of the user and hence what should the title say to make it compelling enough for the users to click. It is always a good idea to keep the length of the the meta title at less than 60 characters.

6. Meta description – This is the description that appears along with the meta title in the search engine results. Again, it needs to have the keyword yet appear compelling enough for the user to click on it. Going back to the example of the natural face wash, one would write something like “this natural face wash helps cleanse the skin and give it a glow like never before” if you think skin cleansing and glow are the two most critical parameters for the users. Depending on what the users value most, the meta title and description need to change to not only be able to rank high in the search results but also get clicks for the website.

C) Image optimisation

Apart from the size of the image (which we will talk about later in the blog), it is also advisable to have an alt text of the image and a correct file name. Alt text is nothing but describing the image in words. So while Google cannot “read an image” the alt text tells Google what the image is about. As a good practice, always have the filename also saved depending on what the image is rather than default names. Again, this helps Google identify the image. Using the targeted keyword in both these helps not only the page rank higher but also helps the image rank higher in case of image searches.

To summarise, on-page SEO is a mix of what you do for the search engine without compromising the user experience or the content that the user reads. Remember the longer the users spend on your page or “dwell time” the better the chance of you ranking higher. So create great content that adds value to the readers and then optimise it for the search engines rather than the other way around.

Off-page SEO for startups:

One would wonder what can one do outside the website to improve the rankings. But this is as critical as the on-page parameters if not more. So what does one do under off-page SEO. It is essentially about getting “backlinks”. Backlinks are nothing but other website giving your reference in the form of using your website url on their website. It something like voting – whoever gets more votes (or backlinks in this case) gets a better rank. 

Why would anyone give your link on their website?

If you write great content, original and that adds value to the users of a particular website, they will be more than happy to give you links. For example, we have given backlinks to Ubersuggest, ahref etc. in the earlier section.

You could write a guest blog – Many websites invite guest bloggers and give a backlink in return for the efforts of writing an original blog.

You could leave comment in the blogs section – if you have written a blog on a similar content with a different point of view or extending the opinion further, you could give the link of your blog in the comments for the blog on a website. Many websites do not allow this though.

You could send messages to influencers in your domain – You could share your link with the influencer and if your content is good, they will re-share it not only giving reach to the content but also making it visible to other websites to refer and give backlinks.

Refer to your blog on Quora – answer relevant questions from the niche and mention the link to your blog in answers on websites like Quora or Reddit.

What kind of websites do you need backlinks from?

The websites should not be spam websites or “backlink farms”. The higher their domain authority (again something Google measures and get built up by getting backlinks from others) the better it is. It is like an influencer referring a product, only this case the influencer in the website you want a backlink from and the target audience is Google or any other search engine.

Technical SEO for startups

This part of SEO needs some bit of understanding of the technical details of the website. For many things though, there are plugins available on the popular website development platforms.

(i) Page speed

The first and basic hygiene factor is that the loading speed of the site should be good. There are various ways in which one can improve the site speeds. Firstly, the size of the page should be small. Usually, while making an e-commerce website, we love to put in high resolution images or heavy videos to make the page look impressive. This in turn increases the size of the page taking it longer to load. So, while the page looks very good, it will not rank high on Google. There has to be balance between the size and quality of the images / other content on the page. The page speed also depends on what all plugins are being used since each plugin takes sometime to load. Depending on speed and criticality of the plugin, you need to strike the right balance. There is a tool for Google that helps you check the speed, gives you pointers on what you can do to improve it and so on. You can access it here.

ii) Mobile friendliness

With most browsing happening through handheld devices, it is critical that the website is mobile friendly, not only from the user experience point of view but also from ranking higher on the SERPs. This has now become a common feature for most platforms providing website development options, the most popular ones being Shopify and WordPress.

iii) Having a https website

Having a secure website i.e. HTTPS and not HTTP is a basic factor that Google will look at to rank websites. It is a matter of taking an SSL certificate for your website. There are various ways of doing it, easiest way being through the domain provider. 

iv) Links and content

It is always a good practice to have internal linking on the website – from one blog to another or from one product page to another etc. It is also important to not create pages that do not have any links anywhere i.e. orphan pages and you should not have any broken links i.e. links that might lead to 404 errors on the website. Another best practice for linking is to provide “breadcrumbs” – the flow in which you can see where are you navigating on the website. 

Going back to the natural face wash example, the breadcrumb would look like Home >> Natural products >> face washes, appearing typically just below the main navigation bar. This helps Google understand the site structure better and also helps users in navigation. 

Even in terms of content, it is important to make sure that there is not a lot of repetitive or duplicate content on the website. This hampers the rank on Google as it thinks the content is of little or no value and is being only created for Google and not for a good user experience.

v) Schema markups

There are different types of schema markups for different types of pages – blogs, product pages, FAQs, etc. It is standardised code that is embedded into the websites code. By providing context to search engines, schema markup enhances how your content is displayed in search results, often enabling rich snippets such as reviews, star ratings, product details, FAQs, and more. 

vi) Crawlability

You have to “inform” Google about your website when it launched and whenever new pages are added. How do you do this? Give the path of your sitemap.xml to Google in the search console. Lets break it down one by one. 

What is search console?

Google search console is a Google tool that helps you with everything related to search results. What keywords have had what volumes and where did you rank on them and so on.

So you need to register on google search console and enter the path of your sitemap.xml. 

What is this file? It is a like skeletal structure or a list of all pages on your website. 

How do you get it? Most website development platforms have it created automatically and is usually available as https://websitename.com/sitemap.xml. In case it doesn’t exist there, you can find plugins to create it for you. 

Also, if there are pages that you do not want Google to crawl, you can upload the same in the “robots.txt” on the search console and inform Google about it.

What has changed recently and is expected to change soon?

1) Voice searches are gaining traction

How does this impact SEO? The search terms are becoming longer (known as long tail words – more than 3-4 words). Also, the searches are seeing a more regional languages for the search as against most of it being in English in the past.

2) Meta is piloting ad-free premium versions of its networks

If you are relying heavily social media marketing i.e. running paid ads on Meta (Facebook and Instagram), soon you might suffer a setback. Meta is piloting a subscription model wherein the users do not see any ads. Imagine others social media platforms replicating this model. The most premium users or high end clients for your brand, would have moved to these subscriptions and not see any more ads making it all the more difficult to reach them. But they will still search for details / products. Hence, SEO and efforts on branding and customers retention becomes super critical.

3) Interactive search and its impact on SEO for startups

Whether it is ChatGPT or the expected Google versions, search is going to become more interactive. Also, what Google is trying achieve over the next couple of years is that the transaction happens on the search page itself. So imagine looking for the natural face wash, “asking” Google to refine the search basis a particular fragrance or for a particular skin type and then buying it on the search page itself using Google Pay. How will SEO for startups remain relevant? It still remains relevant to make sure your product appears on the search results and stays there as the searches are refined. Also, relevance continues to drive traffic to the website on non-sale related queries / answers.

It remains an exciting world as far as digital marketing and SEO is concerned. So whether you are a just starting out or have had a website for sometime, it is time to up your SEO game if you want to remain relevant in the long term. Consistent efforts, constant updates and correct strategies can lead you to success. 

If this seems overwhelming, reach to our team for a free website audit at team@rbcind.pro. 

Or if you are looking to raise funds, looking for world class mentoring and coaching or wanting to grow through expert marketing strategies, feel free to check out our services. Also, if you would like a quick assessment of your business for free, you can submit the details here.