Getting your startup on the map is about more than just creating something cool — you have to make it easy to find as well. Making sure you have good search engine optimization, or SEO, means potential customers will be able to find you without having to spend a ton of money on ads. We talked to some of Colorado’s top SEO gurus about what every startup should consider when trying to build a website.
To Holly Lieberman of C1 Partners, it’s a bit like the “Fiddler on the Roof” song “Matchmaker, Matchmaker.”
“I really think of Google, Bing, and Yahoo as matchmakers,” she said. “Their core job in this world is to match the right content with the right search. So it really all boils down, for SEO purposes, to how does Google determines authority, relevance and significance.”
In part, that means your site is linked to from reputable sources or has good metatags, page titles and the right keywords, but it also means you’re actually providing good information in a way that readers can access easily.
Creating a mobile website is one good place to start getting search engines to match you with users according to Adam Greenbaum, who helps build websites with WhiskerCloud. Because so many searches are done on mobile, Google ranks mobile-responsive sites much higher than static desktop sites.
“Ninety one percent of people use their mobile device to search, meaning that if people are searching with a mobile device and you don't have a mobile website, then Google says 'Hey, I'm not going to include you because you don't have a mobile responsive website,’” he said. “Before you even jump to anything else, the keywords and metatags and paid search engine results and all of these things, you have to have a mobile responsive site. That is so number one — I can't even stress how number one that is.”
But it can be easy to get sidetracked with SEO performance, thanks in part to a wealth of tools for tracking your site’s performance. Plugins like Yoast and webmaster tools like Google Search Console provide you plenty of details about your site’s level of SEO. While those tools are invaluable for tracking progress and any startup can use them, don’t get bogged down in the numbers too much.
“People overcomplicate SEO,” said TapInfluence’s head of growth Joseph Cole. “When you think about Google and their main goal...it's all about quality of content. It's basically a filter. What they're doing is filtering out all the noise.”
Accordingly, creating a site full of compelling content is the first step toward build a site people can find. Blogging is one simple (and nearly free) way to create killer content without junking up your pages. Cole said you have to blog relevantly and frequently, with content targeted toward the people you want to attract for it to pay off.
However, you have to blog intelligently, whether that’s blogging about how viral trends are shaping your industry or sharing a recent success your team has found. But you’ll want to go about blogging in a professional manner.
“You have to have good-quality content, you have to have well-written sentences,” Greenbaum said. “Google actually tests your voice and how you're speaking. So if you have a very passive voice, it affects your score.”
All three experts agree that SEO should be considered right alongside visual design when building a website. Google and other search engines don’t just look at what’s on your page, but how it’s changed over time. Picking the right keywords from the outset gives you a much more authoritative voice.
“It's so interesting how many clients we work with who have sites that have almost no SEO whatsoever, and they're like 'well can't you just SEO it up?',” Greenbaum said. “No, that's not really how it works. Not only do we have to change names, add titles, add descriptions—we also have to change all the content on page.”
That can cost time, but some changes can ruin momentum in other ways. For example, Google doesn't like URLs that are just a jumble of numbers, so reworking web addresses is often a vital step in improving SEO. However, that can also lead to broken links if you've already sent out emails or gotten press to your old URLs.
But maybe the most basic SEO tactic is creating content people need.
"Go talk to your sales team and collect the top 10 questions they get every day and then write about the answers and provide that as content on your website," Lieberman said. "Because if you're going to ask a salesperson, chances are if you answer that right when they land on the website, they're going to view you as more credible than a competitor who doesn't provide that information."
Images via interviewees
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