Making SEO Your New BFF

Are you a startup pretending to understand SEO? You aren't the only one. The basics are pretty simple and easy to miss. Yet SEO can increase your brand awareness by leaps and bounds. Here are some helpful hints so that you can avoid awkward conversations of pretending to have a clue when you hear the term SEO buzzing around.SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it helps people who are looking to find your product or service. The goal of SEO isn’t to cheat the search engines, but rather to create a great user experience. It communicates your intentions to the search engines so they can recommend your website for relevant searches. It’s so easy to get caught in the trap of thinking about SEO as just free traffic to your website, but you have to keep in mind that it matters what kind of traffic you are bringing to your site. This means you have to match the content on your website to what people are trying to find and then make sure your goals match the goals of your visitors.So first you have to figure out what you want, and then optimize for keywords that bring in visitors who want the same things. But how do you choose the right keywords to attract that traffic? Plain and simple folks, research. And lots of it. We suggest starting by identifying keywords that have a high search volume, have low competition, and are supported by your content. This means you want keywords that are being searched for often, don’t have very many results, and are relevant to your website. One of our favorite free tools to start this process is WordStream’s Keyword Tool. You simply choose words that apply to your company and you can see the Google Search Volume for each keyword & other similar keywords.So now that you have gotten acquainted, it’s time to become real BFF’s with SEO. You don’t want to waste your time reading content that isn’t fun and engaging, so why would anyone else? Writing solely for search engines usually leads to stale, boring content and that does not lead to new customers (the opposite of our end goal here). Pay special attention to titles, keywords, and the overall quality and voice of what you write. Does it reflect you and your brand while also attracting your customer?Finally, link to other relevant pages throughout your content and throughout the rest of the internet. By linking to blogs that you have written in the past, upcoming events, or any other content on your site that relates, you keep users going down the rabbit hole of amazing information on your site. By linking to content on other people’s sites, it expands your reach to people who would not have normally found you. It may also cause that other site to notice you have linked to them and they will link to you in the future - creating positive internet relationships is important.SEO is a simple and easy way to get your product and services in front of the right people. Want to keep learning? Here are a couple of podcasts we recommend when diving into the more advanced SEO tactics: Search Engine Nerds&SEO Podcast Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. And remember, your basic SEO efforts should be noticeable within about 6 months. So if you aren’t noticing changes consider contacting a professional who can get you set up for your startup’s SEO success. Be sure to keep your eye on the Atlanta Tech Village website for upcoming workshops on SEO, like the Advanced SEO Tactics for 2018 Workshop on April 24th. May the SEO odds be ever in your favor.