Every business has a start. It’s so obvious when we talk about brick and mortar businesses but many people see it differently when it comes about a web-based-business. In fact, when it comes to a web business I think it’s even harder. In real life you’ll open a business in a place where there are already shops and other businesses.
Starting a business on the web can be like opening a shop in the middle of nowhere: there are no roads to you, no buses, nobody knows you exist. SEO and Internet Marketing have to be your main tools: you either pay for ads to drive traffic or you pay for SEO and build optimized content for organic searches.
Don’t Do This Mistake
One of the biggest mistakes that you could do, when you are just starting, is invest time and money to rank well on organic searches for really competitive terms or keywords that are dominated on the first page by high-authority websites.
Some would argue that you should aim high from the first day and go for the big keywords because it will get you big traffic. I don’t want to get me wrong: the final goal will be to get traffic from big terms but, in my opinion, you have to start at the bottom in order to get to the top.
If you open a clothing business, do you think you can do it right next door from (or compete with) Armani, from the first day? Why is it so obvious in real life and people act so blindly when it comes to the web?
Planning and Goals
If you decide to invest in SEO you should think about two main things:
- Optimizing the content that already exists
- Building new optimized content
It doesn’t matter if you are just starting your business or not: having a plan and establishing some goals it’s common sense. So, when you start an SEO campaign you should think of some things that you want to improve: metrics like bounce rate, traffic, rankings, returning visitors.
If you want to build new content don’t just go and assume you know what people are searching just because you use those keywords to search for your business. Build a keyword list that has information on the volume of monthly searches, competition, main keywords and related long tail keywords, areas where those searches are being made and so on.
A keyword list should also come with a plan on how to use it: how to target keywords in content, how to link articles, what long tail keywords are related to what main keywords and so on. If you go and skip this step it’s like walking blind on the street: you can bang your head on a wall or you can safely get home – you never know what the next step will bring you.
What Do You Think?
How important is SEO for your business? Are you willing to invest in a keyword list before you start building new content? Do you know what your market is searching for, what are the rising trends and how to properly target the keywords in content? Share your ideas and thoughts in comments bellow.
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