SEO FOR STARTUP BUSINESSES
Search Engine Optimization has come to acquire great importance today due to increased online activity and growing e-commerce. SEO becomes all the more crucial for any start-up Business with low level of brand awareness and limited advertising budget. For a start-up, resources are always a matter of concern and allocating the right resources at the right place is what makes or breaks them. So if you are a start-up business and are contemplating whether to take the SEO route or not, here are 2 slabs to guide you in your decision.
Slab 1: You are a start up with a product which has very low awareness i.e. your potential customers are not aware of either your brand or what you are selling. In a traditional PLC curve your product would be located at the leftmost corner. You are in the ‘introduction’ phase and you need to create awareness both for your product and brand.
Slab 2: You are a Start-up but there is already substantial market awareness about the product you are selling i.e. you are new but your product is not. In a traditional PLC curve, your product will be located in the “Growth” phase but there is very low level of awareness about your Brand per say.
In the 21st century the Internet is no longer a separate and alien piece of technology, it is an integral part of any business, no matter the niche. The opportunities that the web offers the start-up business owner are tremendous, as long as you know how to make the most of them. Here are just a few of the ways any start up business owner can leverage the power of the Internet in their favour. No one is suggesting that you get a degree in internet marketing but at least become familiar with some of the better SEO (search engine optimization) techniques and then actually use them.
Even the best website is only effective if people can find it, so be sure you have incorporated SEO (search engine optimization) tools into the site itself. Using the right key words (the words people will use to find your business) in the right places, including metatags for the pages and labels on the images, and signing up for the best internet directories provide a good start to getting your site found by the major search engines. While these factors are certainly not comprehensive requirements for a good website, they are very common errors that occur with small business websites that keep the site from being effective. Get your name out there. Use every legitimate means to encourage website visitation. This includes Pay Per Click advertising, Adsense, Meta Titles and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Now coming to the cost factor of Search Engine Optimization, it is cheaper than most forms of traditional advertising. True your marketing budget is limited, but you do need to make a trade-off in the right direction at the right time!
SEO is not for only small business out there. However, being a small-scale business has many advantages in terms of incorporation with SEO. Even experts say that SEO is perfect for small businesses. SEO is perfect for small businesses because SEO can greatly benefit business owners who cannot afford costly regular advertising methods. Obviously, many of these business owners do not have the financial resources to try the conventional way of selling a product. SEO is an affordable way of introducing a brand, making a network, selling a product, and gaining massive amounts of profit.