The web is certainly a fertile ground for all digital startups that want to get on the market: in addition to good knowledge of the dynamics of marketing in general and of web marketing in the specific, it’s good that startupers understand the importance of being visible on search engines. We are talking about SEO, the “science” of optimization for search engines.
SEO is a cross-business activity, and is essential to all kinds of websites, from fashion and food e-commerce to editorial portals of news or recipes, as well as to Apps and the most innovative services. But how can we rank our portal optimally? Stefano Brighenti, Managing Director of Pro Web Consulting [inserire link], an SEO agency specializing in search engine rankings, with a focus on counseling and training, even for startups, provides us with 5 tips for a winning strategy.
- SEO-driven and User-first approach
This approach is the cornerstone of our modus operandi and, for a startup, it is even more essential and natural. In fact, the advantage is to be able to work on a website right from the scratch or during development: having a SEO-driven approach means to work immediately, ex-ante, in a SEO key, which is far more effective than post-optimization (SEO-compliant). User-first, however, means to populate the site with effective and interesting content for users, thanks to search intelligence, i.e. keyword tracking and search volumes, to define ad hoc trending topics for market and time-span;
- Multi-language and multi-country portals
Internationalization is an increasingly hot topic in the globalized market. A startup that, for example, wants to market and ship worldwide Made in Italy products of excellence will face several challenges not only at logistical level but also on search engines level. It happens frequently that if a multi-language site is not structured properly, there are consistency errors between local edition and reference language. For example, the English language UK market – with all geolocal currency and shipping costs – is also displayed by English speaking users in other areas such as the United States, India or Australia, with negative consequences for both users and traffic levels. Be careful, therefore, to work in such a way as to avoid manipulation of organic traffic between different language versions of the same site;
- Quality content, categories and duplication
Google needs text to “metabolize”, among other things, to evaluate the goodness of a website: that is why content is increasingly important. It must be of high quality, written following the best practices of optimization regarding length and keyword usage, and must be completely original. In fact, duplication of content is one of things that Google less tolerates. For example, product resellers must verify that they do not publish the same descriptions suggested by similar sites or the same parent company.
Another commonly encountered issue, especially in e-commerce sites, is the lack of text in the category pages; on the contrary, this is indispensable, especially as keywords that make greater search volumes in any domain are those that address the macro-areas of interest, like categories of merchandise. And that’s not all: it’s good to use appropriate naming to categories even at an UX level, avoiding products that no user would ever look for if combined (“Gloves and Scarves” is ok, “Scarves and Socks” should be avoided).
- Mobile and App optimization
Mobile devices and apps are a major source of quality traffic: in fact, often the user seeking a service, a shop or mobile product is more geared towards conversion. Understanding this dynamic and intercepting your alway-on target is important for every brand, but even more for astartup: for this reason, it’s good to conceive right away on your site in a responsive version and develop a dedicated app for your own service. Apps can be optimized, indexed and displayed to potential users based on their search queries: app Indexing is, in fact, enhancing the visibility of apps on the stores to increase downloads and promote their use among the apps users who have already installed it.
- Channel differentiation
Let’s conclude this interview with a less technical and more strategic consideration at a business plan level: startups often consider SEO as a secondary activity, being an investment that does not bear fruit in the immediate, but in the medium to long term. In reality, it should be considered essential right from the beginning because it is one of the channels that provides the greatest ROI over time. Differentiating your traffic is key: being driven solely on generating metrics for subsequent investment rounds or concentrating investment on a single channel is risky for an immature business model like the one of a startup.