Startup companies typically have limited resources and tight budgets making it difficult to pay for SEO services. So here is a quick list of things a company can do to improve their rankings until they can afford to cover the costs for SEO.
Site Development – Communicate with your Developer
When you pick a developer to build a website for your new company, ask them about title tags and meta descriptions. If it doesn’t get discussed, this typically leads to 1 or 2 likely outcomes. First, the developer will often duplicate the homepage title tag across all your pages. This can really hinder your website’s potential. This would be like a book where each chapter has the same title. Also, Google warns you of duplicate title tags in Web Master Tools. If Google is tracking it, you might want to make sure this isn’t happening on your site. The second typical outcome of not asking about title tags, is the developer will likely wing it and write something quickly as they build out your pages. And as you can imagine, with this method, your results will vary.
So ask about title tags, and if the developer isn’t going to do them properly, make sure you do some research and write them yourself. To be fair to developers, it takes a considerable amount of time and thought to write title tags and meta descriptions. And you shouldn’t expect to have someone spend hours on this without specifically paying for it.
Create a Blog
Start posting to a blog. If you can’t afford to pay for hosting or development for an “on-site” blog, create a posterous or tumblr blog. For starters, this helps you to build on your writing and creativity skills. Also, you can use the blog to support your website by writing up blog posts that add something extra to an existing page or topic on your main website. If you have a page on “Running Shoes” do a blog post about “Tips for breaking in Running Shoes.” This supportive role of the blog can really help with SEO.
Don’t Set it and Forget it
I have been doing SEO for almost 4 years and I will often have to revise the way I lay things out for a website, after the fact. Rarely do websites nail site organization and marketing at first launch. I’ve seen the addition of a strategically placed “contact” or “rfq” button double conversion rates. Keep finding ways to improve your website and increase conversion.
About the Author:Senior SEO Analyst at Red Olive Design. I started out developing sites and helping with SEO. While I am now solely focused on SEO services, I still love a little coding. I graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in Psychology, and go figure, I didn’t need it for my career. If you are interested in learning SEO, I recommend you study websites that currently rank well, view their source code, view their link profile, study how they structure their urls, content, and navigation. Spend less time trying to discover the latest gimmick or trick. You might also consider checking for SEO companies in your area that might offer training or internship programs.
Follow me on twitter at @redoliveryan
