How to make SEO work for your business

Hi ?? Did you know that 68% of all online activities start with a search engine??

This week we’re talking about an area of marketing which often feels shrouded in mystery: SEO.?

What I usually see with startups is to ignore SEO, run riot with keywords, or pay over the odds for agency support. SEO is core to any sustainable marketing strategy so I’ve teamed up with SEO expert?Yaser Ayub to create this quick guide to knowing what you can do yourself and at what point to bring in an expert.?

What is SEO?

As a startup, your aim is to get in front of people actively looking for a solution like yours. The aim of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is to get to a good position on search engines such as Google.?

A “good” position is subjective, but in most cases, you are aiming to get to the top of search results, especially as 75% of searchers never click past the first page of results.?

The first few results on search engines are ads (Pay Per Click). PPC keyword data is great for underpinning SEO strategies, for example: a year of PPC will give you a treasure trove of data about which keywords are converting. If you do go down this route, we recommend investing in SEO-powered content at the same time.?

One of the core principles of SEO is to have useful, accurate content which brings users to your website and keeps them there - and this can only ever be a good thing for your business.?

Three ways to approach SEO for your business:

? Do it yourself

DIY SEO is a great option if you are starting out and bootstrapped or if you aren’t reliant on being found online to grow your business. If you take this approach, our advice is to invest in SEO training, tools and a professional-looking website at the absolute minimum.?

A good training course and knowledge of the right tools will mean you can:

• Research keywords to understand what your audience is looking for and create content around this
• Structure your website so that’s it’s easy for users to navigate - a good training course will cover the technical fundamentals to do this
• Optimise your content to get it in front of your audience
• Review analytics and find out what’s working and what’s not, and make improvements
• Install an SEO plugin on your website such as Yoast or Rank Math, which will help you to structure pages and write SEO-friendly copy

You’ll find our favourite resources at the bottom of this newsletter ??

? Work with an SEO specialist?

A specialist is a good option if you are growing and need help and advice to manage your SEO. Once you start to explore link building and technical SEO, a specialist will add value with their knowledge and experience.?

If you go down this route, this doesn’t mean that SEO is off your hands completely. You’ll need to work with your chosen specialist to agree goals, create content and review analytics.?

? Bring SEO in-house

Employing an in-house SEO specialist means: 1. You have enough work to employ somebody and 2. You need access to an expert full-time. This usually happens when SEO plays a big role in your business’ success, for example in e-commerce or as your team grows and skillsets are brought in-house, circa Series A.?

SEO is not a silo and all three approaches can be blended. Your in-house marketing team can work with an SEO specialist. And if you’re doing it yourself, you can bring in a specialist to consult and train you on SEO. A good specialist will give you advice on what’s right for your business.

???Training and tools

Keep an eye out for digital marketing events near you to learn from the experts and keep your SEO skills up-to-date. Our team rates Brighton SEO and Nottingham Digital Summit.

Our Scale Up Accelerator syllabus includes SEO with Yaser. You can do this through our self-guided online programme (which will be up and running very soon) or on the next cohort with live sessions and expert feedback.?

Yaser’s favourite SEO tool is Google Console, one of the best tools for keyword research, reviewing links and search engine performance. Here’s what he says about it: “People rely too heavily on out of the box subscription tools, but Google Search console is FREE and the data is awesome!”

We also love Moz. They have a great blog, a beginners guide to SEO and their famous Whiteboard Fridays are free to subscribe to to learn more about SEO.?

Finally, check out Screaming Frog for SEO audits, Ahrefs for keyword and competitor research and Surfer SEO for optimising content.

I hope this has helped de-bunk SEO - are there any other tools you have found useful? Let me know.?

Lucy ??

PS If you want to know my top marketing secrets for a Series A Fundraise, I'll be talking about this next week at a SeedLegals masterclass.?