If a website is badly placed on Google, it will not get visitors. Of course, this simple truth also applies to startups. What young entrepreneurs have to consider, explains the expert Sebastian Petrov.
Search engine bots constantly scour the web and rate the content of websites. The result determines which pages are displayed at the front when a user enters a specific search query. A homepage that appears far behind in the result lists of Google, Bing or other search engines is rarely visited. That is why search engine optimization, also known as Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short, has a central meaning. Especially for new companies whose brand is not yet known.
Content must be found
“The most entertaining and user-friendly content is of no use if nobody finds it,” says Sebastian Petrov from the Berlin online marketing agency seosupport, which specializes in search engine optimization. Nevertheless, you should never forget the user. If website content is written only for the bots, it would produce bumpy lyrics that line up recurring keyword phrases. For human readers, this is a torment. “Basically, you should create all the content for the users, not for Google,” said Petrov. Bad content brings advantages only in the short term, in the long run he does not pay off, says the expert. Because the site is found, but the visitors leave immediately, if they find nothing really interesting there. This increases the so-called bounce rate. And that in turn has a negative impact on Google positioning. Therefore, the goal of any website development should be to find a balance that is as balanced as possible.
SEO from the beginning
Anyone who founds a startup should not think too late about search engine optimization, Petrov advises: “A modern and visually appealing website alone is no guarantee for later success. SEO has to be taken into account in the planning and conception, of course, also in the technical implementation. “The website must end at the end target-oriented content with design, copy, video and communication channels. Programmers and designers usually have their own ideas about how the site should be built. But some creative ideas contradict the requirements of the search engines to the technical and content orientation. The following points must be right at the beginning. Therefore, an SEO expert should be consulted from the beginning. The search engine optimization for a startup opens up many possibilities. Established companies often have outdated sites whose structure and content needs to be redeveloped with great effort during optimization. On the other hand, a new website can be optimized immediately to meet current requirements. This includes, for example, a meaningful navigation structure that keeps all paths short for the user. The top categories should be named according to clear priorities. Overall, the flow of information must be effectively structured.
An investment that pays off
At all costs must be avoided duplicates. And the pages to be indexed must be defined. This means that the website operator regulates which subpages the search engine observes and which not. To note all these and many more points is an extensive task. There are two main ways of solving this problem: The company can hire an SEO Manager to carry out the measures in-house. Or it hires a professional agency as an external service provider. In any case, consulting on SEO measures can be a significant cost, especially for low budget startups. Therefore, entrepreneurs should not underestimate this challenge and pay attention to it from the start.