SEO & Link Building for Startups: Benefits and How to Start 

Do you want to do SEO for your startup but don’t know what it entails, the benefits, how to begin, or if you need it?

This article contains all the fine details that you’ll need.

Is Startup SEO Different?

If you’re familiar with regular SEO, you probably feel there is no need for a different plan for startup websites. After all, SEO is the same for all websites. Right?

Sorry to burst the bubble, but startup SEO is a bit different.

How so?

At SERPReach, we have helped several businesses across diverse niches and verticals to build links since 2009. This enabled us to notice that startup SEO has 3 unique challenges.

1. Getting buy-in
2. Market and competition challenges
3. Minimal resources

Getting Buy-in

Unlike other niches or businesses, startups have boards of investors. And in most cases, you must get their approval on everything — SEO included.

Unfortunately, not everyone understands the importance and benefits of SEO. The challenge now is convincing these investors — likely neutrals — to buy into your idea.

So, what should you do?

• Maybe pitch the marketing benefits of SEO?
• Say something about how ranking high on SERPs will increase traffic and leads.

There’s one issue with pitching in SEO:

Improved rankings are not assured. Like the familiar SEO saying, “it depends,” SEO performance depends on several factors outside your control.

Unfortunately, no investor will invest in something with no accurate result estimation.

Market and Competition Challenges

Let’s start with the market challenges…

You’ll likely be blown out of your depth if you’re a startup in a new market. How?

• For starters, there won’t be a template for success.
• You have to make all the mistakes and learn from them.

On the other hand, say you already have an established market. There are some challenges with that.

• First, your products must have unique selling points to get into a tight competition.
• The market leaders had already covered the search intents and keywords. What more can you do?

Either way, you’ll waste time and resources experimenting with search intents, content, and marketing ideas.

Now, let’s discuss competition challenges…

Startups in uncharted markets will likely have no competition. With no match, you can’t do competitor analysis or research.

How, then, will you get touchpoints?

How will you get data-driven strategies to succeed?

Minimal Resources

Startups are always looking for seed funds. Funnily enough, this is not just a trend for startups without traction.

You still need series funding even if your startup has already gained engagement like views, users, or revenue. Each round of funds will be bigger and come with more responsibilities than the former.

So, what can we make out of all these?

Compared to other businesses, startups have minimal resources. Also, they have a tight time frame to achieve results. Otherwise, there won’t be continued funding.

The challenge here is that SEO is a long game. It takes at least 3-6 months to see results.

More importantly, compile your ideas into illustrations and include examples of similar companies getting results with SEO.

With these challenges, you probably need clarification about SEO for startups. Can search engines really help your situation? Do you need it or not? If yes, when do you need it?

Let’s find out…

Do startups need SEO?

No, and yes!

When you don’t need SEO

While SEO benefits all businesses, you might not need it as a startup. Below are some of such cases.

Testing Phase

When deciding on the marketing strategy or product to launch, you need quick results for your A/B testing. In this case, you might get results in a couple of weeks.

If this is you, SEO can’t help your startup. Here is why:

SEO is diverse and needs time, strategizing & restrategizing, and patience. You can’t see increased search ranking, traffic, leads, or conversions in a couple of weeks. You need at least 3-6 months.

Market Complexities

SEO is not for you if you have yet to fully understand your market, the nature of your target audience, how to speak their language, and how to nail down your product pitch.

Zero Awareness

No one is probably searching for your product for a new market or niche. There is no target keyword or search intent to optimize for when there are no search queries. In other words, there is no SEO.

Instead of SEO, invest in other marketing channels to raise awareness.

When You Need SEO

SEO can boost the reach of your startup. It can fetch more users, revenue, and angel investors.

Below are some of the best cases of using SEO for a startup.

Web-based Businesses

For a startup that bases its business activities around a website, doing SEO can catapult your reach and traction. How so?

People are on the web daily, seeking solutions to their problems. With a well-optimized website, search engines will suggest your business to these people by showing your business.

These suggestions are featured on search engine results pages. And the higher up you are, the higher the chances of visibility.

In turn, the search engine visibility will scale your startup and its revenue.

Long-term Goals

Any effective marketing strategy takes careful planning, action, and monitoring for success. SEO is no different.

For SEO, you will write high-quality content, optimize it, and build links. All the while, you ensure that your website’s technical, front-end, and back-end are functional and responsive.

Ultimately, when the results start coming, you can’t stop. Otherwise, your competitors will overtake you on search results.

Limited Marketing Budget

Earlier, I talked about how the minimal resources for startups can be challenging. Nevertheless, you can get results as a startup using SEO. How so?

A part of your seed fund will undoubtedly go to marketing your products. For fast results, consider paid advertising. This will cost a fortune, especially for a competitive niche.

On the other hand, if you can play the long game and only have a limited marketing budget, SEO can help. The results will take longer than if you have a robust budget.

Regardless, you will get the required traction to raise better series funding for more aggressive marketing.

Benefits of Startup SEO

Doing startup SEO has several benefits. But we’ll discuss only the top 5.

1. Enhanced visibility
2. Brand trust
3. Sustainable traffic
4. Customer and product research
5. Cost-effective solutions

Enhanced Visibility on Search Engines

Often, the only people looking up your website are your investors, employees, relatives, and you. While those groups are suitable for support, they can’t scale your startup.

To scale, you need enhanced visibility. Fortunately, that’s what SEO offers. SEO extends your website beyond your small circles, location, state, and country to everyone.

Note: enhanced visibility on search engines depends on your keyword rankings on search results. The higher you are on the search rankings, the higher your visibility.

Getting to page 1 (the first 10 results) is still a big feat. And such can get you the needed visibility to win more users.

User engagements and product downloads aside, enhanced visibility can improve your in-office visits. If your startup has a store, your SEO efforts will get prospective customers through the door.

Brand Trust

Visibility is one of many benefits of ranking high on search results. There is also the increased trust in your brand. How?

Let me explain with this example.

For example, say you need to learn something about content marketing. Then, HubSpot’s blog post was displayed as the most fitting result — you even got the answer to your query in the featured snippets from the company.

Another time, say you searched for email marketing tools. Again, HubSpot’s blog post was displayed as the no. 1 result.

What will come to your mind?

If HubSpot content is always number 1 on search results, Google must revere them. By extension, you’ll trust whatever HubSpot puts up. Even better, you’ll eagerly wait to see them and check their post in your following query.

Now, let’s relate that to startups…

The more prospects see your content in top-10 results, the more they will trust you, check you out, and be easy to convert.

Sustainable Traffic

The beauty of high-quality SEO is that it’s built on value and trust. The more value you create with your content, the more confidence you earn from other websites (for link building purposes) and prospective customers.

Hence, you will always have a stream of traffic.

Beautifully enough, only SEO brings the most sustained traffic. How about paid advertising?

Paid advertising is not built on trust and value. It is an ad that will likely not be clicked. Despite that, it is expensive.

In contrast to paid advertising, SEO strips away all forms of resistance and educates prospects about the benefits of your product. This way, you can get an unending bolt of organic traffic that is as affordable as possible.

Customer and Product Research

One of the core foundations of SEO is keyword research. It reveals what to write about, the intent to match, and the post’s format.

For example, say you type “keto diet planner” on Google search. You’d see results like this.

The results revealed a listicle is the best format and that the article should be informational.

In revealing pressing topics, keyword research also provides insights into customers’ needs. With it, you’ll know what potential customers are looking for, when, and in what quantity.

The best part is that keyword research can help create buyer personas. You can track demographics and other helpful market data with free tools like Google Analytics.

Cost-Effective Solutions

While SEO is not free, it is cheaper than other startup marketing channels. Besides, the money spent on SEO takes up time.

For example:

• If you hire a link builder, you do so to free up time to get more deals done or attend investor meetings.
• When you pay a writer to write a guest post or blog content, you do so to focus on planning other crucial details.
• The same thing applies to SEO tools. You subscribe to them to save time and energy from manual research.

Also, you can use several free SEO tools to get started. Prominent tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console are accessible.

For backlink analysis, you can start with freemium offers from third-party providers like Semrush and Ahrefs.

Ultimately, all SEO expenses are cost-effective. They save time and energy. More importantly, the ROI is impressive.

How to Do SEO for Startups in 5 Practical Steps

Here’s a quick overview of the steps needed to do startup SEO:

1. Set SEO goals
2. Keyword research
3. Create and optimize your content
4. Build links
5. Track & measure goals

Set SEO Goals

There are many benefits to doing startup SEO, as mentioned earlier. Pick one of the benefits at this stage and mark it as your goal.

But be careful of setting generic goals like “converting more prospects.” Instead, refine the plans into SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely) SEO-related bits.

Example:

• Generic goal — I want more users to download my product
• SMART SEO goal — I’ll increase the chances of product download by ranking in the top 3 in 6 months 

Now, you have a SMART SEO goal. However, the goal-setting stage is still ongoing.

You still need to split the overall goal into smaller bits like this:

• SMART goal
• Action plan
• Process

You’ll explain how you plan to measure results for the SEO tasks. How?

Here is an example:

📌 SMART goal — I’ll increase the chances of product download by ranking in the top 3 in 6 months 

Measurement: rank tracker tools from Ahrefs, Semrush, or SERanking

📌 Action plan — I’ll get 10 high-quality backlinks monthly

Measurement: use backlink and site explorer tools from Ahrefs or Semrush

📌 Process — I’ll vet and reach out to 10 target pages weekly 

Measurement: backlink quality checker and email tools

Keyword Research

Earlier, I mentioned how keywords are crucial for customer and product research. Beyond that, they are the cornerstone of your assets for startup SEO.

So, you must get this step right. How can you start?

If you’re relatively new to SEO, target easy-to-rank keywords. These terms have low KD (keyword difficulty) scores, and you can rank your posts with relatively few or no backlinks. 

Let me show you an example.

Enter a broad term into Ahrefs Keyword Explorer. I’ll be using “keto diet planner”

Can you see that the KD score is high?

So, I’ll tweak my research even more until I have an easier KD score like this:

Here is how to go about what I just did:

• Go to Ahrefs Keyword Explorer
• Enter a broad term
• Filter the search result with KD. Set it to a max of 20.

Furthermore, target competitors’ easy keywords. Here’s how to do that:

• First, identify your competing domains
  • Go to Ahrefs Site Explorer
  • Input your domain and scroll to the top competing domains

• Next, check for competitor’s easy keywords
  • Go to Ahrefs Site Explorer
  • Input the domain > Organic Keywords

• Add a “KD 20” filter to the result

Create and Optimize Your Content

With the keyword part done, it is time to create your assets: content. Like other niches, content is crucial to SEO (and link building). As such, it needs careful planning.

Here is how to get started:

• Model your content on what works — are the top results blog posts, videos, review articles, or landing pages? What is the format and angle?

How to determine what’s working on SERPs:

Type your keyword into Google Search

Check through the results

In the code of our example, here is a model of what’s working:

Dominant content type: Listicle

Angle: roundups of investment opportunity

• Ensure your content is keyword-optimized — use the keyword strategically in your content. And ensures it answers as many questions as naturally possible.
• Don’t be stuck on keyword metrics — combine your research with user intent.
• Sort your research ideas into a content calendar.
• Remember to milk your content for all its traffic. In other words, repurpose your content across different channels to get the most out of your efforts.

Build Links

Targeting low-competition keywords will only get you a little traffic. You still need to rank for the high-competition terms as they have more chances of leading to sales. Hence, the importance of building links.

So, how can you go about link building as a startup?

• Before searching for backlinks, use internal links effectively. Ensure your top linkable assets are linked to your money pages.

E.g., your high-traffic blog post should lead to your product or demo page

• Next, target high-quality backlinks from guest posts and niche edits
• Get your products feature on high-traffic “best-of” articles and buying guides
• Target quality PR links to discuss the impact of your products
• Lastly, check for cracks in competitors’ backlinks and explore them for your gains

Track & Measure Goals

You have done the groundwork — keyword research, content, and backlinks. Now is the time to check how well it all panned out.

So, how should you go about tracking and measuring your goals?

Let’s use our example from the “set goal” step.

• SMART goal — I’ll increase the chances of product download by ranking in the top 3 in 6 months
  • Tracking: how many target keywords do your website rank for, and in what positions?
• Action plan — I’ll get 10 high-quality backlinks monthly
  • Tracking: how many backlinks are pointing to your websites, and from where?
• Process — I’ll vet and reach out to 10 target pages weekly
  • Tracking: do you get replies from your email outreach? What is the success rate?

Ultimately, your bucket list should lead to the overall goal of increasing product downloads or subscriptions. This is when your startup SEO efforts have been successful.

What Makes Or Marks Link Building Campaigns?

The success of your link building campaigns, regardless of if you’re a startup or an industry giant, relies on two factors:

• Content
• The links pointing to & within your site (through the content.)

Content forms the foundation of your entire link building campaign. Without quality articles that engage, inform, and persuade the audience, you won’t get GOOD links from external sources.

Here is a little heads-up: not all links are good. Some will do more harm than good to your startup’s reputation.

How about the “link” factor?

We’ll talk about the strategies in full later in this article. But note this:

The quality of a link being “good” or “bad”  depends on four elements.

• Type — links are either “dofollow” or “nofollow.” The latter has zero to no contribution to your campaigns.

Google bots don’t even crawl such links. That’s your cue.

• Relevance — your links must be placed in relevant, industry-related posts. Otherwise, they won’t count.
• Editorial — even if the placement is relevant to your niche, the “where” is also critical. Links from blog comments, directories, and social media are not as good as editorials.
• Authority — like editorials, links placed on authority sites in your niche will fetch you more ranking juice.

Now, the basics have been handled. Let’s discuss the strategies promised from the start.

And don’t fret; the tips are not difficult to grasp. We made them snackable.

7 Link Building Strategies For Startups

Guest Posting

Guest posting means posting on someone else’s site as a guest. The site will benefit from your expertise. In turn, you’ll get exposure and a backlink.

Why guest posting?

Guest posting is the easiest way to build links to your site. Plus, several websites are looking for guest post submissions.

So, you’ll never run out of places to post.

The “where” is settled. How about the “what”?

What will you post?

As a startup, you can start by educating the public on how to use your product. Write instructional guides on how your service works.

Also, you can write roundups of products. Then, include yours as one of the new alternatives. 

Lastly, create users’ stories. Write around the testimonies you got from your demo. These types of articles are unique and will get easy backlinks.

But ensure you reach out to the RIGHT sites.

Linkable Assets

Just as the name suggests, linkable assets are exceptionally valuable resources that compel other websites to link to them. Consequently, this generates credit in the form of backlinks, all directed back to the source—your website.

But what exactly are linkable assets, you might wonder?

The GOOD NEWS is that linkable assets encompass a wide array of content, ranging from ebooks, comprehensive guides, calculators, and reports to FREE tools.

Here’s a clever strategy: pinpoint a straightforward problem within your niche. Then, craft a valuable asset designed to resolve it. This becomes your linkable asset.

Uncertain about what to create?

Here are some prime linkable assets that can drive substantial traffic and amplify your link building efforts:

• Awards and Rankings: Showcase any awards or rankings your blog post has received, garnering the trust of your target audience and improving your website’s credibility in the eyes of search engines.
• Infographics: Take a page from KISSmetrics, who’ve masterfully harnessed this technique. Regularly employing infographics, they effortlessly amass an abundance of backlinks, making it an astute investment in their digital marketing strategy.

By producing such linkable assets, you can not only attract more traffic but also establish a strong presence on relevant websites within your niche, supercharging your overall link building efforts.

• Coined terms — the “Skyscraper technique” coined by Brian Dean is an example.
• Statistics & reports — Muck Rack has several “State of XXX.” They often release them (the resources) annually. Those generate a significant amount of backlinks.
• Software or tools — Ahrefs Rank Tracker, Headline Generator, and Grammarly are typical examples.

HARO

HARO, which stands for Help A Reporter Out, offers a valuable service to journalists by connecting them with reliable sources for their stories.

These interactions can result in the sources receiving valuable links back to their content.

But why is this significant?

HARO links are considered high-authority editorial links, which are often recognized as the “good guys” in the realm of link building. Now, you have the opportunity to secure one for yourself.

Curious about how HARO operates?

To begin, you’ll need to create an account as a source. Next, you can select the niches that align with your interests.

Then, three times a day (morning, afternoon, and evening), you’ll receive queries posted by journalists.

Your task is to identify the queries that match your ideas or expertise and provide valuable insights in response. If a journalist likes and selects your input, you’ll receive a valuable backlink.

It’s important to note that this link building strategy does require some patience, as results may take time to materialize.

Nevertheless, the rewards in terms of valuable links, improved content creation, enhanced ranking factors, and a better user experience for your audience are well worth the wait.

If you’d like to cut the “waiting time” by half, read this article on HARO link building.

PR Links

PR, Press Release, links are similar to HARO. Here, you are still getting backlinks from journalists. The only difference is that you don’t necessarily use the HARO service.

So, how does this work?

• Write a newsworthy press release.
• Reach out to a journalist about the possibility of publishing your PR
• If the journalist fancies your story and publishes it, other media houses and reporters will follow suit.

The only issue with this strategy is generating a story that journalists will fancy. It can be tricky because journalists are picky.

Regardless, the following tips can help:

• Follow your desired journalist on social media. React to their posts and build a relationship.
• Write and structure your story or PR in a way the journalist likes. Check their shared articles for clues.
• Pitch your idea from a personal angle.
• According to Muck Rack’s State of PR, 2021, journalists reply to pitches on Tuesday. So, send your messages on that day.

Need more help?

Read this extensive guide we wrote on PR backlink building!

Unlinked Mentions

At this stage, your startup must have gathered some acclaim in the industry. Your guest posts and features on media channels should have shown results.

Not seen any changes yet?

Revisit the strategies again and add more effort.

Afterward, leverage your popularity. Here is how:

Because you’re still new, the chances are that several publications will not link back to your site when they mention you in a post. That’s an unclaimed backlink.

Fortunately, you can claim the unlinked mentions and get additional backlinks. How?

• Reach out to the author/website that mentioned your product or company’s name — but with no backlink.
• Appreciate the mention.
• Then, tell them you’d appreciate a link back to your site.
• While at it, share your recent article with the author. Ensure you share what is relevant.

So, how can you find your unlinked mentions?

• Use Ahrefs Content Explorer
• Type in your keyword and search
• Filter the search by “highlight unlinked.”

Broken Links

So far, the focus has been on getting traffic to your startup. Now, try something different: help others by fixing their broken links.

Why?

Fixing broken links for your sources helps them retain customers and convert prospects. More importantly, it ensures that their rankings are not reduced because of the increased bounce rate.

Plus, helping others show that you care beyond yourself. As a result, you’ll easily “earn” the backlinks instead of the pitches that might not be as effective as your domain authority increases.

So, how does this strategy work?

You can use several tools. Ahrefs is chief among them all.

Content Promotion & Repurposing

This marks the final phase for expanding your link-building campaigns, and it’s your moment to shine.

Take to your social media platforms and engage in conversations about how your products are revolutionizing the market. But don’t stop there!

Share images and video testimonials to captivate your audience’s attention, creating a dedicated following for your products and services.

Still with me?

Now, keep your audience informed by sharing snippets from your guest posts and your published PRs.

In essence, spread the word about your contributions on other websites. This includes mentioning the incoming links you’ve secured, especially those of high quality, and highlighting the pieces of content that have proven to be relevant in this journey.

Now, let’s delve into the concept of “repurposing.”

Content repurposing means you don’t need to craft entirely new posts for your social media. Instead, reformat your existing resources into content that will grab attention on social media platforms, ensuring that it’s the right type of content for your audience.

Common Pitfalls In Link Building You Must Avoid As A Startup

Link Farms

As a startup looking to build organic traffic and attract potential customers through high-quality content and various kinds of links, you may encounter link farms.

When approached by link farm owners, it’s advisable to politely decline their offers. Here’s why:

Unlike the legitimate strategies discussed earlier, link farms employ “unnatural” methods of link building. True to their name, these websites serve as breeding grounds for links primarily designed to deceive Google bots.

Significantly, Google strongly disapproves of link farms, to the extent that their bots don’t even bother crawling these sites. In other words, investing your time in link farms would be futile.

In the worst-case scenario, your website might face penalties or temporary exclusion from search results.

Such consequences can tarnish the reputation of your startup and deter potential customers from becoming part of your customer base.

If you want to delve deeper into identifying whether a source is a link farm, there are methods to explore.

PBNs

Private Blog Networks (PBNs) bear resemblance to link farms, with the sole distinction being that these websites have thus far remained undetected by Google Search.

So, what exactly are PBNs?

In line with their name, PBNs represent covert networks of websites primarily utilized to mass-produce external links directed towards a business or website.

Frequently, these networks are constructed upon matured domains, strategically employed to outmaneuver Google’s scrutiny.

Interestingly enough, PBN backlinks have shown their effectiveness. Nonetheless, their long-term viability is questionable, as Google will inevitably uncover these sites.

When this transpires, your website is at risk of losing its search rankings.

When considering a content strategy for successful startups, it’s essential to steer clear of relying on PBNs, as they can lead to the accumulation of dead links.

Instead, a more sustainable approach involves focusing on creating engaging visual content to attract organic external links and maintain a favorable position in Google Search results.

Grey & Black Hat SEO Strategies

Strategies like link farms and PBN backlinks are unacceptable practices. They are all grouped under either gray or black SEO.

There are more obscene techniques, like hacking into a site to insert backlinks. These extreme methods are all black-hat SEO strategies. Avoid them by all means.

On the other hand, gray-hat SEO strategies are mild. They boost the natural link building processes with black hats.

As a result, gray-hat strategies are equally BAD. Avoid them as a startup.

Instead of gray and black-hat SEO, focus on the strategies discussed earlier. They are white hats. With them, your site is safe.

Building Links Too Fast

Generally, link building takes time. In fact, it is the bulk of the work in SEO.

For starters, you will do link prospecting. That in itself is a lengthy process that will take days.

Yet, you will qualify the prospects. Then, you’ll launch outreach campaigns.

Of the lot, outreach takes the most time. It can run into weeks — and even months.

With that understanding, can you understand why acquiring backlinks so quickly to your site is suspicious?

You can build backlinks naturally and steadily. But it won’t be fast. And for that to happen, you need expert link builders in your corner.

Linking Building Is Crucial For All Businesses

It doesn’t matter if you are a startup or an industry giant. To reach the first pages of search results and maintain them, you must build quality backlinks to your site.

Link building is even more critical to the growth of a startup. Otherwise, no one will hear about your products/services, let alone use them.

In summary, you must actively plan for link building as a startup.