Marketing is one of the most essential investments a startup can make. As a new arrival, building brand awareness will need to be a top priority. But it can be tough to invest as much as you really should be into online marketing.
So here are 5 budget friendly strategies for optimizing your site effectively:
#1 Content, Content, Content.
The more content your website has, the better off you will be. Not only does this give Google more to search through and find relevant but it makes your website more thorough and in depth. So to start, you should make sure every single page of your site should have at least 400 words on it.
#2 Don’t Duplicate Content.
This won’t get you an official penalty but it will lower your ranking on Google. Duplicate content confuses the robots. You want as much fresh and original content as possible. You can easily scan your entire site for duplicate content by using Google’s webmaster tools to identify each instance of duplicate content.
#3 Work with Experts.
Hiring an outside firm can seem like an expense you can’t justify right now but it can actually be the smartest way to spend your limited marketing budget. While you might think you can optimize your site “for free” on your own, you have to consider the following factors:
- You are not an SEO expert and SEO is not something you can learn in a day.
- Time you spend on SEO is time taken from your real passions.
With experts who can help you with social media, SEO, and other online marketing essentials, you really get the most value for your marketing budget.
#4 Use Internal Links.
Linking between different pages on the same website accomplishes a lot of things. First of all, it increases the time users stay on your site. Internal links help users discover additional related content on your site. That improves their user experience and makes your website seem like a rich source of relevant and thorough information.
It also helps move you up the rankings as the robots will view your website as more relevant for the keyword you are trying to rank for.
#5 Don’t Forget Your Images.
With all the focus on optimizing the text with the right keywords and features, many forget that the robots are scanning your images as well. So you need to make sure that these are also optimized to increase the relevancy of your page. You can do that by following these steps:
- Rename the image file using the keyword you are trying to rank for.
- Provide an image title that uses that keyword and describes the image accurately.
- Include Alt text for the image that describes the image accurately using target keywords.
Because the robots can’t literally see the image, they rely on these 3 features of the image to figure out what it is and whether or not it is relevant. You can help them out by remembering to optimize these descriptions and titles.
No matter how limited your startup funds are, investing in effective marketing practices is really just not up for discussion. You need to do it. The more you can stretch that budget, the better. But you can’t just sacrifice marketing at this early stage in the game. So start using these strategies and developing a complete (and budget friendly) online marketing campaign!