If you are in the process of founding a business or are planning on founding one in the near future, you need to start thinking about search engine optimisation now. It is vital to develop a sound SEO strategy before you open your business to the public. Doing so will give you the best chance of success in the highly-competitive online market. After all, your pre-existing competitors will already have fully-developed SEO strategies because they have been in business longer than you. Creating a cohesive, well-thought-through strategy of your own before going into business will enable you to compete with them on equal terms. To help you, we’ve developed a list of three SEO areas you should start working on before your business opens its doors to customers.
1. Raise brand awareness using online advertising
Just because your business isn’t open to the public yet, it should still be known to them. You should create a simple site that explains what type of business you run and when it will be available to consumers. This simple ‘teaser’ site should be search engine optimised with keywords, video and imagery in the same way you might optimise a full site. This is because it can later be expanded into your business’s main website: it will already be well-established in the SERPs, making it a fantastic foundation for later SEO efforts.
You should also use inbound links, PPC and other forms of online advertising to drive people to this site and raise awareness of your brand generally. That way, consumers will already be aware of your business and likely to search for it when it becomes available. We can help you with basic website and advertising SEO techniques, so contact us if you need help optimising your teaser site or advertisements.
2. Research your keywords thoroughly
Once your business is publicly-accessible, you will have a lot of work to do. The responsibilities and challenges of running a business are exciting but time consuming. As such, you should work out what long-tail and localised keywords you can deploy when your business is up and running now. Obviously, your teaser site will utilise some of these keywords, but you will need to incorporate more as your business becomes larger and more established. Save yourself time and trouble later by researching potential keywords now. As search engine optimisation experts, we can help you select the most appropriate and effective ones if you need us to.
3. Prepare localised pages
The first time that you open your business, it is likely to be limited to a few local areas. You should think about which areas your business will serve and prepare appropriate area-specific pages that you can place on your business’s main website when you put it up. Utilising local pages is great for SEO, as it allows you to attract local viewers more easily. By preparing these pages in advance, you can bring in local custom from the moment your business becomes available to consumers, thereby enabling it to grow and develop as quickly as possible. Naturally, we can help you create impeccable localised pages using our high-quality website design techniques.
By thinking about your SEO strategy while you are still in the process of founding your business you can get ahead of your competitors and start attracting viewers and customers as soon as possible. Don’t wait until your business is up and running: contact us about SEO today!