My startups get 750K/month organic traffic and SEO has been a major reason for our growth to $3 million+ revenue.
— Hrishikesh Pardeshi (@hrishiptweets) September 8, 2021
I honestly can't imagine a startup marketing plan that doesn't have SEO focus.
So here's my 30-step SEO strategy for startups based on 4 years of learnings 🧵
2/ Define your SEO goals
Be clear on what exactly you want — overall website traffic, brand awareness, purchases or something else. All your SEO efforts must be aligned to the goals you set.
[Right mindset]— Hrishikesh Pardeshi (@hrishiptweets) September 8, 2021
4/ Allocate time & money for SEO
SEO is a long-term strategy. So budget time & money for SEO upfront.
This will also help decide if you will be using paid or free tools, do content in-house or hire content writers etc.
[Right mindset]— Hrishikesh Pardeshi (@hrishiptweets) September 8, 2021
6/ Define metrics & create a measurement system
– Set up Google Analytics & Search Console
– Decide the metrics you want to track (ex. pageviews, # of pages in top 100 etc.)
– Create a routine to regularly update & monitor the data
[Correct Setup]— Hrishikesh Pardeshi (@hrishiptweets) September 8, 2021
8/ If you can, pick your domain name wisely.
For ex. our domain is https://t.co/rKN1S3MDFl and ranks #1 for the competitive keyword "remote tools".
[Correct Setup]— Hrishikesh Pardeshi (@hrishiptweets) September 8, 2021
10/ Optimise your website's page speed.
Go a step further & optimise your core web vitals too.
[Correct Setup]— Hrishikesh Pardeshi (@hrishiptweets) September 8, 2021
12/ Writing guest posts is the best way to increase your website's authority
Set up a process to:
– Research opportunities
– Automate outreach
– Create outlines
– Write content
[Website Authority]— Hrishikesh Pardeshi (@hrishiptweets) September 8, 2021
14/ People will link to you only if you have quality content.
Publish guides & in-depth content on your website and reach out to others asking to link to your content.
[Website Authority]— Hrishikesh Pardeshi (@hrishiptweets) September 8, 2021
16/ Come up with seed keywords
These are keywords, topics or even broad themes you already know or have read about.
Just jog your memory and list down all keywords you can remember.
[Keyword Research]— Hrishikesh Pardeshi (@hrishiptweets) September 8, 2021
18/ Use a keyword research tool to get a more extensive list
I've used @ahrefss & @semrush – love both of them.
– Enter your seed keywords in keyword explorer
– Ahrefs: "phrase match", "having same terms"
– SEMRush: "keyword variations", "related keywords"
[Keyword Research]— Hrishikesh Pardeshi (@hrishiptweets) September 8, 2021
20/ Filter keywords for low difficulty
Every keyword research tool will have a keyword difficulty (KD) score. Filter your list by a low KD, say 20.
KD is only a heuristic & helps you get an initial list. You have to do manual work to filter the list further.
[Keyword Research]— Hrishikesh Pardeshi (@hrishiptweets) September 8, 2021
22/ Your goal should always be to kick out at least one of the existing top 10 results.
Make sure you have >1-2 results that have a lower authority than you and/or have poor quality content.
[Keyword Research]— Hrishikesh Pardeshi (@hrishiptweets) September 8, 2021
24/ Optimise your content for the reader, not just for keywords.
Google also actively tracks this by measuring factors like time spent by users on your page.
[Content Creation]— Hrishikesh Pardeshi (@hrishiptweets) September 8, 2021
26/ Research your competitors for content & keyword ideas.
Don't hesitate to even borrow their SEO strategy.
[Content Creation]— Hrishikesh Pardeshi (@hrishiptweets) September 8, 2021
28/ No orphan links.
As a rule of thumb, each page on your website should have at least 1 internal link.
[Optimisations]— Hrishikesh Pardeshi (@hrishiptweets) September 8, 2021
30/ Update & optimise your old content regularly.
You don't want your competitors to outrank you just by including latest updates.
[Optimisations]— Hrishikesh Pardeshi (@hrishiptweets) September 8, 2021
