Insanely Good SEO Tips for Start Up Businesses

If you are thinking about starting up a business or you have a small business already then these SEO tips are absolute gold.

If you follow these and do exactly what I say I can promise you 1 thing. That is, you will succeed online.

These SEO tips come from over 15 years in the industry as well as being a small business ourselves. Yes, that’s right. We are a small business as well and know the pitfalls, ups and downs when it comes to ranking on Google, SEO and what you need to do to get a sustainable ranking.

We have made all the bad mistakes over the years and are therefore in a position to clearly explain to you small business startups out there (looking to make a go of it) what needs to be done in order to have the right SEO strategy in place and also what dangers are lurking out there and how to avoid them. Follow these tips and your business will be much better off for it.

The most important thing I can tell you about when it comes to SEO is to avoid statements like the following. They are dangerous and are out there online purely to scam you out of money.

Also read: SEO for Start-Ups

Whatever you do, whatever happens, you have to trust me on this AVOID THESE at all costs!

No Rank No Pay

This is a massive scam and designed to get small businesses and business start-ups to feel as though they are in safe hands. After all, you have nothing to lose and they are going to get you to page 1 of Google and if they don’t you pay nothing. The issue here is that the keywords that they will rank you for are useless and will bring in no web traffic. You are probably going to be blown away by how good they are and once they have your trust your contract begins but, in reality, they are ranking your website for useless keywords that will bring in minimal web traffic. If you want a decent SEO service you have to pay for this and theres’ no way around it. Google even warns us that you must pay for your SEO and to beware of SEO scams. They say: beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship” with Google, or advertise a “priority submit” to Google.

Also Read: Pay Peanuts for SEO, you’re going to pay for it later!

Pay a minimal $5 per month fee till you get onto page 1 of Google.

This is a brilliant scam and whoever thought of this is a genius. Most startups want to get their business on to Google with a small budget and to get there for $5 is a dream come true. Herein lies the trap. They put you on direct debit for $5 per month and once they rank 1 keyword ( and this keyword could be absolutely useless) they then automatically put you on the real true SEO rate. So the $5 within a month or 2 blows out quickly. There is nothing you can do – you are stuck with these guys as you signed the 12-month contract based on their $5 scam fee. Please don’t fall for this as so many small businesses I speak to waste too much time and money and worst of all it puts the rest of us in a bad light. It tarnishes the SEO industry cause a bunch of cowboys have decided that this scam works and they want to rip as many small business owners as they can off.

The rule of thumb here is to stay well away from these sweet-smelling deals. If it sounds too good to be true it is! I feel really sorry for these well-intentioned startups that are trying their hardest and are ripped off before they start. The issue here is that these SEO companies pay an absolute fortune to be on Adwords on Google so they are always on the top 3 when you type in words like:’ SEO’ or ‘SEO Sydney’. Most naïve people cannot tell the difference between organic and paid SEO and they click on the first ad they see. Like the venus fly trap, they are caught?

Why? Because the salespeople they speak to on the phone are so slick at offering these cheap/crazy deals that it’s just too hard to resist. If only business people knew that paid ads on Google are the EXACT OPPOSITE OF SEO. I know this can be a little confusing, so if you are reading this and simply don’t get what I’m saying please give me a call and I am happy to run through this with you in detail.

Rushing SEO based on trying to hit targets.

Because these SEO companies have promised you page 1 rankings in unrealistic time frames in order to make you feel as though you are getting a great deal, they are going to do anything and everything to hit their targets ( even if the keywords are pointless). What they will do is over optimise your backlinks to a level that is not Google compliant. Sure you will rank but as soon (and as night follows day this will happen) as Google detects this, your site is going to be penalised.

Google likes to see a slow progression in your rankings and if your website rises too quickly, this is a dangerous sign. Commonplace as I hear this all the time from people that come in and say: ‘ this new business has been around for only 6 months and they are dominating page 1’. My reply is simple. Easy to rise, quick to fall. What has happened is that their SEO company has over optimised their SEO and this is the reason why they have had such a meteoric rise. BUT, they will fall – this is 100% certain. They might be there for a couple of months, perhaps even 6 months, but, they will drop. No one and I repeats no one can spam their way to the top of Google and expect to have these rankings sustained. SEO is a long term mindset and anyone that tells you that they can rank a website in less than 90 days & guarantee it is a scammer.

Forgetting about your On-Page SEO

The common theme among so many SEO agencies is to get you to sign up, commit and then brush you off to some obscure account manager who you never met and who is really not invested in your business. What they always do is promise you the world without actually delivering on the basic principle foundations of SEO. Their goal is to simply appease any issues you have with your SEO campaign and fob off lies that they are doing everything they can when in reality they are just trying to keep you hooked on their line month after month so you don’t complain. They will bamboozle you with technical jargon and wear you down so that after a while you simply give up. After all, there’s not much you can do as you are locked into a contract unless you make them legal.

The point I am trying to make here is that they really don’t look at your website to make it compliant, they don’t look at conversion rates and will certainly not look at how your website presents itself. They are only concerned with getting you to pay for your next months SEO.

Conclusion

All I can say is to choose wisely when it comes to your SEO agency. Go and meet with them, suss them out and make sure you never fall for these outrageous scams and lies. It’s your new business, you want to succeed and the choices you make at these early stages will impact heavily on your future success.