Marcus RichardsLaunching a business is never an easy undertaking. Will people like your product or service? How do you spread the word about your newly launched offering? The questions are endless and the answers are never straightforward. One way you can start building your brand in a sustainable way, is to ensure that you have an online presence. The reasons a lot of start ups fail, whether they’re new bookmakers, or new ecommerce businesses, can be for a number of reasons, but one leading cause is that their brand building in the online space is not good enough.
While social media has become a means to extend business these days, many new business people tend to forget the power of search engine optimisation (SEO), the practice of ensuring that what you offer is visible in relevant search results.
One of the more underrated branches of digital marketing, SEO is often overlooked as it is often a tricky process to get right, and it is one that can take far more time than a quick (yet expensive) ads campaign. The following 5 things can are common pitfalls for new start ups on search engines:
5 Things Start Ups Fail to do to Optimise for Search Engines
- Failure to Market what their products do differently
- Lacking a Focus on longer tail keywords
- Failure to Create Useful Content Aimed at Aiding Users
- Failure to capitalise on affiliate programs
- Failure to earn relevant external links
1. Failure to Market what their products do differently
When it comes to launching a new business, one of the key things to ensure a fighting chance is to highlight how a new product differs, and how it is potentially better than what else is on offer out there. This is grounded in the product/service development stage, but it should not end there. These factors need to become core tenets that form part of any new business’ plan.
Once these key factors have been determined, they need to be marketed in the online space to ensure that prospective customers and existing customers know that the product or service they are purchasing is unique to their needs.
One of the key reasons new businesses, especially those within industries such as iGaming tend to fail is due to the fact that they don’t market what sets them apart from what’s already out there. In industries like this, a lot of competitors offer products that are largely the same, so new operators need to ensure that they make their special aspects known.
2. Lacking a Focus on longer tail keywords
What a lot start ups fail to in their initial phase is to not be strategic with how they go about their development. This is especially the case when it comes to industries crowded with different competitors that are already authorities on topics that prospective customers that are searching for the most.
If you’ve recently started a shoe eccomerce store, and if you’re looking to build your brand online, the chances of you ranking for a keyword like “shoes” is going to be a near impossible task. General keywords, while usually greater in search volume, are usually saddled with very heavy competition, making them exceptionally difficult to rank for.
The likelihood however, for ranking for keyword like “size 9 Jordans in Toronto” narrows down the intention surrounding the search, and while it may not have the same kind of search volume as a keyword like “shoes”, will be easier to win, and can lead to conversions. It’s best to approach building your online presence in this way.
3. Failure to Create Useful Content Aimed at Aiding Users
In the early days of any new business, there can often be a focus on selling products, which of course is natural. New business are faced with a range of challenges, and if they are unable to generate income, it is likely that they will face closing their doors.
While the initial focus must be on generating income, to bolster a start up’s online presence new business owner’s can show that they are expert’s within their field by getting a blog up and running with the intent of helping their users. These blogs can serve as a means to answer the queries users may be searching for, as mentioned in the point above.
The more queries within a niche you’re a new content is able to answer, the higher likelihood your website will become noticed by search engines, and eventually begin taking some positions on Search Engine Results Pages. These blog posts can also be a means of driving traffic, and if you’re strategic, this traffic can be directed to high converting pages, which can in turn drive sales.
4. Failure to capitalise on affiliate programs
Affiliate programs can be an a fantastic, low effort way to ensure new users arrive to your website. While this isn’t always the easiest way to begin acquiring users, it can be a great strategy to look into once you have built up a customer base.
These days, more and more independent online platforms are taking part in affiliate marketing, and accept a relatively small percentage of the income generated by customers. This is especially the case with industries such as iGaming, wherein betting site review websites such as mybettingsites.com/ca, list different betting and casino websites, and send users to the bookmakers that are listed on their platform.
Websites like these can be a great tool for new iGaming websites, as depending on the type of affiliate deal they can strike, the new betting site may be able to get increased exposure on the website, which can further drive traffic and conversions. Affiliate marketing websites exist for hundreds, if not thousands of different niches, so affiliation is not limited to iGaming alone.
5. Failure to earn relevant external links
Earning external links from relevant, notable websites is one of the main ways to extend your online presence, by ranking on certain keywords. While it is one of the leading ways to gain a foothold in certain niches, it is also one of the hardest tasks to achieve as a newly launched start-up.
This is perhaps why this factor is overlooked, but failure to earn these links can lead to considerable challenges when it comes to gaining traction with a website. There are, however, some ways to ensure that these links are achievable.
Many SEO specialists talk about writing link-worthy content, and while this is a great strategy, it can often times be easier said than done. An easier way to earn links is to approach websites within the same niche that you work with, and request links in return for valuable content. Doing so can lead to a meaningful partnership with a specific online platform, which can benefit your website greatly.
