Comments on: Should Startups Invest Heavily in SEO?

By: Ashley Krtamer

Ashley Krtamer — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 18:01:49 +0000

I totally agree with most points made here. Yes, it is like being stuck between a rock and a hard place when you need to promote a new business that searchers aren’t already searching for. If you are going after keywords that already have a good volume of searches then SEO can and does benefit you. If you are a local as opposed to national or global business then SEO can benefit you almost immediately. It’s a harder slog to get up the rankings if you are competing nationwide or even globally though. In these geographically larger markets it can be wise to use SEO as part of your arsenal of tools driving your business forward.

By: Julie

Julie — Wed, 18 May 2011 08:37:25 +0000

I think all new businesses need to invest in SEO from the start. How heavily will of course depend on the site and the industry. But it’s necessary they start SEO’ing their site as soon as; they’re competing with competitors that have been online for much longer so have built up domain authority in terms of links and domain age, etc. SEO shouldn’t be the be all and end all – like Michelle says, it should be part of the marketing mix and not the core focus.

By: Michelle Corsano

Michelle Corsano — Thu, 05 May 2011 02:11:17 +0000

Hi Jeff!

To read Chris’ original blog post on cdixon.org is more clear than the Financial Post article on same.
He is clear on the blog stating SEO is not a viable marketing strategy.

SEO never was, nor should be a marketing strategy; however, SEO is an essential component of an online strategy – anyone with a website with adequate content requires SEO.

SEO is a tactic to drive traffic to a property – in itself, there is nothing strategic about it. While startups rarely have decent/sufficient content to optimize, neither do their domains have trust/authority/history or earned link popularity – the primary levers that support high rankings in organic search.

I read Chris’ original post to opine that start-ups should not rely solely on SEO to build awareness, generate demand and acquire early customers. I agree with his post as written – there are no quick wins with SEO, nor do they drive conversions very well.

After all, startups need to acquire customers to become going concerns and mature into mid-size companies.

Start-ups should develop a marketing strategy with a requisite marketing mix – and I agree that SEO is not the recommended core of such a strategy for startups.