Thread by @hrishiptweets

My startups get 750K/month organic traffic and SEO has been a major reason for our growth to $3 million+ revenue.

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 🧵

This framework has 6 sections:
1) The Right Mindset (1-5)
2) Correct Setup (6-10)
3) Website Authority (11-14)
4) Keyword Research (15-22)
5) Content Creation (23-26)
6) Optimisations (27-30)

Let's dive in!

Meanwhile, if you'd like to check my startup 👇
flexiple.com

1/ Focus on SEO from day 1

SEO takes time to show results, at least 3-6 months or even more. So you must plan & start working on SEO early.

[Right mindset]

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]

3/ Be realistic about the outcomes

It's true that SEO traffic is consistent & grows exponentially. But it takes time to show initial results & conversion rates are low compared to paid ads.

So it's important that you align correctly on success/failure scenario.

[Right mindset]

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]

5/ Don't rely entirely on SEO

Diversify your traffic sources through distribution & launches.

Channels include social media, Product Hunt, Reddit, HackerNews etc.

[Right mindset]

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]

7/ Get the basics of on-page SEO right

- Add relevant tags to your page - title, meta, h1s, h2s.
- Optimise these tags & your content.

[Correct Setup]

8/ If you can, pick your domain name wisely.

For ex. our domain is remote.tools and ranks #1 for the competitive keyword "remote tools".

[Correct Setup]

9/ Never use sub-domains.

Google treats them almost like separate websites.

Always use sub-folders.

[Correct Setup]

10/ Optimise your website's page speed.

Go a step further & optimise your core web vitals too.

[Correct Setup]

11/ Put efforts to increase your website's authority from day 1

Higher your website authority, more the chance of Google ranking you higher.

[Website Authority]

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]

13/ Everyone loves linking to data & analysis

Create such pages on your website to get links organically.

[Website Authority]

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]

15/ Keyword research is key to ranking on Google.

If you find the right keywords, half your job is done.

[Keyword Research]

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]

17/ Expand your seed keywords list using Wikipedia, Quora & Google

- Wikipedia - Table of contents
- Quora - Questions & related questions
- Google - Autocomplete & People also ask for

[Keyword Research]

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]

19/ Filter keywords for low-mid volume

You rank faster for low volume keywords vs. high volume ones. Plus, high volume keywords generally have high competition.

It helps in short-term to put min & max volume filter, more so if you have low website authority.

[Keyword Research]

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]

21/ Check for search intent

The only reliable way to confirm search intent is to manually check the top 10 results for:

- Content type - Blogs, ecommerce pages, company website
- Format - Listicles, tutorials, opinion pieces

[Keyword Research]

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]

23/ Keywords don't rank themselves.

You still have to write quality content that your website visitors would like to read.

[Content Creation]

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]

25/ Establish a topical authority.

Once you start ranking for a few blogs on a topic, there's a high chance Google will favour your website for other content on that topic.

[Content Creation]

26/ Research your competitors for content & keyword ideas.

Don't hesitate to even borrow their SEO strategy.

[Content Creation]

27/ Internal linking is the most powerful way to improve rankings.

Get the SEO juice from your top pages flowing to all other pages.

[Optimisations]

28/ No orphan links.

As a rule of thumb, each page on your website should have at least 1 internal link.

[Optimisations]

29/ Optimise your already ranking pages in one country for other countries.

It's the easiest way to get more traffic from content you have already written.

[Optimisations]

30/ Update & optimise your old content regularly.

You don't want your competitors to outrank you just by including latest updates.

[Optimisations]

That's it for the thread!

I regularly share such threads around marketing & startups, so consider retweeting the first tweet & following me :)

https://twitter.com/hrishiptweets/status/1435465359448887302?s=20