Starting AddressTwo from scratch four years ago on a shoestring budget meant that I didn't have a lot to spend on Pay-Per-Click and high-dollar SEO consultants, yet I still needed to be found on Google in order to survive. Within the first year, we outranked HighRise for the term 'Simple CRM' and today we rank page 1 for several top terms. All in all, I've spent no money to speak of achieving these results. It wasn't trickery or secret sauce that accomplished it, just some tried and true methods. Here's some tips you can actually use today:
1) Title Tags. Most of the money people spend on SEO tactics have historically included link-building, which is very labor intensive and therefore costly. But, the #1 most important factor in your site's ranking is right under your nose: page titles. The title is what shows up on the tab in your browser for your page. Be sure to use your keywords in those title tags.
2) Authority. The problem facing many start-ups is that your domain name has only been registered for a matter of months. When Google looks at your domain, they see a potentially fly-by-night company and they will be slow to give your content any ranking for a long time. You can build their confidence in your domain, however, with a few tactics:
- Register for 3 or 5 years, not just 1. When registering your domain, many people go with the cheapest option (a 12-month registration) but registering for 5 years tells Google, "we are here to stay."
- Get a few inbound links from other domains with higher authority. It doesn't take many, one or two will help. Ask a friend who has had a website established for many years to link to yours. This will give instant credibility to your domain name.
3) Get people talking. Viral campaigns, social campaigns, user-generated video campaigns, and the like all get people talking about your product, and when they talk, they link. It's that simple. The same old principals of word-of-mouth and good PR that have garnered success for decades still work in the online world.
Why give these three tips first? Why am I not talking about inbound links, content, keyword density, etc? Because until you get these three things right, all other efforts will be null. I built links for two years trying to gain ranking for the term Small Business CRM. Having the phrase "Small Business" made it a highly competitive term. But when I heard the tid-bit about extending my domain registration to 5 years, I shot onto page 1 in just a week after extending my registration. Amazing! Don't neglect the basics!
