SEO has many a company flummoxed from the the get-go. It is a very inexact and challenging to implement science that many startups neglect to even attempt it. This is a big mistake. The reason why is that it gives Google a bad impression right from the start…They try to index pages, and without some semblance of SEO, often times they’re either unable to index, index the page inaccurately, or because on-page and internal SEO is such a large part of the search ranking algorithm, bury it so far down the search results it is useless. It’s a shame, as there are some simple ways to get started with SEO that don’t require a graduate of MIT to achieve.
So what is Minimum Viable SEO?
The folks over at Priceonomics.com coined the term, “minimum viable SEO“, which means just how much SEO can you get by with to start. Although not an ideal strategy, it sure beats not doing anything. Here are a few of the things they mentioned, with a few of our own thoughts tossed in because I couldn’t help myself!
Decide which kind of keywords you’re going after – as this will determine not just your site structure but how many pages and just how quickly you’ll be profitable. You may be going after the long tail of search, meaning keywords that are typically 3-5 words long, often with product or model numbers. They don’t get a ton of searches daily, but are much easier to rank for. Add a few thousand of these up, and you win. A different way to go is to optimize for a single keyword, like “auto insurance San Diego” you’ll typically be looking to rank only your home page. If you have a business with a local presence, be sure you have local geo-modifiers on your keywords, as in the above example.
Use breadcrumb navigation – You’ve seen this on many web pages. It is a set of links that show where you’ve been on the site, and where you are now. This is helpful for the searcher, (which Google likes) and takes care of a good deal of internal linkage. Here is what it commonly looks like: Home > Tablets > Apple > Ipad 2 3g
Use accurate title tags – Making certain the title tag on your page is accurate; which means that it is the keyword you wish that page to be ranked for, is probably the most important SEO task you can do. Using local geo-modifiers is very important here too.
Performing minimum viable SEO is a nice way to start, and infinitely much better than doing nothing. Just don’t let it end there!
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