As StartUp Owners Do You Think You Marketing/SEO Comes Later?

Andrea Fuller
4 replies
Hi All, I've been working with startups over the years, and was curious if I can add more data to better see a potential trend line I'm seeing in terms of WHEN SEO and marketing should be started in the lifecycle of the company. Do you think spending money on Marketing before launch is worth it? When do you see Marketing entering the picture in a meaningful way? Do you see SEO as part of Marketing? Do you think SEO works? Would you take skills based online courses to learn SEO/Digital Marketing to do it yourself?

Replies

Mark Milton
I am pretty pro-SEO to start with - mostly because it's the foundation of a good strategy. But I would focus on writing about your product first - not worrying about optimising for keywords right now. You will see a very slow payoff, but combining product page + documentation both helps the user and gets Google familiar with the context of your site
Andrea Fuller
@markbmilton Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Much appreciated. Follow-up question. If you could learn (for an affordable price) how to incorporate tech SEO and content optimization from the beginning to maximize benefits (short and long term) for very little extra effort or time would you capitalize on that?
Mark Milton
@fullerdigitalstrategy - for sure, so long as the outcome was worth the time. SEO is never finished - in the sense that there is always a tweak or an optimisation to make the experience better for the USER. If you are talking purely about education of learning tech SEO and content optimisation, this is a theoretical answer as I am familiar with this - but if you are asking whether you should learn it, then yes. But SEO should be seen through the lens of user experience and value. Are the content optimisations approached with the idea of helping users? Or just for Google bots?
BenSilver
Based on my experience with startups, I believe it's essential to start thinking about marketing early on. Building brand awareness before the launch can create excitement and anticipation. SEO is indeed a crucial part of marketing, and it should enter the picture right from the beginning to establish a strong online presence. I've personally seen SEO work wonders in driving organic traffic to websites. As for learning SEO and digital marketing, I'd definitely consider taking skills-based online courses. It can save you money in the long run and empower you to make informed decisions. There are plenty of SEO tools out there, but I've found that one must-have website audit tool is the one from Netpeak Software. It performs a comprehensive site analysis and quickly checks for SEO issues, making it super helpful for both smaller and bigger websites.