With financing being a whole lot simpler as well as a few successful role models in the past few years, it appears that the area of vc-driven startups has virtually exploded over the last few month. Nearly on a daily basis we have the pertinent blogs announcing great new social networks for owners of three-legged toy poodles and similar projects. While searchengineoptimization has found its way into businessplans for the most part, most of the time this is not successfully implemented from the start. Sure, there are and have been projects in the past that became a success without any SEO or even while completely blocking the searchenginerobots – though this cannot be the norm. Seeing that it is useless to close the barn after the horse is gone and the founders notice after a year that the site might be doing quite well but that they will not be able to fulfill the ambitious goals of the second round of financing without the help of searchengine-visitors. This is usually the time that external help is sought and a long and rocky road towards a better visibility in the searchengines is undertaken. Since I was able to observe this a few times, here are a few tips that can help to avoid readily made mistakes.

priority for SEO – searchengineoptimization has to be taken seriously from the start. For a long time now this has not been about adjusting some metatags and changing a few things here and there. Those who want to have a successful and professional SEO must set the foundation for this during the development of the site. When the choice between the colorful flash-film and a SEO-sensible implementation comes up, it should not lead to long discussions.

no superficial knowledge – the standard of knowledge for searchengineoptimization is changing quickly and conforms to the advancement of the searchengines in this way. Things that were “state of the art” two years ago might be obsolete today and have the chance of becoming dangerous tomorrow. Therefore it becomes mandatory to practice a clean and tested SEO-implementation and adjust it in regular intervals. A solid superficial-knowledgebase from the popular SEO-forums can be as unrewarding as alleged “tricks”.

solid responsibilities – the responsibility for the range of SEO topics lies with one person. This is where all changes are checked for their outcome from a SEO point-of-view and changed when needed, before the go live.

I wish that these tips will safeguard some startups from the “usual” mistakes. Those who are in the early stages of a startup, are interested in a close cooperation towards SEO-consulting/SEO-coaching and whose business-plan does not comprise social networks, you are welcome to contact me, maybe we can get together.