

Ask HN: SEO/SEM advise for a niche startup in a mature market? - manishsharan

I am launching a niche product in mature market on a bootstrapped budget. I have been reading up on SEO and SEM and also subscribed to Moz , Spyfu and WordTracker. My research tells me that all the possible keywords in this space are already being used by the incumbents. And the PPC rates for those keyword and phrases are way too high for me to afford. So what are my options ?
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jeffmould
1\. Content - depending on your product, create a blog. Don't necessarily
focus on your product, focus on your market as a whole. Discuss trends,
issues, etc... Don't bad mouth competitors and only plug your product
occasionally or through links in the sidebar or footer. Publish content on a
regular basis.

Same with social media accounts. Don't buy followers, but instead just work to
continuously build your follower list. Look at your competitors and see who
follows them and who they follow. Follow all you can. Post new content and
different content to each account.

2\. Time - unfortunately you will not see results overnight. Don't get
discouraged. Keep at it.

3\. Sitemaps - Google/Microsoft Webmaster Tools. Create sitemaps for your
product site and blog. Use these tools to track your rankings along with
keywords that visitors are using to reach your sites. You will probably find
keywords you had never thought of. Target those keywords.

4\. Google Adwords/Bing Ads/Facebook Ads - I know you said you didn't have a
budget for any ads, but often times you can find ad credits for these
networks. Google is infamous for offering spend $25 get $100 credit coupons
for new customers. There is probably someone on here that has one they can get
you.

5\. Look at your competitors and find their weaknesses. For example, I am by
no means a SEO expert, and it is not my specialty, however, I worked with a
client last year that was looking to rank on the first page of Google for a
specific keyword. We found a competitor's blog that was not getting updated
often (last update had been over a year earlier). By publishing fresh content,
sharing that content, and getting clicks we were able to overtake that
competitor on the first page within 1 month.

6\. Find "partners" or "cheerleaders". Reach out to sites that are in your
market to have them write about your product. Look for reporters who have
written about similar products previously. Reach out to them. If you are a
good writer, or can afford a couple hundred bucks, you can write your own
press release and put it on PRNewswire. While it may not get picked up by any
reporters, that site tends to rank well by itself and will draw attention to
your company/product.

7\. Depending on your product submit it to a site like Product Hunt or do a
Show HN.

8\. Make sure the underlying code of your website is well written. Make sure
the titles are clear, and that you take into account good SEO techniques (use
of meta description, heading tags, anchor text, useful content on pages,
etc...).

9\. Good luck and remember #2 above. If anything the most important thing to
remember is that it will not happen overnight, so do not give up easily.

