Do Startups Still Need SEO in 2024?

Planning to promote your startup? Wondering whether to focus on SEO or invest in other channels instead?

FACT: The opinions about how useful SEO is for startups vary greatly.

For example, Andrew Chen famously said this on Twitter:

“I'm not a fan of relying on SEO when you're a brand new startup. Unfortunately, it's too slow. It takes time to build reputation, to build enough buzz to get meaningful traffic, and a lot of effort to generate a ton of content.”

On the other hand, Rob Walling, founder of Drip and the guy behind the amazing TinySeed accelerator, said this on the Indie Bites podcast in October 2023:

“I would be worth ten times what I am today if I had not built this audience and instead had just done SEO.”

Then, there are all the guests I have had on my podcast so far who all admit that SEO is their #1 growth channel.

So, who's right? And most importantly, should you focus on SEO or invest in other channels instead?

Let's find out.

Why the role of SEO is so confusing for startups?

Well, let’s think about it… 

On the one hand, everyone’s talking about SEO. 

Most founders praise it. Many openly reveal what amazing results they get from the channel. 

But then, when you try implementing various SEO strategies, nothing happens. 

It’s not like, suddenly, as if by magic, your startup grows just like those other companies.

Confusing, right?

True. But you have to consider the role of SEO from a very specific perspective:

Your current situation. 

Of course, I can only assume it, but you’re most likely in a situation where you need to generate at least initial growth relatively fast. You’ve launched the product. You may have some initial paying customers. You might also be getting occasional spikes in signups (perhaps after a product hunt or similar mention.)

But naturally, it’s not enough.

You still need a way to attract new customers right here, right now.

And from this point of view, Andrew Chen is right. SEO isn’t ideal for that, and the main reason is that it takes time and effort to make it work and drive growth.

To boost growth quickly, you need to use channels like email outreach, PPC, or digital PR. These channels offer a way to stimulate growth quickly, and some could even deliver initial wins in a matter of hours (depending on your budget and other resources, of course).

But then, and this is another factor to consider: Most of the time, when customers look for software, they turn to the search engine.

Google actually published fantastic research that revealed an interesting aspect of our search behavior. The research found that about 71% of people turning to Google start their search with a generic query.

Now, this is the important bit.

Because it means is that the majority of your potential customers begin their buying journey by looking for answers, not brands. Google explains this beautifully in its report, saying: “They're looking for a product first, not for you.”

In other words, 71% of people are more likely to search for small business CRM than Hubspot and that’s where SEO comes in.

3 core benefits of SEO for startups

SEO gives you a direct access to your target audience

Your content - your pages that rank in Google and attract traffic - acts as a bridge between your startup and customers as they go about their search for solutions and software.

In other words, as people look for issues relating to what your startup does, they discover your content in the SERP, land on your site, and are introduced to your product.

Granted, not all of those visits will result in a signup. Such a visitor-to-customer conversion will depend on several factors, such as the intent behind the query, the user acquisition strategy you’ve used, and so on.

But on the whole, SEO will allow you to be part of that conversation.

SEO also helps your startup become a recognized brand, too.

And this is as important as rankings and signups.

You see - When your content begins to rank in the SERP across the entire buyer’s journey, you get noticed, and become recognized as a resource and authority within the niche.

I’m sure you’ve experienced how it works yourself. You search for information relating to some issue or a problem, and you are immediately drawn to the domains you’re familiar with, right? You see a domain you recognize in the SERP and immediately click on that listing purely because you have some sort of recognition and positive attitude toward that domain.

SEO helps your startup become recognized similarly.

Finally, and by far and away this is the biggest benefit SEO delivers for startups - and that is delivering incredible (and consistent) commercial wins.

Let me quote one more study to explain that. This data comes from a colleague of mine, Mike Sonders, who did an amazing thing - He reverse-engineered website traffic of the most successful B2B SaaS companies.

(image source)

He discovered that organic search is the 2nd biggest traffic source for startup websites. Only direct traffic beats it in volume (which only makes sense.) But, and this is the important part - Of the two, it’s SEO that delivers more commercial wins.

Interestingly, Mike’s findings match those of the Google study I quoted earlier. In his study, we read:

“Direct traffic might look like it could be a big, important user acquisition channel, but don’t be misled. In reality, there’s a relatively small number of new visitors who learn about a SaaS business (perhaps via an ad or word-of-mouth) and then type the business’s URL into a browser.”

And that basically leaves SEO as the primary driver of *quality traffic*.

Amazing, right?

When should you start working on SEO?

To answer this question, we need to look back at the Andrew Chen’s quote from the start of this video. 

That’s because SEO is not a growth channel to rely solely on at first.

At the same time, it’s a channel you should start working on as early as possible.

I know this answer is a bit confusing, so let me clarify.

First of all, note, I said, at first.

SEO takes time and effort. As a result, it’s incapable of fueling your initial growth purely because it takes time to build that search visibility.

I’ve seen many startups launch only SEO early on and then struggle to stay afloat as they wait for SEO to finally kick in.

So, no, that’s not the way to go. You have to build your initial growth with channels like outreach, PPC, and several others. They will help you validate your idea and positioning and get those initial customers and revenue.

But because of the time and effort it requires to kick in, SEO is also a channel you should be investing in from the start.

Even if you don’t do much about it, even if you don’t launch a full-blown SEO program, at least make sure that you’re taking small steps toward building search visibility.

Eventually, SEO is going to kick in and become the channel that will take over and drive your growth. And you want this to happen sooner than later.

So, the earlier you start building your organic presence, the quicker you’ll be able to stop relying on other, usually paid channels.

(A side note - I have a video on the first four steps you should be taking to optimize your site, and I’ve included the link to it in the description below.)

And that's it.

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