10 Free SEO hacks I used for my startup to generate free backlinks
Every company is a media company
This is a mantra you must have had heard time and again if you follow content marketing industry experts.
But for a bootstrapped startup at baby stages, thinking like a Media Company is a bit overwhelming, especially financially. Good writers for writing exceptional blogs and paid PR are expensive.
But do you know what’s more expensive? — not taking content marketing and Search engine optimization seriously from Day-0 your startup.
I am not saying you need to hire an SEO expert from DAY-0 (if you can, then do it!). I am stressing on ensuring you have some dedicated presence across social media, blogs or list your startup to various available sites as a starter to get initial traction.
I did the same, and my domain authority (DA)(Here’s what DA means and check yours here) for Merrative shot from 0 to 19 — without any paid PR or paid backlinking efforts. This might not be a very big jump, but for a noob founder with a cash crunch and a not-so-stellar company blog, this makes me happy.
SEO is a long-term game whose benefits keep compounding. So, the earlier you start playing, the better!
I have also shared all my 350 + resources of wesbties & communities for FREE Backlinks and visibility all for FREE to help fellow startup folks. You can access it here and details about it are at the end of the article.
Here’s how I did it.
1. Side Projects as Marketing
Did you know that Unsplash (a go-to free image site) was initially a side-project for the main product Crew?
I read this very good piece that was written by its CEO — Mikael Cho on how side projects not only provided them a great source of marketing, but also a revenue stream.
Inspired by this, I curated a list of 350+ websites and communities for budget-constrained startup folks to DIY their initial SEO game. Initially, I did this to keep a track of where I was listing my startup and how well it was doing in terms of signups/reach. I thought I’ll share the simple google sheet with everyone by hosting it on the ‘Buy me a coffee’ platform and shared across product hunt and some startup communities.
What did I do?
I added my main startup’s links in the sheet and descriptions. Hence, I got backlinks from Buy Me A Coffee, Product Hunt, all websites where I and others shared about this resource.
- Added a small add-on for Free consultation and PR content service as a part of Merrative For Businesses’ publishing talent marketplace. Got 50+ leads in a month.
- Some folks were nice enough to pay a $5-$10 donation
- Best wishes and gratitude from startup folks :)
Do try this and DM me on Twitter how it worked for you or if you need help!
2. Event marketing
This requires some hard work and planning, but the efforts are worth it as this works exceptionally well to build your brand. With this, one can have 2 approaches — conduct big events or consistently do small-scale events.
Benefits include:
- Free SEO from the event listing websites that have high DAs by adding your website to your profile and creating events.
- Superior quality of leads and signups for your startup
- Could be a source of revenue if you host paid events
- If your brand for doing events develops, you get picked up by Press who list your events in their ‘things to do this weekend list’. That gives a major SEO Boost!
The majority of coaching, EdTech startups who are into selling courses, arts/culture websites, communities, and SaaS brands are opting for webinars, workshops, or conferences to boost their brand image.
What did I do?
On Merrative, one can host face-to-face group discussions on literature via our ‘reading rooms’ feature. I used to list these events on the major event listing websites that scaled by the growth of signups in the range of 10% — 50% MoM across countries. We were doing 5 events every week consistently to discuss a variety of topics ranging from poetry, philosophy, startups, tech, etc based on literature.
Few of our events got listed by major Indian press that shot my DA from 17 to 19. This worked for me and we are planning to continue to do this — check out our upcoming reading rooms here!
3. Write blogs — but add them on Medium as well
Yes, you can copy-paste your blogs on Medium. This can work only when you make sure you set up canonical links. Here’s how to do it:
- Go to your article’s Story Settings
- Head over to Advanced Settings
- Paste the URL of the original story and save it as a canonical link
It is advised to first post the article in your company’s own blog, optimize it for SEO, wait for a month and then add it to your Medium page.
This basically tells Google about the story’s original location (your own blog page) hence it won’t affect your SEO, while it also gives your article boost from Medium’s ecosystem.
What did I do?
I do this for my own blog on Merrative. We have set up our own publication wherein we write about the top 5 recommendations for books, articles, podcasts, etc, and other topics. All these blogs are added post 1 month adding to our own blog. Check it out here!
4. Be active on SEO friendly social networks
It’s a no-brainer to be active on social media these days, but having a strong focus on SEO-friendly networks that are focused on Text like Quora, LinkedIn or Twitter can work wonders. All major social media profile links, unless set as private, are well optimized for SEO, so create company pages in as many as possible!
In fact, it's well known how answering questions on Quora (without sounding salesey of course!) can help you get some juice from Quora’s massive SEO game. More than SEO, Twitter has great virality, and if your tweets are steller, they get embedded across various websites as well who can quote your tweets, like this:
Elon Musk has nailed Twitter Marketing for anything he builds, while a lot of brands use social media as their customer support space or shops to sell their products.
- Create profiles across all social platforms, whether you intend to be active or not. Add your links in bio in the space they provide.
- Don’t lose focus on text-based sites in the age of video content.
- Focus on repurposing the same content as per the formats of the platforms to optimize your social media efforts.
What did I do?
I am yet to gain massive success from Social Media. Merrative started as an Instagram page that has around 6700+ followers, so I did not get SEO benefits, but I did get an initial set of audience. Twitter has worked really well so far in terms of signups, visibility, and maintaining relations with users beyond our platform. We do answer 1–2 questions per month on Quora as well.
5. Become a YouTuber
Netflix, which is technically a competitor to YouTube (Originals), uses YouTube itself to reach the masses by promoting its shows in collaboration with top YouTubers!
YouTube, once it takes off, is forever compounding. Also, you must have had observed Youtube video recommendations for queries you type on google. You can work on making sure your video is one of those!
Slidebean’s YouTube channel, a presentation SaaS that creates content on startups, is another great example of how you can leverage YouTube to build trust by educating your target audience.
What did I do?
Merrative’s YouTube channel hasn’t taken off and I haven’t bothered to work on adding more videos or professionally editing them. In the future, I will surely be focusing more on it once I have a good budget to get good quality video creation done.
6. Write product reviews and create product directories
Nothing is better than social proof or getting featured by others, right? Here are some hacks you could use:
- Create a directory of products your users can find useful and that aligns with your brand. Ask the people and brands whom you’ve featured to give you a shoutout in return, if possible. Again, Unsplash is a free stock photo directory that they built to support its main product Crew which was a marketplace for designers.
- Write genuine product reviews for products that are not direct competitors to your brand, but are something related to it and your customers would like your expertise on. A travel website is well suited to write product reviews on travel gears, shoes, hiking equipment, etc.
- You can provide testimonials for other products and services you have used and liked. You can ask them to feature your website link in return for your testimonial.
- You can also ask for reviews of your own product from your own customers on review websites if that is possible.
What did I do?
We are working on building a directory of bookstores for our community members to access. This is also in support of independent bookstores who have got affected due to the pandemic by promoting them within our community as much as possible.
7. Create small products and make them available on selling platforms
Amazon, Flipkart (in India), and other e-commerce platforms have a massively serious SEO game. They have worked hard for it indeed, so why not leverage it by selling some products that are required by your industry or users?
One can sell content itself like ebooks (educational, branded, case studies, reports, etc) or if you have good branding, sell merchandise. Doing this gives you access to add SEO-optimized content about your main brand and website links (even a support page would do) to their platform.
The best part about this is that you can create one single product and distribute it across these e-commerce platforms wherever applicable. You can even earn revenues, or you could keep it free to ensure maximum sales.
What did I do?
We do plan to leverage this hack, but right now we are focusing on blogs and guides to be hosted on our own platform on topics of content marketing. We will repurpose them to long-form content like books in the future.
8. Podcasting and Newsletters
Podcasting is also an underrated industry when it comes to brand building and SEO (which currently Spotify is ruling). You can launch one on your own or check if anyone would like to invite you as a guest to their shows.
There are lots of SaaS brands, consultants, and experienced founders who have their own podcast shows that have a very good reach. Since now the industry is nascent, this is a great time to take advantage of it early when the competition and noise are less. Clubhouse and other social audio apps have also increased the acceptance of ‘audio form of content, so this industry will grow for sure.
Newsletters have also seen a surge as more and more platforms crop up thanks to Substack and Revue (acquired by Twitter).
What did I do?
Merrative already has 2 active newsletters — ReadTreats for the community with 4200+ subscribers and Media First Company (newly launched) for our publishing talent marketplace. I personally have a newsletter called ‘On Marketplaces’ that talks about Building Marketplaces and ‘Join Free Plan’ that shares free SaaS tools for the early-stage startups. All these will have podcasts eventually.
If you’re looking for support to launch and maintain your podcast and newsletters, we can help you access the top 5% of the talent, without the hassle of hiring them full time. Contact content@merrative.com to know more!
9. Use the comments section of major publications, newsletters, and communities
I know, this sounds too desperate, but there are so many websites, including big publications who are formally asking you your opinion on the content they have shared — via the comments section.
You can get a bit nasty here by plugging in your website link in some or another way, mostly by providing valuable comments, and in between or in the end, add your link.
A founder is supposed to be the full-time salesperson of the startup, so never lose an opportunity to sell ethically. Of course, there is a subtle way to do it without sounding all salesey.
What did I do?
I have used this hack in 2 ways:
- I don’t miss any opportunity to introduce myself — be it social media posts, normal conversations, webinars, etc where people themselves ask you about your work. Such posts are rampant on Twitter and LinkedIn and give good traction. I like talking about myself :P
- Share nuanced opinions on articles that are about your industry or ask relevant questions — could be on medium, New York Times, or any article that is of your interest. Of course, don’t be salesey, else you’ll ruin your image to get labeled as a spammer.
10. List your startup across startup directories, communities, marketplaces, and job boards
All directories, marketplaces, and job boards have very good DA. By simply getting yourself listed by creating a profile and adding your website link can help you gain some of their credibility for yourself.
As mentioned before, while tracking my own site listing and promotions, I ended up creating a Google sheet of 350+ websites and communities for the same purpose. It also contains:
- Track your Sign-Ups, Mentions, and Progress of listing
- Checklist of content required
- Hacks and Tips I have found online — will keep updating
Things to Note:
- Are all backlinks good? No. Check the DA and spam score of the websites where you intend to post about your business. Ensure you target medium-high quality platforms.
- Learn more and work on internal link building for your website. Google likes well-knitted websites with no loose ends (pages).
- Try hand on Guest Posting on blogs relevant to your brand — this may or may not be a free way to get backlinks as some popular sites charge to guest post.
That’s all hacks I had. If you have other ways to improve SEO organically, do let me know!
If you found this guide useful, do share it within your network.
You can also connect with me if I could be helpful in any way — DM me on Twitter!
