Search Engine Optimization

Also called SEO

Search engine optimization: earning visibility in unpaid search results by making your content and site match what people search for and what search engines reward.

Why it matters

SEO can become a compounding, low-cost acquisition channel, traffic that keeps arriving without paying per click. It is slow to build and easy to do badly, but for many startups it is the best long-term organic engine.

For example

A recipe app ranks first for thousands of dish searches, so it earns steady free traffic that keeps arriving without paying per click.

Worth your time

The Beginner's Guide to SEO Moz · guide The canonical, comprehensive primer that has taught a generation of founders how search actually works, from the ground up.

Related terms

Search Engine Marketing Backlink Content Marketing

Go deeper

See how founders actually handle this on Growing and marketing, part of the Starting Up hub.

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