SEO Is The Most Overlooked Skill for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

If You Build An Ugly Baby…

You’re probably very confused by the title of this section. I assure you that it’ll make sense in a second.

There are two main dilemmas for the aspiring entrepreneur:

1. “If you build it, they will come”: the idea that if you create an amazing product, you’ll generate sales without marketing because of how awesome your product is.
   
2. “Ugly baby syndrome”: every parent out there thinks their baby is cute. And in entrepreneurship, the business is the baby. Most entrepreneurs have a reallyhard time acknowledging when their baby business is “ugly”…
   
   

SEO, in my opinion, is an exercise that allows entrepreneurs to navigate both of the dilemmas above.

1. If you rank on Google for the keywords that your target audience is searching for, you’re not relying on how amazing your product is. You’re creating exposure for it.
   
2. If you create content designed to rank on Google that 1) showcases your product and 2) tells a compelling story to your target audience, you’re constantly forced to analyze your competitors, your value props, and processes.

Let’s Dig Into #2 Above

The goal of SEO is to:

Rank at the top of Google for valuable keywords → drive traffic to your site → tell a compelling enough story to encourage people to buy your product/service.

Most entrepreneurs who have the “ugly baby syndrome” have it because they don’t have a grasp on the following:

1. Who their target audience is
2. What problem their target audience has
3. Who their direct competitors are
4. What their unique value proposition is

When you build a website and optimize it for SEO (the correct way), you’re forced to critically think through everything above. It’s a living, breathing continuation of an entrepreneur’s business plan and market analysis.

82% of small businesses fail due to cash flow problems

You’ve probably heard this statistic many, many times. It’s scary.

While it seems logical, let’s dig into the 2 main reasons why cash flow problems exist for entrepreneurs:

1. “Money In”: An entrepreneur can’t drive enough revenue.
   
2. “Money Out”: An entrepreneur’s expenses are too high.

SEO, if done by you as the entrepreneur, can be a channel to solve both of the problems above.

SEO is Mostly “Free”

Here’s proof.

1. Domain name cost: $10-20 per year
2. WordPress Website cost: free
   1. WordPress One-Time Template Investment: $50-100
   2. All the basic WordPress plugins you need are free
3. Website hosting cost: $60 per year
4. Ongoing content creation, new website pages, etc: free
   1. If you know how to build a website, add new pages, edit existing pages, etc, then this costs $0. It takes time, of course. But it doesn’t cost money.

   Total yearly cost for Year 1: Less than $200

   The main “cost” is your time to develop and implement website development and SEO skills. That’s it.

   When SEO Isn’t “Free”

   If you don’t know how to build a website or implement SEO strategies themselves, here’s likely what your website development and SEO investment would be:

   Domain name cost: $10-20 per year

   1. WordPress Website cost: $5,000 - $10,000 for an agency or contractor to build it
   2. Website hosting cost: $60 per year
   3. Content creation, new website pages, etc: $1,000 - $3,000/month for an agency or contractor to manage your website

   Total yearly cost for Year 1: Minimum $17,000+

   SEO Isn’t The Only Marketing Channel for Entrepreneurs, Of Course:

   There are dozens of marketing strategies for new entrepreneurs.

   The issue is that most other digital marketing strategies are paid strategies:

   • Google Ads
   • Facebook Ads
   • Instagram Ads

   You have organic social media posting strategies to build engagement and followers, but here’s why those are frequently (not always) less valuable than SEO:

   They aren’t targeted.

   • With SEO, you’re ranking for keywords that your target audience is actively searching for on Google
   • They’re already looking for your product/service and they want to buy it!
   • With organic social media posting, you’re hoping to get in front of the right audience as they’re scrolling through their feed

   You have many other “free” strategies:

   • LinkedIn
   • Cold calling
   • Networking

   However, these scale 1-1 with your time.

   Whereas, with SEO, if you rank for a target keyword at the top of Google, you could potentially consistently drive leads and revenue from that keyword for days, weeks, months, or even years after implementing the strategy.

   To Wrap Things Up

   If you know…

   • How to build a website and
   • Rank that website for valuable keywords

   …then you can start just about any business and drive targeted traffic, leads, and revenue.