11 SEO Tips for Do-It-Yourselfers to Save Money

It takes effort and money to optimize a website for search engines. If you don’t have much time but a lot of money, you may hire an agency or a consultant. If you don’t have a lot of money, use these do-it-yourself strategies to improve your site’s organic ranks.

1. Improve Title Tags

Examine your top-level category pages. According to my research, e-commerce category pages should generate up to 32% more organic search traffic than product pages.

A modest, common-sense change to a title tag can sometimes make a tremendous difference, especially if your platform creates default titles based on your taxonomy labels and the site’s name. As a result, title tags like “Women’s – [Your Site]” may appear.

Are your title tags logical? Are you able to make them more specific or relevant? Adding “shoes” to the title tag above, for example, could be a common-sense change: “Women’s Shoes – [Your Site].”

2. Master Keyword Research

Keyword research is used in a good SEO program to:

• Learn the words and phrases used by real searchers.
• Choose which keywords to target.
• Determine the level of demand for your products.

Marketers frequently employ industry and brand jargon. Don’t assume you know what customers want or how they search; instead, conduct a study.

The most effective keyword programs provide a demand score for each theme. Google Keyword Planner is the go-to free keyword research tool, but to access the most helpful data, you must have an active Google Ads campaign.

The majority of other quantitative keyword tools necessitate a premium subscription. However, others continue to provide free keyword suggestions without providing data on popularity.

3. Understand Your Competition

Determine your organic-search competitors — not just the sites that sell the same products and services as you, but also informational sites and large shops that compete for the same terms. If Wikipedia, Vogue magazine and Walmart are taking up space on the search results page, they are your competition. Consider the following:

• What do they excel at in organic search?
• What topics do they cover that you don’t?
• How do they build their site such that valuable keywords are targeted?
• How do they entice customers?

Examine their evaluations and social media activity to uncover goods or site information that could enhance your own services and user experience.

4. Map Keywords

Map keywords to each page on your site based on what customers desire and the search phrases they use.

Make a spreadsheet with all of the important pages in your site’s navigation and assign distinct primary and secondary keywords to each. Make new pages for high-value keywords that have yet to be assigned.

In blog posts, FAQ pages, and product sites, use long-tail keyword themes that drive fewer searches and are often more precise, such as “how to get red wine out of carpet” or “ex9116 exalt 18v battery charger.”

5. Optimize Your Site

With your keyword map in hand, the next stage is to apply on-page SEO, which includes the following:

• Updating the page content to include the keywords;
• Creating new pages containing text and, optionally, graphics, audio, and video (for unassigned keywords);
• Starting a new, keyword-rich area, such as a blog or an education site.

Consider the relevancy of each page’s textual pieces — title tags, meta descriptions, headings, and body content — to the keyword themes used by searchers.

6. Produce Regular Content

Create continuing material that is personalized to your target audience. You are not required to publish a new blog post or other pieces of material every day. That is unattainable for many businesses. Simply publish new content at least once a month, if not more frequently. The importance of consistency cannot be overstated.

“Content” does not have to be limited to text. Use graphics, product photographs, how-to videos, and any other content that will assist customers. It is critical to provide value. If the content does not meet a need or engage your customers and prospects, you have squandered both your and their time.

7. Boost Link Equity

The number of high-quality, topically relevant sites that link to yours is referred to as link equity. The top two organic ranking variables are link equity and contextual relevance. Link acquisition and content marketing, when combined, automatically boost your link equity.

Content marketing for SEO is developing content such as articles, videos, and podcasts that people want to share and link to. The possibility for links grows as the number of persons exposed to the content grows.

In contrast, link acquisition entails:

• Identifying high-value pages or sites with topically relevant content;
• determining how to make your content useful to the site owner; and
• Contacting you personally to request a link or an agreement that will result in a link, such as a guest post or an interview.

Google recommends that website owners create appealing websites that people want to tell their friends about. This content-engagement SEO strategy is Google’s response to the question, “How can I gain more links ethically?”

The keyword research in step 2 above comes in helpful because it gives you an idea of which sites are the most prominent and have the highest-ranking to approach.

8. Build Your Social Media Network

Social media allows you to communicate with your target audience. Nurturing those relationships raises the visibility of your content and, as a result, the likelihood that others will blog about it or link to it.

Consumer-facing firms will most likely benefit the most from Facebook and Twitter. B2B organizations typically focus on Twitter and LinkedIn, with Facebook thrown in for good measure.

Add Instagram or Pinterest to the list if you have appealing photographs. If you want to make videos, YouTube is a great place to start.

9. Understand Analytics

What you don’t measure, you can’t optimize. To identify which pages to optimize and which are performing well, SEO requires a basic understanding of Google Analytics (or equivalent).

Navigate to Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels in Google Analytics. Change the Primary Dimension to “Landing Page” after clicking on “Organic Search.” After that, you can evaluate your SEO performance.

But be wary of the “Keyword” dimension. No analytics program can determine which keywords referred organic search traffic to your site. Only each search engine’s analytics, such as Google Search Console’s Performance report, are capable of doing so.

10. Read SEO Posts

Examine an SEO manual, such as my “SEO How-to” series. Moz’s “The Introductory’s Guide to SEO,” Search Engine Land’s “Guide to SEO,” and Google’s “Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide” are also useful and free beginner SEO guides.

Try two YouTube channels for quick updates on SEO changes: Moz’s “Whiteboard Friday” and “Google Webmasters.”

Also, read reputable SEO blogs.

11. Ask Questions

If you’re stuck, post a question on one of the many SEO forums. The Google Webmaster Forum is a good place to start. Google personnel, SEO professionals, marketers, and developers are among those who will take part. WebmasterWorld Forum and Moz’s Q&A Forum are two more popular forums. SEO communities can also be found on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Twitter is a popular platform for seeking assistance from the SEO community. Include a hashtag like #seo or #seoquestion to boost your chances of being spotted by someone who can assist.

However, keep in mind that there is a lot of SEO misinformation out there. Make an effort to verify the source.