Looking for Affordable SEO? Guess what, you can be your own affordable SEO. Here are the basic knowledge and resources you need to kick off your SEO strategy.
Services from well-known SEO agencies like 97th Floor, Content Harmony or Builtvisible can cost anywhere between $80 to $200 per hour. So you can only imagine that for a whole project the bill would really add up.
However, you don’t necessarily need an SEO consultancy agency to improve your website.
Going it alone in SEO seems far more daunting than it really is. With a bit of research and effort, you can create a basic SEO strategy for yourself and provide comparable results to what a professional agency would.
Does driving traffic, moving up in SERPs, and building your brand sound like what your website needs?
Here’s how to create your own affordable SEO strategy.
Affordable SEO Checklist
Use this handy checklist to guide you when starting out. If you take these steps and refer back to this resource your SEO strategy is sure to succeed.
1. Begin with a full ranking assessment.
- When you first start out, you should start tracking your ranking position on a weekly basis. As you implement effective changes, you can cut this down to once a month.
- Check to see your traffic and conversion rates on day one and take note of how your site is doing. This is your starting point and will help you to set realistic goals.
2. Make an in-depth plan that includes goals and objectives.
- Get your marketing team together and clearly define the individual steps you are going to take and what goal each is trying to achieve. This will help you to measure your progress and see what changes are paying off.
- Set a goal for how much you want your traffic to increase and in what time period.
- You should also set a goal for things like your conversion rates and ranking position and outline the necessary steps to achieve these goals.
3. Analyze how you use keywords on your website.
- Do your keywords match the search intent of your users?
- Do they tell search engines what your content is about and why it’s valuable?Â
4. Analyze how much visible text you have in relation to code.
- Check if the code transmits what your website offers to search engines.
5. Are you target keywords realistic?
- Use tool like Keyword Finder or SEMrush to investigate what the highest ranking sites are doing to achieve their position. Ask yourself: is the top ranking content long form? What kind of content is it?
- Then, check how difficult certain keywords are to rank for. Do the highest ranking sites have a higher domain authority than your site? This will tell you what you should improve on or if you should target a different keyword altogether.
- Part of your initial research should be formulating a list of target search terms that you could potentially rank for. If you don’t know where to start, ask your customers what they search for.Â
6. Optimize Your Content.
- Next, put your research to work by creating keyword-based page titles.
- Create meta description tags. Although not directly related to ranking, they can influence your click-through rate.
- Implement keyword phrases on your pages and website source code. Avoid keyword stuffing or using phrases unnaturally. Make sure to make them blend into copy seamlessly
7. Create new sitemaps for Google and Bing.
- Sitemaps make it easier for search engines to index your web pages.
- First create an HTML version, followed by an XML version.
- Don’t forget to submit your sitemap via Google and Bings’ webmaster tool.
8. Work on your linking strategy.
- Linking is an essential part of SEO. It shows search engines that your website is a reliable source supported by other high-quality websites. Additionally, the more links you have pointing to your site, the more traffic you’ll attract.
- Link internally within your content
- Use these linking hacks to earn backlinks. Â
9. Continue to maintain your website.
- Test and analyze your website regularly. This will show you how well you’re ranking and the ways you could improve. It will also help to determine how effective certain programmes or keywords you have implemented are. Don’t forget to track these updates and changes in an Excel spreadsheet.
- Maintain your website to make sure your traffic grows. You may need to modify keywords and should continue to add updated content if you want to rank.
- Check up on your links. You need to make sure that your internal and external links are relevant to your business. If you find they aren’t, you may need to alter your linking strategy.
In SEO, Experience is Everything
It’s true that if you pay for affordable SEO services, you don’t have to put in the time and effort yourself. However, you will also miss out on acquiring the experience necessary to understand how effective SEO is for your business.
It may be a good starting point, but in the long run, nothing is going to pay-off like learning about SEO yourself.
When your SEO consultant is finished, the SEO service you paid for comes to an end. When you become your own affordable SEO service, you can maintain your website for life.
You’ll have the knowledge to update your site and keep up with search engine algorithm changes.
When you learn how to do SEO yourself, you’ll sure to see your traffic continue to grow along with your conversion rates.
SEO Resources From Edgy Labs to get you Started
Here are some more in-depth SEO resources that will help you to become your own affordable SEO expert.
Articles to kick off your SEO Campaign:
If you’re new to SEO and digital marketing, this is a great article to begin with. It gives understandable definitions of SEO and SEM and goes on to explain how you can use SEO and SEM to improve your website.
This resource is perfect to use when you are creating your own affordable SEO strategy. If you aren’t up to date with the current world of SEO, after reading this you definitely will be! It provides you with expert insights and SEO hacks you should be using.
Best read this early on to save yourself the agony of retrospect later! If you avoid these SEO mistakes from day one, your SEO strategy will be way more effective.
Once you’ve got your head around the basics of SEO, take a look at these handy tips. This article is written for newbies so although the info is technical, it’s explained in a digestible way.
This article was written with beginners in mind. It details numerous tips and tricks that once you implement, you’ll see your traffic skyrocket.
Articles that deal with more specific areas of SEO:
It’s crucial you read this article. With Google’s recent change over to mobile-first indexing, mobile SEO is more important than ever. This resource goes through the steps you need to take to update your website so it will rank.
This article fully explains indexing. You’ll learn how indexing is a vital part of being visible in search engine results pages and learn how to get indexed ASAP.
This article explains everything you need to know to write the most effective title tags. It explains the best way to optimize your keywords in title tags. Finally, it gives a useful list of the do’s and don’ts of title tags.
Not sure what ALT image text is or how to use it for SEO? Read this! This article explains tactics you should be using to improve your image ALT text.
This one is a little more on the technical side, so proceed with care. This valuable resource explains everything you need to know about sitemaps. It also goes into more depth about the main three you should be using for SEO.
If you are making changes to your website, press pause! You should read this article first. I promise it will make the process seem a lot less daunting. This plan will guide your website migration so it goes off without a hitch. It will also help you to avoid common mistakes so your traffic doesn’t drop and your hard work pays off.
Articles that will help with your linking strategy:
Backlinks are an essential element of SEO. This article explains how different links cater for different SEO needs. It also guides you through the step by step process of earning backlinks.
This article will be extremely helpful to your link building strategy. It combines two key areas of SEO. You’ll see just how powerful keywords and backlinks will be when used together.
Final Note
At this point, you’ll probably be an SEO expert. This article can be the cherry on top of your amazing SEO strategy. It will make sure there isn’t any vital part of SEO that you’ve forgotten. Plus, imagine how satisfying it will be to tick every box on the list!
From saving money to gaining experience, the benefits of becoming your own “affordable SEO” are countless. Once you know the ins and outs of SEO, then you can up your game and consider working with an expert team. This will make it easy for you to learn even more about SEO and take your website beyond basic SEO to professional SEO.
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