If you have ever looked at the average prices for SEO development, you probably had a mini heart attack. SEO is expensive, especially if you go through a top digital marketing agency. As someone who barely had enough money to buy an emergency Chromebook today, I can tell you that not all business owners have enough money to splurge on professional SEO. Thankfully, my years as a professional writer have served me well. This means that I learned how to SEO optimize websites pretty darn well. Better still, I can do it for free. That’s right!

If I had a website, I’d SEO the beans out of it. Did you ever wonder how you can DIY your own SEO? Here’s the scoop…

1. Learn to do keyword research, and start planning posts accordingly.
2. Start a WordPress or Blogger blog, and use keyword research to determine topics.
3. Post frequently, and steadily.

As someone who knows how prohibitively expensive being a business owner can be, I want to help you understand the basics of blogging as an SEO expert. Let’s start!

Do I really need SEO for my website?

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a dating site trying to pair people off or a person selling garbage cans on the net. SEO is going to be a must-have for your company. Search Engine Optimization is what helps Google’s crawlers find your website on the net and rank it for the things that your site is related to. 

Even if you think paid ads are where it’s at, you need to have SEO for times when your budget will not handle it. Thankfully, it’s easy enough to get good, organic traffic to your website. It just takes time. A lot of time. 

Why do I need SEO for my business website?

Oh, my sweet summer child. There are so many reasons why you need SEO in your marketing plans. These reasons below are the most commonly-cited reasons why you should add Search Engine Optimization to your site…

• It’s what makes Google pick your website up. Google uses search engine crawlers to discover sites. If you don’t do much purposeful SEO, then you’re going to end up being lost in the flood of sites. 
• SEO makes it possible for you to target certain audiences. Most of the time, this is done for local searchers. For example, a lumber company that wants to have a bunch of clients in Adelaide might want SEO so that their site pops up when others search up “lumber in Adelaide.” 
• Search Engine Optimization is cheap in the long term. Organic traffic is hard to get through the use of advertising dollars. Though it might be pricey to get it done through a marketing agency, the truth is that it pays off long-term. As people search for your site, they’ll come across it through search engines. This gives you free traffic month after month.
• It also makes your site work for you. Did you ever hear about companies (or solo-preneurs) who bought a website, only to let it just sit there? Yeah, that site is a liability, not an asset. SEO makes your site more discoverable, thereby making your site more valuable to you. 
• Finally, it also makes your site more relevant to your target audience. The cool thing about SEO is that it acts as a codified set of rules that are meant to produce better content. So, your clients will like hanging out on your site for longer periods of time, too. 

Is doing your own SEO a good idea?

Honestly, it can be. However, most people who own their own business should not even dare think about it. The reason why is because it’s incredibly labor-intensive. Proper SEO can easily take away from your actual business purpose by flooding your work with writing projects. 

If you want to save money on SEO, then it’s better to take on a rather hands-off approach and hire a content agency to create SEO content based on your needs. Heck, even hiring some college interns to do the writing can be a better option. 

With that said, most business owners should have some knowledge of SEO and should also play a quasi-active role in this type of marketing. It’s a smart way to save money, avoid mistakes, and also keep tabs on your business brand. 

How much do SEO services cost?

Most companies will spend between $2,500 to $5,000 per month on SEO services. However, if you choose to hire freelancers to write for your business and do the keyword research yourself, you might be able to squeak by with less. 

Do you have to spend money to get quality SEO?

Nope. Search engines actually don’t like to see people “gaming the system” too much. While you do need to spend hours doing concentrated efforts in lieu of spending money, the truth is that it’s all about hard work. It’s just a debate of whether you or your hired agency do the work.

See, search engines don’t want to see people pay fools to cram keywords down everyone’s throat. You also can’t purchase some kind of SEO toolbox and assume it’ll magically do everything for you. As long as your articles are good, are properly tagged, and are related to the topic at hand, you should expect some kind of pick up there.

How do you SEO your website for free?

There’s two ways to get the SEO work you want to have done: spending time or spending money. In many cases, it’s best to do both. Let’s talk about the basic steps…

1. Begin by getting a website and putting together a blog connected to it.

Your website should have your company’s name, and also have information about what you do available in the metatitle and “About Us” section of your site. This will start giving your site a “leg to stand on” while you prepare the meat and potatoes aspect of your business.

While you’re at it, take this time to do the following:

• Sign up for Google Places, Yelp, and other similar media platforms. Link it to your site. It’s your first backlink and helps bolster your legitimacy to Google. Yes, this is a secret professional SEO services keep mum. Make sure to link your profiles to your site address.
• Make sure that your website is mobile-friendly. Believe it or not, search engines take this into consideration when they are trying to rank your site.
• Add photos to your site and social media profiles. Once again, it’s important to remember to promote your site visually. Social media IS a part of SEO, especially with the later algorithms held up by Google. 
• Try to figure out whether or not you really want to do this all yourself. I’ll be honest, you should try to hire a writer at the very least. It’s a LOT of work to make a site rank.

2. Next, you’re going to need to do a crash course in keyword research.

You will need to figure out which keywords you want to target with your SEO campaign. This often means that you will need to use Google’s free Keyword Planner tool. Admittedly, this can take some getting used to and learning. Your foray into keyword research is going to be there to help you start compiling a list of topics. Thankfully, I have tips for you!

• Remember that YouTube is a great teacher, and that Google has a knowledge base. Yes, it’s going to be a bit of a learning curve, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. I strongly suggest that you check out Income School on YouTube. They give amazing writing tutorials for newbies on SEO. 
• Ask yourself what your clients would want to learn. Ideally, you’ll go for the more obscure (yet common) topics first. Such as, the price of lawn care in San Diego if you’re a gardening company in California. Or if you’re a vet, why does a dog seem to be hiccuping? Use those kinds of keywords to start compiling a list of topics, or at least try to plug them into Ubersuggest.
• If you feel like Keyword Planner is a little too hard, try Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest instead. I personally find it easier to use, to be honest. 
• Keep a list of keywords and titles that are associated with it in a spreadsheet. This makes it easier to track.
• Remember that you will have to do better at writing articles than most of your competitors. That may mean having more information, better writing, or even just making it longer and filled to the brim with extra information. This is not easy to do, but it’s important to remember when you’re planning SEO out. 

3. Do a website analysis of your current optimization. 

If your site is brand new, then you won’t have to do this. However, if you’ve had your site for a while, you need to figure out what’s going on with the traffic. Are your clients actually reaching out to you? Are you just not getting any traffic?  Are you switching up photos? 

Oh, and is your website *really* functioning? 

Now is a good time to figure out whether you need to get a better call to action (CTA), or if it’s just a matter of not having a very good SEO game. Google Search Console can help you figure out what your site needs. Oh, and it’s good to know what it says about your competitors, too.

4. Blog, blog, blog, blog. 

Here’s the part that most people don’t like hearing. To get a good SEO campaign going, you’re going to have to write and post a lot. Frequent posting helps your SEO standing. It’s a “the more, the merrier,” type of deal, too. With that said, there are certain things you need to be aware of:

• Length matters. Though this can vary from industry to industry and keyword to keyword, but longer is better...to a point. You should aim for around 1600 words per post. 
• Remember to use quality links. You want to link to other posts on your site as well as relevant, high quality, and trusted external links. It makes a big difference!
• Quality is king. People want to read blogs that are informative and answer the questions that they have. Ideally, they’ll also do it in language that’s easy to understand, too. If your writing sucks, it will eventually harm your SEO. 
• Engage with others that can help link others to your blog and site. Getting guest bloggers and working with a lot of social media marketers can help here too. 

I’ve been with companies that had me writing (and publishing) 10 articles a DAY to rank high on Google in the past. That’s why most people do not want to do this on their own. Hiring a writer to help you out is HIGHLY recommended. You can easily burn yourself out. Even hiring interns from college can be helpful here. 

5. Add backlinks, keep things authoritative, and make sure to add all those SEO features.

SEO is not just about getting quality content under certain keywords. You need to make sure that everything is lined up. This includes the following:

• A related URL
• Guest posters and authors who are authorities in your field, if necessary
• Links to other related articles
• Images that have proper descriptions
• Images that are related to what you’re talking about
• Proper headings

6. Keep at it!

Remember when I said that this is a long-term project? It is. It’s not going to be a “one and done” issue. It’s going to be a procedure that will have you grinding day in, day out, if you want to do a one-person SEO job. And sadly, if you’re working for free, that’s what you’re going to have to expect. 

How long does it take for Google to rank your website?

Honestly, it depends. It’s exceedingly rare for a website to get ranked to the top of Google within a matter of months. At the very least, you should expect for ranking to take at least six months to occur. If you have a very competitive market, such as beauty, then it could take upwards of a year to a year and a half!

Should you buy paid ads from Google? 

If you ever searched up anything on Google, you might have noticed that the first couple of hits are actually paid product placements or ads. Sadly, these are what most people will click on first. If you can pay for paid ads, do so. It will get you a temporary shortcut to the #1 search result for specific keywords you choose.

What should beginners know about SEO before they start?

So far, I’ve told you the biggest issue. It’s the workload you’re going to have to watch out for. However, there are other tips that beginners should know…

• SEO is about quality work. Google is smarter than people. You can’t keyword cram and hope for the best. The content you make has to be new, fresh, and factual. Copying and pasting someone else’s article is NOT going to work!
• Avoid unethical tactics to get your page to rank. In the SEO world, these are called “black hat” tactics. This includes jamming keywords in there, linking to sites that are filled with bad links, linking to sites that aren’t related to the topic at hand simply because you’re paid to do so, and more. 
• The rules of SEO change fairly frequently. Google is always updating its algorithm. This is done to ensure that the best quality content ends up on the front page of search results. What worked five years ago won’t work today. Keep an eye out on sites like Moz to help you learn how to keep your SEO game fresh. 
• If you are not good with grammar or communication, trying to do SEO on your own is a terrible idea. Believe it or not, Google dings people for using poor grammar. If you failed English, it’s not a smart idea to try this on your own. Hire an SEO agency instead

The next steps

Getting your SEO done on your own is a daunting task, even if you’re a veteran of the industry like I am. If you want to get started, the next steps to take are the ones below:

1. Determine if this is a smart move for you
2. Learn SEO, and plan out your keywords
3. Start writing, and keep at it. 

Not feeling the hassle? I understand completely. Post a job on SavvySME to find an affordable SEO agency near you.