How Much SEO Can I Do By Myself?

After months of procrastinating, I really need to get my website tricked out with some SEO. Because it’s such a technical process and can be rather expensive, I started wondering how much I could do myself. I have zero knowledge of or experience in HTML and web programming, and a budget of…well, let’s say not enough to pay an SEO expert what their service is worth.

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Based on my research, which consisted of my limited knowledge, a Google search, and finally asking SEO guru Ken Fischer of Click for Help, there is quite a bit you can do on your own. Needless to say, it’s not going to be nearly as effective as adding all those tags and metadata and technical gee gaws to your website, but it will certainly help.

Here’s what you need, in no specific order:

Keywords. Research keywords for your industry simply by plugging words and terms related to what you do into any search engine. You probably already know what some key terms are, but get really creative. Ask friends and family for their thoughts—you might get even more ideas.

Once you have a list of keywords, add them to your website’s content wherever possible. To make your content both readable and effective, you’ll want to craft your messaging and positioning statements around the keywords rather than just randomly inserting keywords into your content.

Strong, original, well-written website content. If your content is poorly written, no one’s going to click through your website, let alone contact you. Remember that the reason you want your site to be optimized for search engines is not just so people can find you, but so those people become customers. Without good content, that goal is a lost cause.

If you’re not a good writer, find someone who is. If you think you’re a good writer, find a good editor. Make sure your content uses plain English rather than jargon and is thoughtful and original. Most importantly, make sure your content speaks to your audience’s needs. Explain to them how you are going to solve their problems and how you are going to do it better than the other guy.

Links from other websites. Link from websites to yours (aka, a backlink) are gold in the SEO world. Think about it: why would someone provide a link to a website if it didn’t contain useful or interesting information? Links drive traffic to your website and make web pages more likely to appear at the top of a search engine’s results page, which, in turn, pushes more traffic to your website. It’s a nice little cycle once it gets going.

Publish articles to the LinkedIn groups you belong to and to an online article distribution service like EzineArticles or GoArticles. As long as what you are writing is relevant and interesting, it will be shared over and over again. You can also distribute press releases, sprinkled with backlinks to your website, to an online news release service like PR Web. It will get picked up by news services, and because PR Web is recognized as an authority, backlinks from their website can drive a lot of traffic to your website.

Social media. When you post to your favorite social media platforms, be sure you are offering advice, tips, and success stories with relevant links back to your website. Avoid outright sales pitches at all costs. Of course, if you’re running a special promotion, a sale, or launching a new product or service, you’re going to advertise that. But people are more likely to pass along good advice than an announcement regarding a new product launch. If your company sounds interesting, people will visit your website.

Blog. As with social media, blog posts that offer useful, relevant information and contain links back to content on your website will spur web traffic. Publish a great blog, and people will pass it along, post it to Facebook, tweet it, and refer to it and ultimately drive traffic to your website.

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