While SEO is a very effective digital marketing effort to get your website set up for the future it can be a costly investment. Many small business owners are hesitant to get started due to how much it can cost and them simply not having the capital to get it started. It may be true that the number one results page holders are investing a lot of money to get their spot, that doesn’t mean you have to spend that much to get started.
There are some very easy to implement and cost effective methods that you can do to get your SEO started on the right foot. Keep reading below to see how you can improve your online presence while on a budget.
Website optimisation
Something that a lot of business owners overlook is the importance of their website. For starters it is the first point of contact of your brand with a potential consumer. From such it is important that it is aesthetically pleasing and runs smoothly. That includes having the appropriate speeds so that everything loads fast when cycling through various web pages. Little details like this can actually affect the ranking that you get on the results page. Getting someone to look at the code of your website and make sure it is free of bugs is pretty cheap and will improve your efforts immensely.
Additionally you need to ensure that your website is optimised for mobile devices. This tip isn’t if you have time or the funds, it is a necessity. Mobile devices account for all the searches done on multiple search engines which is why it is important that your website can be viewed on these devices. Search engines such as Google have also announced that they will be ranking websites that are optimised for mobile over those that aren’t. This is a quick and cost effective way to boost your ranking over competitors that aren’t aware of current trends.
Start a blog
When it comes to SEO one of the best tips that you need to understand is that content is king. In saying that you should be having as much content as you can that is optimised correctly for SEO. That means having an appropriate keyword density as well as it being of adequate length. As you can’t have a ridiculous amount of landing pages the best way to get more content onto your site without it being crowded is to start a blog.
Your blog is a great way to capture certain keywords that are a bit more niche but still apply to your industry. Niche keywords are also easier to rank as there is less competition for them. With less people trying to rank for certain terms you will find that you should see results quicker than normal.
Create social media pages
Another great cost effective way to start drawing attention to your website is to create social media pages across all the channels. SEO works best when people are sharing trusted sources. You can ultimately think that the websites that are ranked at the top are the more “trustworthy” sites as they have past several tests and many people are linking to them. Social media channels allow you an in into the sharing nature as these platforms promote that. This also comes down to the quality of your content. People will only share something if it is high quality so don’t settle for mediocrity.
It is also important to note that when you start ranking your social media pages they take up slots on the results page. These are positions that your competitors are missing out on!
Sarah is the head of guest posts outreach and an SEO expert. Her interests are search engine optimisation, social media and brand management.