Search engine optimization (SEO) is an effective marketing tactic that directs organic traffic—i.e., potential customers—to your website.
And doing it properly is critical, particularly for small company owners and e-commerce websites.
If you don’t have a large budget to engage SEO specialists, don’t worry.
There are several DIY SEO strategies and methods you may use. That is exactly what this tutorial is about.
Here are the six actions you should take to succeed with DIY SEO.
How to DIY SEO?
Are you ready to learn how to perform SEO on your own?
Follow these eight steps to learn how to perform SEO yourself:
1. Get Your Technical SEO in Order
If Google cannot discover, crawl, and index your pages, no matter what SEO strategies you employ, they will be useless. Your pages just cannot rank.
So the first step is to ensure that Google can perform all of the above for your website.
- Auditing your website is the simplest way to determine whether any flaws prevent Google from ranking it.
- Sign up for our free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT) and use Site Audit to crawl your website.
- You will notice all major issues impacting your site when the crawl is complete.
- Click on the number in the Crawled column to reveal the URLs.
You may also click on the issue to learn why it’s a problem and how to remedy it.
2. Research Keywords
Keyword research provides two benefits. First, identifying and arranging relevant search queries exposes the terms and phrases customers use to find products and services. Merchants may utilize those keywords in product descriptions, titles, and blog articles to increase their organic search ranks.
Second, understanding how consumers search for desires and requirements reveals rivals (who rank for those keywords) and sparks ideas for new or enhanced items.
There are several free and freemium keyword research tools. Organizing keywords based on a similar aim is time-consuming yet possible using spreadsheets.
3. Improve Internal Linking
Internal links are similar to city streets, allowing visitors (and Google) to navigate your website. Internal linking is essential for DIY SEO, regardless of the site size.
When you spend effort on internal linking, you assist Google scan your site and comprehend your content, which can result in improved positions in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Additional advantages of internal linkages include:
- Improving time spent on site by giving users with additional relevant information to explore.
- Sharing timely information with consumers to help them continue their purchasing journey.
- Allowing search engine crawlers direct access to material deeper inside your site architecture.
- Passing authority from one URL to another can lead to improved rankings.
To get started with internal linking, adopt these recommended practices:
- To link to a URL regarding greenhouse advice, use descriptive anchor text, such as “greenhouse tips”.
- Ensure that each URL has three to five internal backlinks.
- Use the menu and footer to link to URLs that target competitive keywords.
4. Attract Backlinks
The next DIY SEO trick is to persuade others to link to your article. Links from credible sites help your site appear attractive to search engines, offering you a much-needed boost in ranks. However, gaining connections takes work.
That is why many DIY SEOs purchase links, but I will tell it now. Do not buy links.
Purchasing links will punish you in the SERPs, as evidenced by Google’s SpamBrain upgrade, thereby invalidating your hard work on your site’s SEO. Getting people to connect to your website takes effort and persistence.
Here are some strategies for getting backlinks to your website:
- Look up hot topics on Google Trends: Read some of your rivals’ material, if they have any, check what people are talking about on social media and forums like Quora and Reddit, and use our content idea generator, FAQ Fox.
- Make outstanding content that people want to share: If you produce instructional blog entries or create fascinating videos, you’re on the right track. If you need content ideas people desire, search the internet.
- Conduct email outreach: Look for professionals in your sector. Perhaps a trade journal might benefit from an article you published, or a blogger might incorporate your infographic into their relevant work.
5. Publish Optimized Content
Once you’ve found important keywords, you can start creating high-quality content to support your content marketing plan.
Are you wondering how to create your own SEO content?
Follow these simple rules:
- Include the primary keyword in the H1.
- Include the major term you want to target naturally in the content.
- Don’t do “keyword stuffing.” Overuse of keywords hurts search engine algorithms.
- Select secondary keywords that naturally complement the core keyword.
- So, if you’re writing a page on root canals for a dentistry website, a prominent keyword may be “root canal.”
- A logical secondary keyword may be “root canal cost.”
- For future material, try creating content pages for secondary keywords and linking to them within.
- Include at least one “rich” piece of material, such as an appropriate image, infographic, or video.
- Search engines view this as adding value to the material and will thus rank the page higher.
- Include your principal keyword in the page’s title tag.
- Consider utilizing plugins to optimize your content.
- WordPress, for example, has several tools to assist with your on-page SEO efforts.
- If you are refreshing material, ensure that your new content is posted to the current landing page or that the old content is removed before creating your new page.
- This will assist you avoid creating duplicate material, which can affect your rankings.
6. Track SEO Rankings, Conversions & More
When it comes to how to handle SEO on your own, it’s more than just optimizing your website; it’s also about tracking your results.
How can you know whether what you’re doing is effective and contributes to your organization’s overall goals?
A website analytics tool, such as GA4, may help you answer this issue by tracking the following:
- Organic Conversions
- Organic Traffic
Similarly, Google Search Console may help you track the following:
- Organic search result impressions
- Organic search result rankings
- Organic search result clicks
Final Thoughts
This easy DIY SEO guide explains the foundations of SEO. You may use this technique again to improve your website and rank for meaningful and relevant keywords.
Then, as your success grows, consider employing an agency to take things even further.
FAQs
Now you have an answer to the question, “Can I do SEO on my own?”
If you want to learn more about DIY SEO, check out our FAQs:
1. Is it difficult to DIY SEO?
The difficulty of doing SEO on your own relies on several factors, which include:
- Your website’s size
- Your website’s current SEO
- Your SEO experience.
- Consider your SEO budget, time availability, and more.
If you have a huge website and many duties, SEO might be tough to perform independently – not because you lack the expertise, but because you need more time to optimize, manage, and expand your site.
In contrast, if you have a small website and an SEO-focused position, SEO can be simple to handle independently since you have the time and abilities to improve your site’s off-page, on-page, and technical search engine optimization.
2. When should I employ someone instead of doing SEO on my own?
When determining whether to work with an SEO firm or do it yourself, consider your business and its online performance – based on your existing results, do you believe an agency might dramatically boost your success?
3. Who do I hire for SEO services?
When hiring someone for SEO, you have two options: work with an agency or hire a freelancer. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but the main distinction between the two is their capacities.
A freelance SEO is often a single individual, whereas an agency provides the support of a large team of SEO specialists. Finally, it comes down to deciding which is best for your organization.