How to Do SEO on a Budget

You’ve made a website you’re proud of. Job done? Well, no. Even if your website looks great, research from Ahrefs shows a whopping 96.5% of pages get no search traffic at all.

But you’re going to do better than that, and that’s where SEO comes in. If you’re a small business or solopreneur just starting out though, keeping your SEO low cost might be the only option.

That’s why we’ve created this 5-step guide for you, sharing how to do SEO on a budget. Read on for search engine secrets to make your website a whole lot more visible online, and how you can build your SEO skills even more.

1. Research Your Keywords

Nearly 7 in 10 times we go online, we start with a search engine – mostly Google. In SEO, the words we type into the search box are called keywords.

If you’re doing SEO on a budget, and by that we mean you’re going to do it yourself, you’ll need to find and target the most relevant keywords for your business. That’s where keyword research tools come in.

Let’s face it, tools like SEMrush are probably not the best investment if you’re on a budget. Instead, here are affordable (or free) SEO tools you can start with:

1. Google Keyword Planner – Free with your Google account, this will show you search volumes and competition for your keywords.
2. Google Trends – Reveals rising and seasonal search terms for your niche.
3. AnswerThePublic and AlsoAsked – Tools worth using to find question-based keywords, useful for FAQs or blog content.
4. UberSuggest – Similar to Google Keyword Planner, this tool gives extra suggestions around your keyword and helps you analyse search trends.
5. Google – Simplest of all, just type a phrase and look at the autocomplete suggestions.

For every page of your website, ask yourself, what would my target audience have to search to find this? Make a list of 3-6 keywords for each page, making sure you can compete. For example, ‘luxury flower shop’ will be an easier keyword to rank for than, say, ‘flowers’.

Learn more about choosing the right keywords in our guide.  

2. Optimise Your Website

So, how do you get your website among the 3.5% pages that actually get seen on search? Now you have your keywords, you can add them to your website text, headings and metadata in a way that feels natural.

For example, if your homepage keywords are:

professional organiser​ | professional home organiser | decluttering services

You can alter the text on your website to include these words:

professional | organiser | home | decluttering | services

You can see how keywords with multiple words can be optimised by adding the words in any order, and not necessarily together. You don’t need to worry about plurals either, as ‘services’ will count for ‘service’ because search engines can recognise grammar.

And lastly, a reminder, your website is primarily for your users – not search engine bots! When you’re adding keywords to your website, keep it natural and resist the urge to stuff them in (an easy beginner mistake to make with your SEO).

Read more on how to drive traffic to your website.

3. Write Blog Content

Think no one reads blogs? Think again.

Content is our second pillar of SEO precisely because blog posts by human writers are so useful in helping your site stand out from AI-written sites, and can establish you as a trusted source in your field.

Blogs are also a handy way to add value for new and existing customers and, last but not least, high-quality content can bring you 77% more backlinks (more on that later).

If you’re going to do your SEO on a budget, there’s something you might have noticed. The steps in our guide are (mostly) free, but they are going to take time. Blog writing is no different, but it’s one of the most powerful ways to rank for long-tail and question keywords.

You’re a blogging beginner? No sweat. Here are 5 steps to get started:

1. Look at long-tail keywords for your products or services. Are there any questions you can answer, or ‘benefits of’ keywords you can target? There’s your title.
2. Break down your answer into 5 subheadings if you can, with an intro and conclusion.
3. Make a coffee, head down and write. Don’t stress. If you’re running a small business, likely you’re your brand’s tone of voice. Write like yourself for your customer. You’re aiming for at least 750 words.
4. Go back through your blog and add statistics and references, a chance to weave in some external links. Add internal links to other pages on your website where you can.
5. Add at least 3 images, or embed a video from your social media. If you’ve invested in great imagery for your business, make sure to add alt text – don’t worry about that if you’re using stock imagery from sites like Unsplash.

4. Technical SEO on a Shoestring

This step is going to be purposefully short because, to be frank, when you’re running a small business, there are other areas of your business that are more valuable to work on than the nitty–gritty details of your site health. That said…

Don’t scupper your business by having a website that’s:

• Slow – Keep those images to around 1200x800px and below 100KB ideally if you can help it (fine, 300KB at a push).
• Not mobile-friendly – 60% of web traffic comes from mobile. Enough said.
• Not user-friendly – Check your menu and pages to make sure your website is easy for visitors to navigate and find what they need. If you need to, ask a friend or a customer to complete an action on your website, and watch how they do it.

If you want to get into more detail on your site health, for example checking all your pages have an H1 tag (surprisingly common for them not to), Ahrefs is a useful tool that can give you free alerts when new errors come up.

Want to go further, here’s our guide on how to improve your technical SEO.

5. Keep Up Your PR for Links

You’re a small business owner on a budget, but you have a hidden advantage…

Journalists love an entrepreneur. If they can hear from you directly, all the better.

Keeping up with your PR isn’t just good for business; it can also get you high-quality backlinks telling Google and prospective customers that you know what you’re talking about.

One of the easiest ways to get started with your PR is to start answering journalist requests. This is where journalists have a specific question or topic they’re writing about, and you, the expert, can help – they may also be looking for products, especially with Christmas gift guides.

Here are some free and affordable places to get looking for journalist requests:

• X  – Search ‘#journorequest.’
• Qwoted, Featured and Pressflow – Great for spotting opportunities with big publications and websites you’ll recognise.
• LightBulb PR – An affordable Facebook group for entrepreneurs to connect directly with journalists.

Bonus Step: Take an SEO Course or Coaching 

We’ve spilt the tea on how to do SEO on a budget, and here’s one bonus step.

If you’re going to put the time into optimising your website, creating blog content and boosting your PR, you want to make sure you’re getting the foundations right.

That’s why we deliver our SEO Training Workshops, equipping you with everything you need to drive traffic to your website – and crucially, nothing else! Our workshops share the free tools and simple, actionable strategies you need to get Google to notice your website, even if you’re a complete beginner.

See how our SEO Training Workshops could help you and your team.