Affordable SEO Guide: How to Attract Traffic Without Breaking the Bank
Did you know that if you’re not in the top three search results, the traffic you’re getting is a small amount? The top three websites in any search engine result page (SERP) receives 75.1% of all clicks. Keep reading to learn more about how Florida SEO can help you finally achieve affordable SEO.
The number of clicks diminishes by a huge amount after the top three. And, it diminishes further on the second page and so on.
That means that if you want more traffic, you have to get in the top three. There are also other ways you can get traffic, and you don’t have to spend much on it.
If you’re looking for affordable SEO, keep on reading to find out how you can increase your site traffic.
Online Directory Listings
If you need more website traffic, you’ll need to increase your online visibility. That means taking advantage of every platform available, including online directories.
The most important account to have is with Google My Business.
Having a Google My Business account and optimizing it gives you more visibility on the SERP. How so?
With a GMB profile, you’ll have a chance to get listed on Google’s 3-Pack. It’s a section on the top of the SERP that lists down the top three related businesses.
When you search for a restaurant, for example, the 3-Pack section will give you the three most relevant restaurants nearby.
This section has the complete details of the restaurant. It has the name, operating hours, ratings, and location. From there, users can get directions, contact the establishment, and visit the website.
The more optimized your GMB account is, the better your chances of appearing here. The best thing about it is that it’s free to create an account.
How to Optimize Your Google My Business Listing
It’s quite easy to create a Google My Business account. Make sure to fill up every relevant field with accurate information. Put your correct website, choose the right category, and so on.
To make the most out of this listing, add photos. According to Google, businesses with photos receive 35% more clicks to their websites. They also receive 42% more requests for directions.
Speaking of, you should also pin your address on the map. That way, your store will also appear on Google Maps and your customers can get directions easily. You can skip this step if you don’t have a physical location, though.
Once you’ve filled up the form, you’ll still have to verify your Google My Business listing. You can do this by post mail, which takes up to five business days. You can’t skip this step as you won’t be able to publish your listing without it.
When your listing is live, customers will be able to rate and write reviews of your business. Make sure to check them out and then respond to them often. You should also link your customers to this business profile page to ask them to write a review.
Other Online Directories
One thing you have to remember is to be careful of link farms. They’re directory-like websites that link to numerous other websites for backlink purposes. They’re a black hat tactic, which means Google penalizes you if you partake in it.
Look for legit online directories instead. Although they don’t provide valuable SEO juice anymore, they can still help with traffic.
List your business on Yahoo, Yelp, Yellow Pages, Foursquare, and so on. These are authoritative and trusted websites, so you’ll be safe here.
Remember that the website where your listing is will also get associated with you. You don’t want some shady website to link to yours.
Build Backlinks
We’ve mentioned link farms as a black-hat SEO tactic of link building. Avoid them, but do build links using white-hat SEO marketing techniques.
Backlinks are links coming from other sites leading to yours. They’re a huge factor in ranking because search engines treat it like a “vote of confidence” from other sites. The more authoritative the website, the bigger the value of that vote.
It also helps give you more traffic to your site. Readers of other sites can follow the link if they’re interested to know more. So, you’ll get more visits if you have backlinks on big websites.
Building backlinks isn’t easy, though. You can do it in two ways:
Wait for Backlinks
You can wait for it to happen organically by publishing great content. It will be natural for sites to link back to your content when they reference it.
It would also help if you do research on your own and publish its results. If you have information that other sites can’t get anywhere else, they’ll have to link back to you.
Compiling data from multiple sources is also a good way to get backlinks. Since you have all the needed information, other sites will instead link back to your content.
Reach Out to Webmasters
You can also put more effort into building backlinks; don’t worry, you’ll find it’s worth your time. It’s a big determining factor in your ranking; you also build your network and get more traffic.
You can reach out to webmasters to ask them to link back to your content. Of course, you must have great content, to begin with. If you notice that you have something on your site that they can link to, mention that.
You can also ask for guest posting opportunities. You write content for their website that you can link back to your site. It’s a win-win for both sides – they get content and you get a backlink.
There are other ways you can build backlinks, but you can click here to learn more about backlinking for SEO.
Provide More Relevant and Original Content
With that said, relevant and original content isn’t only for backlinking purposes. They alone drive traffic to your website, too. It’s somewhat affordable as you only have to write great content.
We say only because you don’t have to spend much to publish content – you can even do it yourself if you have a way with words.
Still, don’t think that writing content is easy. For starters, it has to be informative, entertaining, or both. It must be well-written, as well; else, your audience will find another piece that won’t give them a headache.
It must provide value to the readers in some way, and it must be relevant to your niche. That way, you can build your authority in your niche one article at a time.
The content doesn’t have to be only about your products and/or services. It can be about anything within your industry. If you sell cleaning services, for instance, you can write a blog post about keeping bedrooms organized or maintaining leather products.
When creating articles, keep in mind that it must solve at least one of your audience’s problems.
Content SEO
Articles are a great way to dominate the SERP but only if you know SEO. You must optimize each content so that it will at least appear in the top ten search results. Remember that you’re aiming for the top three search results, though.
The backbone of any content strategy is keyword research. It’s where you analyze the keywords you want to rank in; you’ll then build content around each keyword.
The idea is to use the right keywords and place them in strategic places in your content. You only have to sprinkle the keyword here and there; mentioning it too much can lead to keyword stuffing. This might lead Google to think that it’s spam content.
Another component of the content SEO is its structure. It must be easy to read for both the users and Google’s site crawlers. This is where headings, subheadings, paragraphs, and spacing come into play.
Don’t forget that the title must also contain the keyword. It must match search intent, and the metadata must be well-optimized, as well.
Revamp Existing Content
You might also want to check your past content to see if you can improve them. Sometimes, it’s better to update the old ones than publishing new ones. You might only need a few more edits to increase your SERP ranking.
You can check how each of your pages is performing using SEO tools. These will show you valuable data like the traffic of each page, their ranking, and so on.
Visit the under-performing ones and see how you can improve their performance.
Are there spelling errors? Are there walls of texts that make it hard to read? Are there too many keywords?
Once you’ve identified the areas for improvement, you can begin to fix them. This shouldn’t be longer than creating a whole new blog post from scratch.
Optimize Site Speed
Did you know that with the present state of human impatience, we’re not shocked to find out that three seconds is all it takes for 53% of mobile users to leave the web page? If your page’s loading speed takes longer than that, then you’ll be having high bounce rates.
The bounce rate is the rate at which people who visit your site leave or bounce back to the SERP. They only see one page; they don’t navigate to other pages. As you can tell, a high bounce rate is bad for SEO.
Optimizing your site’s speed is only one way to decrease your bounce rate and increase your rankings. Still, it’s a good way to improve the overall SEO of your site.
How to Optimize the Site Speed
The biggest culprit in slow-loading pages or sites is useless scripts running in the background. You need to identify these to put a stop to them.
High-res images and elements can also slow down a website. High-quality images and videos are a must, but there must still be a limit. Make sure to optimize any media on your site to improve the loading speed.
The server also plays a role in the loading speed of your site. It may be slow to respond due to many reasons. Examples are slow routing, inadequate memory, and slow database queries.
If you need a lot of resources, make sure to upgrade your plan with your host provider accordingly.
When you have a fast-loading website, you’ll increase your ranking, and the traffic will follow.
Build Your Social Media Presence
Most people on the internet have a social media account. To gain better visibility, you have to be where they’re lurking.
That means you’ll have to get to know your audience better to see what kind of social media platforms they use. Are they on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or others?
Once you find out where they are, you now have to build your presence there. This not only increases your visibility and reach, but it also allows you to connect with your audience. These platforms today have tools that allow you to interact with your customers.
How do you use social media for driving traffic, then?
Well, all you have to do is post. You can also buy ads, but that will cost you money, which makes it not so affordable SEO anymore.
Each time you publish a blog post on your site, share it on social media. Add a witty caption that will make the users click on the link. Or, write something that will encourage a discussion in the comment section.
Sharing the post on social media will make your followers updated on new posts. It will also make it easier for your followers to share the post on their timeline.
You can then increase your reach further as their friends will also see the post. They may also share it on their timeline.
Social Media Buttons
Don’t forget to put social media buttons on your website content, too. This allows visitors to easily share the content through their chosen social media channels. They’ll do all the work for you at the simple cost of adding buttons.
Learn More Affordable SEO Strategies
As you can see above, you don’t have to spend big to improve your SEO. You only have to learn more about SEO to find ways to do it right without having to spend big bucks.
We understand if you’ll need help, though. You can still have affordable SEO by hiring a service to help you. Contact us today and let’s talk about how we can drive traffic without spending much.
