Ready to launch your business into the future? To succeed, you’ll need a solid affordable SEO plan first.
A lot of factors play into SEO service costs, so it’s impossible to tell how much you’ll have to pay for it. It depends on things like the competitiveness of your industry, your current website SEO status, and your geographical location.
These factors matter because companies have to tailor SEO strategies.
No matter the cost, though, there’s always an affordable SEO option that works great for you. Many of these are often oversold, so you’ll have to look for the ones you can afford.
There’s a lot of ways you can bring down the costs while getting the best services you can afford. Keep on reading to find out what these are.
Get a Free Website Audit
Many SEO companies offer free website audits. You can take advantage of this to identify any SEO issues that may result in a Google penalty.
The extent of the free audit varies per SEO company. But, in general, it also includes an audit of your:
- site health
- website security
- negative SEO
- penalty and recovery
- duplicate content
- and more
In other words, it brings to light areas for improvement and even opportunities for optimization.
Don’t expect too much of a free SEO audit, though. After all, it’s free, and companies use it to gain business.
Still, whatever information you get can be useful for your SEO efforts. If you’re on a budget, this is already a big help in improving your website.
Use it to see where you can make improvements, like your content, site structure, design, and more. What happens next will then be up to you. Will you work on the improvements yourself to save on costs?
You may also go ahead and hire the company for their SEO services. Don’t hesitate to mention your budget as most will be willing to work with it if it’s reasonable enough.
Compare SEO Services
Don’t hire the first company you come across, though. Take the time to compare the SEO services of different companies within your budget.
SEO is not always a transparent process. That’s why the industry is full of companies that have fake merits. You can’t afford falling victim to a lying provider with overpriced services.
Scrutinize each company and demand to see any of their successful SEO campaigns in the past. Then, group together the ones with equivalent track records to then compare the fees. You can choose the one with the most affordable SEO services with proven skills this way.
Outsource Overseas
Everything is more expensive in countries with big economies. If you live in such a country, then you might consider outsourcing the task to an overseas SEO company.
More often than not, the quality of their work is the same. But, because the costs of living are lower in some countries, their rates are also lower.
You’ll find professional and high-quality SEO services in every country, just as you would find shady services even in the more developed countries.
The beauty of SEO is that you don’t have to meet face to face with the team working on it. You can have meetings via video conferencing apps, and they can do all the SEO work online.
Remember That Affordable SEO Is Not Cheap SEO
SEO isn’t something you should skimp on, as it isn’t a transparent process like we’ve mentioned above.
Shady companies may as well dupe you into thinking you’re getting good results. But, in reality, they’re using gray hat or black hat tactics to get easy and fast results that don’t hold up in the long term. These can even get you in hot water with Google, and fixing it would cost you way more.
That said, don’t think that affordable SEO equates to cheap SEO. Sometimes, you have to pay more money than you thought to get the exact results you want or more. You only need to stay away from companies that overprice their services, and you’re good.
Avoid Paying for Link Building
Link building is an example of where many shady providers shine. They employ gray hat or black hat SEO techniques to be able to offer their services for a cheap price.
They may buy links from other websites and pay a small price to keep them active. This will give you the illusion of having results, but you’ll soon find these give your site no value at all. They might even lower your rankings when Google discovers it.
Real link building takes time, and so it costs more. The results are much better, though, and you will reap the benefits for a long time.
Paying a trusted and reliable SEO company for link building is worth it. If you have a tight budget, though, you may instead pay for manual outreach.
Manual outreach is the process of finding bloggers and sites within your industry. Providers will then reach out to these to get a backlink.
These are quality backlinks, so you’ll get value from them from then on. Even if you take a break from paying for the service, you’ll still get traffic and “SEO juice” from your already established backlinks.
Use an SEO Consultation Service
An SEO consultation service is much like a website audit. But, in this process, the provider will teach you and your staff about the ways you can improve your strategy. You pay for it once, and then it’s up to you to use their advice to improve your SEO.
SEO consultants not only identify areas for improvement, but they also provide guidance and recommendations. They don’t do the work, but you can at least gain knowledge of any issues you may have and the latest trends in SEO.
You may only have to pay an SEO consultant once or twice a year. This makes it a feasible and affordable SEO marketing strategy.
As always, though, scrutinize the provider. No matter how much you’re paying, make sure to get your money’s worth, or you may end up paying more in the long run.
Try Updating Your SEO Strategy on Your Own
Don’t get us wrong; SEO requires expertise and knowledge on the trends. However, it doesn’t mean you can’t learn about the basics. You can do some of the tasks on your own and reserve your budget for the ones that need an expert. You can combine this with the above tip of hiring an SEO consultant, which will keep the costs low.
Here are some areas that you can work on.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is the backbone of every SEO strategy. It’s the part where you find keywords for your content, ads, and website optimization.
You can do this yourself by using specific tools that will help you discover more keywords. In some tools, you can enter your niche, subject, or another keyword and find related ones. Some tools will also let you know what actual users are searching relative to that keyword.
Most tools have complete information, as well, like the competition level, price, and so on. You’ll likely have to pay for these functions, but it’s still cheaper than paying for a whole SEO team to do this for you.
Something you have to keep in mind is that you can’t use any keyword that comes into your mind. You must pick the ones that will bring you the best results.
It might mean using long-tail keywords instead of the more general ones even if the reach is smaller. Bigger websites would already be targeting the most popular keywords, and they have more budget to out-compete smaller websites. Established websites are also more likely to rank higher in search results, even if a smaller website has better content.
Long-tail keywords have less competition, but the audience is more targeted. You’ll have a higher chance of ranking with the added benefit of getting more qualified traffic.
Content Strategy
Take a look at your current content strategy. Are you posting on a regular schedule? How many words are you posting on average?
It might be time to update it to fit the current standards. There are merits in publishing short blog posts; after all, most people only read 20 to 28% of a post.
However, when people search for something, they likely prefer blogs with in-depth information. Articles with 2,000+ words get more traction. People are more likely to interact with it and leave the page satisfied with the information.
This is a bit too long, though, so you have to break the article into several parts. Use headings and subheadings; add visual aid wherever it’s fitting. These will keep the reader engaged and interested.
You have to post on a consistent schedule, too. This will help you build your authority in your niche. People are more likely to trust your knowledge, which will encourage them to keep coming back.
Aside from these, make sure what you’re posting is good content. It must be informative and/or entertaining; there must be some value to it that your readers can take away.
Of course, it must be well-written, too. Take the time to spot spelling and grammatical mistakes and make sure you can back up everything you post. Link to other sources whenever you can; this reinforces your trustworthiness.
These are several changes you can make to your content strategy that won’t make you spend too much to implement. After all, you’re already spending some money on content. Make sure it’s worth every penny.
Link Building Strategy
Link building is also something you can do yourself if you have the time. You can reach out to webmasters by emailing them. You can also look for opportunities for guest posting, as this will allow you to link back to your site.
What’s the purpose of this? Well, backlinks help Google discover your pages. More than that, though, they transfer what we call “SEO juice.”
To Google, an external link is a vote of confidence. It means that a website trusts the other website enough to link to it. The more “votes” you have, the more you seem trustworthy to the search engine.
Not all votes are equal, though; some are worth more to Google than others. It all depends on the authority of the website that links back to your website. If it’s an authoritative website, like BBC, Forbes, LinkedIn, Medium, and such, the backlink transfers more valuable “juice” to your site.
This will then help you in improving your ranking.
To get backlinks from such sites, you’ll have to post amazing content. You have to create something that other sites can use as a source for their posts. You can make an opinion piece, create an infographic, or publish data from your own findings.
You can then look for opportunities to pitch these to webmasters.
Online Directories – Affordable SEO
Setting up your business in online directories is free and takes no time at all. You can even do it all in a day.
You have to be careful not to post on link farms, though. These are something like online directories, but their only purpose is to create lots of backlinks for other sites. This isn’t good for SEO, as Google can penalize you for it.
Stick to the popular directories, like Yelp, Yahoo, Foursquare, and such. Not only will this increase your visibility, but it will also drive traffic to your site.
You should also create a Google My Business account. This will give you the chance to land in Google’s Local 3-Pack, which appears on the top of the search results.
Make sure to optimize your business listings, too. Put every piece of information you have on your business. Put your address, contact number, website, complete operating hours, and so on.
Learn How You Can Improve Your SEO Today
Most of the time, paying for affordable SEO is better than doing things on your own. This will, at least, give you access to others’ expertise on the subject. You only have to make sure you still hire the right company — not all great companies are expensive, anyway.
You don’t have to look further for an SEO service provider for your needs, however. Contact us today, and let’s talk about how we can improve your SEO on your budget.
