Have a tight pocket? Want to do your own SEO to save yourself from pulling out some funds? We got you!
If there’s a most common SEO-related question, it has to be, how to do SEO for yourself or if it’s possible to DIY SEO (Do it yourself SEO). Honestly, anyone with the right knowledge and strategy can do SEO DIY for their business. Yes! You heard that right!
If you’re dedicated enough to do it yourself SEO, you’ve landed at the right place. This blog covers A-Z of how to do SEO yourself. Make sure you stick by the end.
But, before that, if you want to stay in the game for the long term, you must be well-versed with the reason why you need SEO.
What is SEO?- The ultimate guide for novices
SEO stands for search engine optimization. The name speaks for itself, in SEO, you optimize your website or content for search engines along with the users.
It’s a procedure to attract and gain quality traffic on your website organically.
SEO services comprise a set of actions done with the aim to get the search engine’s attention and get ranked eventually. Along with optimization, it includes various other parts as well including some tech things.
Search engine optimization, better known as SEO, revolves around:
- Finding your ideal audience and their interests
- Nurturing them through creating valuable and SEO-optimized content
- Taking care of a few technical things that affect SEO
That’s all!
Consider your approach to DIY SEO
Learning SEO can become overwhelming if not done right. The best approach for how to do SEO for the website would be to go step-by-step and keep ticking off things slowly.
Start by auditing your site before taking any action. This step will help you know where you stand at this moment. There are many free tools that help you analyze the SEO status of your website (we have shared one below as well, so keep on reading). Before starting out, it’s important to learn where you’re doing right and what should be done to align with the right direction.
With that said, let’s see some important things you must first take into account.
5 Essential elements to do it yourself SEO
The below-mentioned 5 areas of SEO are the most basic yet critical. To make things easier for you, we have tried to break down every concept.
1. On-page SEO
Content and multimedia elements of your website come under On-page SEO. On-page SEO can range from the meta tags to meta descriptions to the content that you upload on your site.
For that, you optimize the web pages for search engines to gain organic traffic.
Optimization is done using the right set of keywords while maintaining a thin line between optimizing and keyword stuffing.
2. Off-page SEO
Off-page SEO is more about getting your content linked with other sites. The more renowned the site is, the better boost your site would get from the search engine.
But, keep in mind that Off-page SEO is a matter of time. You need to put in efforts to let people know about your existence and link their content to yours.
Note: While finding, “How to do SEO for a website”, people end up purchasing links for Off-page SEO.
It can be your pathway to kill your efforts and downgrade your ranking in the SERPs (Search Engine Page Results). So, never do that!
3. Keyword research
Keywords are what help your ideal audience to discover you. That’s why you must pay attention to incorporating keywords naturally in each piece of the content you publish.
It also helps search engines to identify your domain and rank you accordingly.
Finding suitable keywords for your business is pretty easy. Here are 5 Diy SEO software you can use:
- Ahrefs
- Google Keyword Planner
- Semrush
- Keywordtool.io
- Hubspot Keyword Tool
4. Local SEO
Local SEO is all about attracting your ideal audience to your local or physical store (if you’ve one).
People often search terms like “best salon near me”, and the options that appear are the results of one’s perfect Local SEO practices.
For local SEO services, create a profile on Google My Business and add your information over there.
5. Technical SEO
Same as the name itself, Technical SEO talks about the technical stuff of a site such as a web design, internal links, site security, and a lot more things. For this, you might need to seek help from an SEO agency.
Notion Technologies help you ace the game with SEO. Schedule a call.
These were some most crucial elements that you should never think of skipping! That said, let’s now hop onto a comprehensive guide that teaches you from start to finish SEO and how to do it yourself!
Your guide to how to do SEO yourself- DIY SEO
In a nutshell, SEO means improving your rankings in search engines and getting discovered by your ideal audience.
If you patiently follow the below-mentioned 7 steps, you’re guaranteed to earn organic traffic.
1. Establish a baseline for organic search
The goal of using SEO is to become visible to your ideal audience. First things first, before starting with anything, you should be clear with the current status of your site first-hand.
How well is your website performing now? For that, here’s a great tool that comprehensively breaks down your site’s performance.
It tells you how easy it’s to discover you for your audience. From organic search metrics to paid traffic, everything’s covered.
Not only this, but even your backlinks, keywords, and well-performing web pages are also discussed.
Apart from that, along with reviewing your website, you should also see how your competitors are doing and what’s working for them.
Use the same tool for reviewing their site as well. It will be a source of inspiration to you and enables you to discover the potent areas you should work on.
2. Set up search analytics
SEO is more about analysing and finding what works the best for you. For that, tools such as Google Analytics come to the rescue!
It’s a free tool used by experts to analyse the traffic of a site and where it’s coming from.
Here’s a step-by-step process of setting up an account on Google Analytics:
- Create an account on Google Analytics.
- Create your property or website.
- Click on the reporting review option. You can use this feature to filter the data.
- Put in the tracking code of your site as asked. Through this feature, Google gathers all relevant data.
- And you’re done! Review the data and don’t forget to take note of things that seem the most important to you.
3. Publish optimized content
What was the last time you did a Google search and typed a related term such as “best SEO company”? That’s what’s known as a keyword.
A keyword is a word or phrase that people usually type while searching for any product or service or solution over any search engine. Search engines on the other side find the most appropriate content for a search and reveal it to the user.
That’s why, before writing any random blog, you must be sorted with your keyword planning.
Because that’s what tells Google that Hey! this content is the most relevant for this keyword, let’s show it to the user. Look up trending topics on google trends, research keywords and relevant search queries to create the most valuable content that engages, converts and builds trust.
Same as optimizing web pages for the search engines rewards you through getting you rank higher, so does optimize them for the user. See, your motive is to get discovered by the person sitting behind the screen and help them through your content.
A bunch of websites are just optimized for Google bots and not for humans. And that’s where the problem lies. Thanks to search engines’ new algorithms, sites these days get monitored in terms of the user experience they offer and get rewarded as well.
4. Analyze your backlinks
Google has set up some metrics to rank sites which include how trustworthy, authorised and expertise your website is.
Backlinks are a great source of establishing credibility and trustworthiness. External link building should be kept at the forefront of your mind.
External links have a great impact on the search engines as it builds credibility when you get linked to other sites.
It can be better understood as growing your inbound links network. If a site or forum has a greater PageRank than yours and links to your page, it’d be highly valued by search engines and will lead to boosting your PageRank as well.
Here’s a great backlink gap tool to discover sites that have been linked to the most.
5. Fix technical glitches
Technical SEO encompasses all technical stuff. SEO is not only about the content, it’s a great pool of different elements.
Apart from the content and optimization, you need to take care of the technical issues too to rank higher.
For instance, your site should be secured. For that, you should integrate HTTPS as it’s the most essential and secure SEO factor. It keeps the data safe throughout the site.
Technical issues also include the site speed, crawl errors, etc. The speed of your website is also among some of the most critical factors Google uses to determine your SEO rank.
Apart from the ranking, how fast your site loads also affect the user experience.
In a world where people have plenty of options, do you think they’re going to stick around a site that takes an abundance of time to load?
No, right? The faster your site loads, the higher the conversion rate it achieves.
6. Stay informed
Like we said before, Diy search engine optimization is not a one-time gig. Consistency is what it asks for. You’ve to always be on the lookout for SEO trends, new ideas and SEO techniques as well.
For example, Google very rapidly changes its algorithm and the metrics it uses to rank SERPs. That’s what makes it super important to devote time and stay updated.
To stay informed, follow newsletters, blogs and socials around advanced SEO domains.
7. Be consistent
SEO isn’t about getting quick success. It’s more of how consistent and patient you are with your efforts. People who choose to stay, win the game!
Search engines are always on the lookout for new content pieces. That’s why publish fresh content consistently for them to index.
When it comes to being regular with blogging, don’t confuse it with posting anything or irreverent stuff.
Keep your ideal customer persona in mind and deliver as much value as you can. Address their problems in your blogs.
Is it difficult to do SEO yourself?
For the reason SEO is an ever-changing thing, it isn’t as easy as it may seem.
Search engines keep on changing continuously and that’s why you always need to keep your eyes on them.
On top of that, it’s a time-consuming task that asks for full dedication. Considering that, it can be difficult to do it yourself SEO.
Lucky for you, we created a checklist of things that you must tick off while fixing SEO.
- Website structure and speed
- Title and meta-tags
- Keywords
- Image alt descriptions
- Backlinks and internal links
- Content
- Socials
- Website sitemap
Great tools for DIY SEO
We don’t want you to have all the information and still feel like wandering over the internet searching for the best tools to get started.
We have created a list of the most widely used tools for do-it-yourself SEO.
- To get started, check your website’s current SEO score here.
- Find relevant keywords using this tool.
- See how your website shows in the search results.
Not ready for DIY SEO?
DIY SEO is no rocket science, but a resource-intensive task. If you don’t have the right knowledge and time, it can take a daunting turn and you may feel frustrated with the results.
That’s why Notion Technologies, an ultimate SEO company came to the rescue! Our team of experienced experts specialise in helping businesses ace Advance SEO and rank higher on Google. Don’t know how to choose an SEO company? Here you go!
Let us help you! Talk to us and we’ll show you how our SEO services can skyrocket your business growth.
