Bite-Sized SEO for a Limited Budget

Since Search Engine Optimization (SEO) isn’t a one-and-done process, it can easily overwhelm an organization’s resources. SEO is so much more than keyword research and content generation, and there are bite-sized efforts anyone can take to enhance their organic search results. Here is what the experts on our team recommend:

1. Focus on Local SEO

Local SEO is one of the higher-impact, lower-cost items. If you have a brick-and-mortar location and set business hours, this is a must. At its most basic, this step involves reviewing Google’s guidelines for local SEO and making sure your Google Business Profile, as well as Meta, Bing, and other platforms where your listing appears, are accurate, complete, and kept up to date. Consistency is important, so this is a place where you might consider paying the small monthly fee for a service that monitors and manages your listings to ensure your company information matches across all directories. Read one of our previous blogs in this SEO series to learn more about putting your business on the map with Google Business Profile and other tips on implementing a local SEO strategy.

2. Reframe Your Approach to Content

Quality content is important for SEO rankings and creating an engaged user experience. Focus on leveraging your team for ideas. Encourage them to track questions that clients and customers ask, as those can become topics for future content pieces. For those with the resources to generate relevant content themselves, 5 Horizons offers site reviews, competitor gap analysis, keyword research, and creative brief development to inform your content creation. Tip: If you don’t have the resources to write new content yourself or hire somebody to do it, try featuring your social feed on your website. This may require some up-front development work, but as long as your social channels are updated frequently, this can provide fresh content to encourage audience engagement.

3. Monitor Technical SEO and Website Performance

It’s vital for you to continuously look at and promptly adjust your website’s technical performance. Technical SEO can be monitored in Google Search Console, which will give you insights into major technical issues, such as broken links (404 pages). Page Speed Insights is a great resource that looks at Core Web Vitals, which are important web page performance metrics that can help you identify problems such as slow loading speeds and poor mobile performance. These services don’t cost anything and can help you significantly optimize your website.

Even when resources are limited, SEO is an important part of your web presence. Applying even a few additional steps to your existing SEO efforts could increase your search engine rankings and help you connect with your target audience. At 5 Horizons, we work with different SEO budgets and customize our approach for each client. Contact us to discuss how we can help your business grow, and read other blogs in our Demystifying SEO series.