How to D-I-Y your blog SEO with a budget of just $0 |
It doesn't require expensive advertising tools to perform SEO for your blog and it doesn't have to be costly either. Learn how to do it yourself in 7 easy steps.
As it gets closer to the New Year hits its stride it's likely that you'll be going over your budget and spending, trying to figure out how you spent so much money last year and how you'll cut back on spending this year. We've all been there, and it's not a pleasant experience.
If you're looking to save money, it's not uncommon to find strategies and equipment that you've used for a while and cost some serious dough and then find ways to remove them, or bring them in-house.
However, for some reason most marketers think having the services of a search engine optimization (SEO) expert or tools to support the work they do in that field is a must. Well, I'm here to let you know that you can really DIY your blog's SEO without spending any money at all.
Is your mind blown?
SEO plays an vital component of your overall marketing plan.
Actually, 61% of marketers' top inbound marketing priority is enhancing their SEO as well as increasing their online presence. And I'll bet that with increasing voice search in popularity, that percentage will only increase year-over-year.
Making sure your SEO is up to date and increasing natural site's traffic may help you outdo competitors in your space and also increase the accessibility of users who are conducting online searches.
How do you DIY your SEO strategy
1. Make a list of your keywords
The first step of doing your SEO method yourself is to identify the keywords you want to rank for via the research of keywords . These may be short-tail or long tail and, more importantly, they should be words you want your content to rank for as well as terms that your target audience searches for relevant items in the field you work in on the web.
If, for instance, you're an agency that's specialized in design and marketing You'll need to begin with a list that looks like this:
Agency for marketing
Design agency
Design and Marketing company
Quality design
Marketing strategy
Your long-term key words could appear similar to this:
How to implement a marketing strategy?
The most effective design strategies to use for marketing via email
What are the marketing objectives you want to achieve?
The kinds of marketing strategies to employ
These are just an example. The first thing you need to do is identify your particular areas of expertise, and build from there.
I'd also consult with your sales staff to determine the questions your potential customers are seeking out and what concerns they're asking for assistance on, since that can inform your keyword list and more.
Don't forget to examine your rankings to see if you know which keywords to build on, and don't forget to look at your competitors' rankings, as well. That will give you an idea of the areas that have been neglected, so you can target them and seize the benefit.
2. Establish or create pillar pages
Pillar webpages are intended to be a one-stop-shop for a specific area, that will also connect to the keywords you have chosen to use. These pages are typically larger, since they don't leave any one unfinished and cover as wide a range of ground as they can.
You either have these pages that need to be updated, or you need to build the pages. In creating or updating these pages, ensure that you look into different aspects of the theme.
So, for instance suppose you're creating a pillar page for the keywords "marketing strategy".
You'll want to discuss what you need to do to put your strategy to achieve the objectives that a strategy will help you attain, the various methods and tactics which a strategy is composed of as well as how to gauge the success of your strategy, and how to use the strategy.
For each keyword or word you want to rank for it is best to have a site that is a pillar. This way, when you use that word within your text it will be possible to link back to that particular pillar page, which will increase the content's ability to rank for that word.
3. Identify duplicate content and broken hyperlinks
If you've been putting together blog content willy nilly, chances are you have lots of outdated and duplicate content or even damaged pages. It is imperative to fix those problems to ensure that your blog is able to rank well, as they could work against your site.
Create a spreadsheet that lists the keywords, as well as blog posts that tie into this keyword in some manner. In the event that you've got lot of blog content, you may have to create subgroups for each keyword. See the image below for an understanding of what I mean.
It will also help you plan your activities so that you can quickly determine what blog posts are the most like others.
Also, make sure to create an additional spreadsheet to store the broken links that you discover during this dive so you can easily pull them and redirect.
4. Make updates and redirects
Once you're done creating your spreadsheet, review the identical blog articles with care. If any are extremely repeated or repeating similar ideas, you should redirect those less well-thought out or outdated blog articles to more current, better-quality websites.
It will also reduce self-competing content (yes, your content can compete with itself in ranking on search engines) It will also ensure that the right pages rank for the right terms.
This is also a good opportunity to update the blog's content that doesn't have to be changed but would benefit from additional content or even a refreshing.
In the event that you'll be keeping these pages, you'll want to ensure they've got appropriate keywords in them, and that they contain the most up to current information that is available.
5. Link to the pillar pages in content
Now that your blog is cleared of duplicate content and the clutter has been eliminated, as well as any broken links, it's time to go through your pages and verify that the appropriate pages are linked back to your pillar pages .
Review your subgroupings as well as the links listed underneath them.
So, let's say there are three blog sites with a connection to your marketing strategies and marketing via email . Review each article and include a link on your pillar page for marketing strategy using "marketing strategy" as anchor the text.
6. Create a linking strategy moving forward
It is important to ensure that you're sticking with this strategy in all future blog content you're creating. You've already gone through the effort of updating past content, and one thing that can cause harm to that content is if don't continue.
I'm sure I've talked about spreadsheets a lot, but they are your friend in this strategy. They will help you with just about each step, including this one. It is recommended to list each key word, and in the next column, you should list the pillar posts given to them.
It's also a good idea to provide various anchor texts or long-tail keywords which could be used for each also.
If you can identify which blog post is linked to what keyword(s) You'll be able to keep any potential team members in the same place and provide an easy guide to check against while you're editing and reviewing your future blog content.
Also, it helps to be sure to keep SEO in mind while you create your content.
7. Continue to track your results
Make sure you check in on how your strategy performs each quarter or month. You'll need to determine whether your website has begun to get higher rankings on search results or if your content is static, which can aid in identifying any issues.
There are free software tools like Moz or perform a search with the keywords you choose from time to moment to determine the frequency with which your posts are popping up.
In all likelihood, if you're wondering where to track this and you don't want join an SEO suite similar to Moz Then I've one final word to share with you. It's one that we've spoken about a number of times today in the past: spreadsheets.
SEO doesn't have to cost a lot of money
The need to have an SEO strategy is crucial in order to get quickly found online by clients. Hiring an outsourced SEO specialist can cost a lot, but it isn't necessary.
If you move your SEO work within your company and following the steps previously mentioned, you can put your blog in order to ensure that the most valuable blog content starts to rank, and continues to rank over time.
For review, the fundamental steps are:
In assembling a keyword list
Making pillar pages, or, if you have a page that is popular to make use of, transforming existing posts to become Pillar pages
Scoping out duplicate content
Updating stale, out-dated content and granting redirects to content that's competing with itself
Seeding the links to the content of your cluster from your pillar pages
Establishing a linking strategy
Also keep an watch on your progress.
Easy-peasy.