24 Mar 2023
Marketing
4
min read
Peter Lambrou
,
Sitecore Optimisation Consultant MVP Strategist
To help, we've put together a short guide on how you can build a winning SEO strategy on a budget.
Know your budget limitations
Plug those gaps
Focus on your strengths
Prioritise your goals
Don't overreach. Set reasonable expectations
Take baby steps
Assess your website
Think differently
Learn from your competitors
Use internal resources
1. Know your budget limitations
It can be easy to overspend, even on a limited budget. It doesn't matter if you're outsourcing or using internal resourcing, a smaller budget means that you don't have enough time and resources to go all out.
Knowing your financial limitations and budgeting within your means can help your business get to grips on what can be achieved at a sustainable cost.
2. Plug those gaps
An effective SEO strategy means measuring performance of your content. A lot of the time SEO analysis measurement comes at a cost whether it's the tools themselves or the people/agency using the tools. But don't despair!
Free measurement tools are readily available. Google Analytics and Matomo are two. If you're not using them as a starter then you should.
Also, there may be knowledge gaps that you can try to fill internally. Upskilling your businesses in disciplines like SEO and copywriting will save you a bundle in the long run.
3. Focus on your strengths
Don't feel disheartened if you don't have a big budget. You can still have a winning SEO strategy if you look closer to home.
For instance, you may have a copywriter in the making and not know it. You can use this skill for compelling and high-quality content creation.
Your brand may be well established locally which means you can use this positivity to reach out to other businesses. You could generate goodwill in the form of backlinks to your website.
4. Prioritise your goals
What do you want your SEO strategy to achieve? Better organic ranking? More traffic? More conversions?
It's natural to want all of the above. But with a limited budget you may not be able to get entirely what you want. Whatever you have in mind, it's best to prioritise your goals. Maybe have just one goal and focus your efforts on achieving it.
5. Don't overreach. Set reasonable expectations
When you've prioritised your goals make sure you don't overreach. Setting reasonable and achievable objectives is the way to go.
If you go out with all guns blazing and the objective to achieve an expected 500 conversions on a small SEO budget then you may be disappointed. Setting achievable expectations means you're going into this with your wits about you and your eyes open. Take it slowly and methodically - like baby steps, which leads nicely into the next tip.
6. Take baby steps
Ask yourself this: "On my budget, where can I focus my efforts to achieve the most growth?"
You don't have to do everything at once. Taking baby steps towards the bigger picture will enable you to focus and learn about how SEO fits into your business.
Look at what's most important in relation to your goals and take small steps towards achieving them.
Why not focus your attention on a few (and the most important) web pages rather than all of them? It may be two, three, four or more. Whichever you align your SEO efforts to, taking incremental steps to your main goal is the best course of action - even if you don't have a limited budget.
7. Assess your website
Knowing what's wrong with your website and fixing it will avoid a lot of pain when your campaign kicks off.
For example, you're launching your strategy only to find that the bounce rate is high. One issue could be that page load speed is slow because of large media like videos and images. Ironing out these issues before you push the button will go a long way to a successful SEO strategy, and not letting your hard work go up in smoke.
You can look at these issues and more by carrying out a technical SEO audit of your website. Things to look out for include (but are not limited to):
Broken links
Internal cross linking
Crawlability
Improving existing web copy
8. Think differently
When you have a limited budget it may be easier to think beyond the proverbial box.
Take search for instance. Think about optimising your content for other search engines. After all, Google isn't the be all and end all. There are other search engines out there that people use, like Bing. Considering other options may help your organic search results.
What about videos? If you have a lot of video content, optimise it for YouTube. And your images? If your website uses a lot of them, try ranking for image searches.
How about using social media to boost those rankings? Look at what works for your business and explore the potential for a more active presence on social media platforms.
Also, as mentioned earlier, use your brand's strength to establish goodwill with local businesses by agreeing to swap backlinks.
9. Learn from your competitors
What are your competitors doing? Granted, you wouldn't know what their budgets are but you would be able to glean some insights from their SEO approach, like where they’re getting their backlinks from.
Look at their web copy and try to understand why they're outranking you. If their content is good, then you need to produce even better, original content!
10. Use internal resources
This was also touched on earlier. Sometimes you can't see something if it's right in front of you. Looking closer to home can save you a heap of outsourcing costs, whilst stretching out your budget.
Don't be shy to ask for support from your marketing and product teams (and beyond). Educate your colleagues so they take an SEO-first approach. Try and route out those willing to champion the SEO cause. Data analysts, copywriters, developers etc. can play a huge role in supporting your SEO efforts and keeping those costs down.
Working with Codehouse
We've been building digital experiences that make a difference for over 15 years.
Our Content Optimisation service can help your business navigate through the challenges on your SEO journey. If you have a project you want to talk to us about, get in touch when you're ready.
