6 Affordable SEO Tips You Can’t Afford to Miss

As a new business, perhaps your digital marketing budget isn’t exactly astronomical just yet.

Or maybe you’re an established business, and are looking for ways to improve your SEO without having to allocate too much of your operating expenses towards digital marketing.

Whatever your situation, or the industry you operate within, we have good news:

You don’t have to spend a lot to get an effective SEO and digital marketing strategy.

Instead, you just have to read this list of the top affordable SEO tips.

1. Ask For Customer Reviews

Over 80% of shoppers say that they value online reviews about products and brands just as much as they do personal suggestions from friends and family members.

So, first up on our list of affordable SEO tips?

Do everything you can to encourage your customers to leave a review for your business online.

Yes, this includes just outright asking for reviews, or incentivizing reviewers with a percent off their next purchase or an entry into a giveaway drawing.

Additionally, consider working with popular influencers in your industry. Send them free products or even offer to sponsor them in exchange for a review. This will show consumers that you’re in touch with the biggest names in your industry.

Working with influencers will also make it much easier for customers to trust your company, since you’ve already been “endorsed” by an influencer whose opinion they value.

2. Work On Your Link Building Strategy

Another affordable SEO tip?

Work to create a strong internal and external link building strategy.

Internally, this means linking back to other posts on your website and blog in new content you create. Always ensure that the post you’re linking back to is actually relevant to what you’re currently writing about.

When it comes to your external link building strategy, make sure that you link out to high-quality, authoritative sites — but never to your direct competition.

Additionally, always take the time to check and ensure that the external links you’ve included in your content still work. A broken link can cause you to fall in search engine rankings.

From there, you need to work on getting backlinks that point to your website.

3. Claim Your Online Listings

Another awesome — and incredibly effective — affordable SEO tip?

Make sure that you’ve taken the time to claim your online listings. This includes things like Google My Business, your Yelp listing, and even submitting to local online business directories.

So, why is this important?

First of all, it gives consumers a chance to learn more about your business in less time. Especially if you’re targeting local traffic (more on that in a minute) claiming your online listings is an awesome way to increase your conversions.

Make sure that, when you’re filling out these listings, you do so as completely as possible. This means filling your pages with photos of both your storefront and your products, listing your opening and closing hours, and briefly describing what you have to offer.

These listings are also the perfect place to show off all of those awesome online reviews and testimonials that we covered in the earlier section.

4. Embrace Local Search

Did you know that over 50% of people who conduct a local search on a mobile device and are directed to your website will set foot in your store within 24 hours?

This means that, if you’re not making local search a part of your affordable SEO strategy, you are seriously missing out.

So, what’s the best way to ensure that you’re optimized for your local consumers?

First of all, on your “contact” page (or even at the bottom of all of your internal pages) make sure that you include a Google Map. Especially for those who are searching for the products/services you offer while on-the-go, this will help to bump you up in local search engine results.

Next, make sure you’re including location-based keywords in your content. For example, if you’re a wedding dress business, make sure you get specific about your service area in the longtail keywords you choose.

This means that, instead of things like “bridal boutique” or “wedding dresses,” your keywords are “bridal boutique Atlanta GA” or “best wedding dresses Omaha.”

5. Start A Blog

The more internal and indexed pages your website has, the more chances it will have to show up in search engine results.

Brands that have created a blog have a shocking 434% more indexed pages than those that don’t.

This means that you’ll also have a 434% greater chance of showing up higher in the SERPs than the competition.

Additionally, blogging is a great way to get to know your target market — and the kinds of content that appeals to them the most. You can even interact with them directly in the comments section of your blog.

Plus, blogging also tells search engines that you update your site more often than most. This is an extremely valuable affordable SEO tip, because the more often you update your site, the higher you climb in the rankings.

Need More Affordable SEO Tips?

We hope this article has proven that, just because you don’t have a huge digital marketing budget, doesn’t mean that you can’t create a strong SEO strategy for your brand.

Remember, it’s all about claiming your listings, getting online reviews, blogging, and focusing on your local target market.

Once you’ve got these basics down, you can start to expand your strategy — and we’re here to help you pull it off.

Spend some time on our site to learn more about how we can help you to grow your business, get more web traffic, and climb in the search engine rankings.