How to Manage an SEO Project on a Small Budget

04 Oct How to Manage an SEO Project on a Small Budget

Small businesses and sole contractors will likely understand the value of running a successful SEO project, but their bank account dictates a very frugal spend.

While this issue will limit the scope of the endeavour, it does not have to be a barrier to progress if those dollars are put to good use.

There are commonsense steps, free applications and small methods that can make a genuine difference between organic lead creations and white noise for a website.

It is important to keep that door to optimisation open, even when the bottom line suggests that belt tightening and austerity is the only option on the table.

1) Set The Budget Figure First

Whether it is a few thousand or even a few hundred dollars, it is important to set a marker for how much someone can afford SEO services in the interim. This is an exercise where fees and costs can quickly escape the planning for participants, so the sooner they identify a figure and work from that point, they will have confidence to start the project. A small amount of leeway is advisable, especially when users are partnering their optimisation with pay-per-click (PPC) spots that expands the message and market reach.

2) Optimise Site for Speed

There are small and subtle alterations that can take place on a website that can make a world of difference with SEO progress. Given that there is a contrast between desktop and mobile performance, it is imperative to have the site upload as quickly as possible. This is where operators can enable compression, defer parsing of JavaScript and leverage browser caching through the server. The rule is simple – the quicker the site is to load, the higher the ranking from Google. Compress, remove and alter content that slows this loading down.

3) Designing Written Content Around Competitive Keywords

Although keywords are not as valuable an SEO currency in 2020 as they were five or ten years previous, these signals are still a driving factor for improving search engine rankings. Run a keyword analysis to see what consumers are looking for and what content is actually being written. Avoid the black hat methods of keyword stuffing because that will be detrimental. Identify terms that have currency but won’t be too generic. If that occurs, then the brand won’t be able to stand out from the crowd.

4) Using Free Analytic Programs

Optimisers know that they don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to gauge if they are making progress with the project. Sites like Facebook and Google give users the chance to receive reports on visitor demographics, illustrating how long they’ve remained on a link, where they are clicking from and how effective the content or advertisement was. There are also free checks for sites to assess their speed and mobile performance, offering analytics and insights for $0 at any time of day or night. That kind of feedback is incredibly valuable and should be leveraged so long as they are available.

5) Leverage Social Media

There are two key domains to the work of SEO: on-page and off-page optimisation. It is not enough to just receive website clicks because visitors need to arrive to the link through trusted sources as well. This is where social media accounts become a major ally for brands, helping them to broadcast their content to the masses and validate their popularity through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google +, YouTube and beyond. These sites are entirely free to run so participants do not have to be concerned about escalating costs unless they are investing in paid advertising campaigns.

6) Learn From The Experts

Yes it might sound counterintuitive to hire an SEO expert when money is tight, but a lack of awareness and education with this field of expertise can cost so much money and waste so much time. Short and direct conversations with an SEO consultant can quickly turn a campaign around while short-term contracts offer guidance and space to make that progress. It is the old adage of spending money to make money, helping to generate authentic brand interest that sustains itself long after traditional marketing endeavours have come and gone.