When you first made your website, there was probably just one thing that you had in mind: to post your content so that people would get more acquainted with your brand. The problem was that as the days passed, you did not seem to become any more popular – and that was when you realised that something was indeed missing.
That “something” was good SEO. Since SEO can be quite challenging to learn, many people are opting to hire an SEO expert instead. They will know all the strategies necessary and should also know exactly what they have to do in order for your website’s rankings to grow.
That being said, while SEO experts might be convenient partners to have, not everyone can afford to hire such a person – particularly when they are only starting off their business. This begs the question: “Can you do your own SEO?” You’ll be happy to find out that the answer to that question is “yes, you can” – but only if you learn how to do it right.
What Does SEO Entail?
Before you decide to tackle your SEO spree for your own website, you first need to understand exactly what it does. Simply put, SEO – or Search Engine Optimisation – involves restructuring your website, but also deals with quite a lot of content creation, coding, market research, making up content, link-building, strategy, and public relations. As you can see, it’s not as simple as throwing a few keywords here and there.
As a result, if you are thinking about going on the SEO journey by yourself, you need to ask the following questions:
- 1. Do I have the inclination or the time to do Search Engine Optimisation by myself?
- 2. How much is my time actually worth?
- 3. Is it better to spend my time on my specialisation and not on trying to learn something new in addition?
For every beginner, the learning curve is rather steep – while being quite time-consuming. You may want to make sure that you take everything into consideration before you begin investing all your time into it.
It is worth spending a lot of time and effort into creating great content that will acquire links naturally, this will make your life as an SEO a lot easier. Create content that deserves to be linked to.
Pros and Cons of Doing SEO Yourself
Most of the time, when you decide to do everything by yourself, you stumble across the same wall of people telling you to do the same thing: hire an expert. However, you don’t always have to throw money on someone else to do your SEO work for you – and you certainly do not have to be an expert in order to conduct some high-quality SEO work.
That being said, if you want to do all your SEO work yourself, you need to remember that there are some advantages and disadvantages to it. That being said, here are a few points that show why people prefer to do their own optimization work:
- They are free to create their business the way they like it
- They can focus on creating high-quality content
- Since social media is key, it also gives them more time to be social
- It gives them time to drive the traffic in the right direction
- They save money and resources that would have otherwise gone to another person
That being said, there are also quite a few cons to it:
- SEO is quite challenging to learn, and it might take months until they actually become good at it
- They won’t know if their SEO game is any good until they get results
With everything said and done, there are more advantages to becoming your own SEO expert than to hire one.
Although it is very tempting to try your SEO yourself, you have to access whether you have the time to do it. The more you dive into the processes, you will find out it is quite a labour-intensive task, when it comes to changing 100’s of page titles, creating pages of content thousands of works long. And that isn’t even touching on the backlinking, which is another skill altogether.
How to Get Started with Your Own SEO
In order to SEO your website yourself, there are certain tips that you might want to follow in order to get started. Here is what you may want to do if you are a beginner:
- Join a solid, high-rated SEO course where you can learn the basics
- Go on SEO forums where you may exchange opinions with experts in the field
- Go for SEO-friendly content management platforms such as WordPress
- Add content publishing activities in your everyday routine
- Create a network with partners and vendors so that you may create valuable backlinks
In most cases, when you see that it is becoming too much for you to handle, you may decide to inquire for the help of a professional. However, if you do decide to do everything by yourself, you need to be ready to get through with the learning curve.
How to Do It Yourself SEO
Doing your own SEO is not as difficult as it might seem, provided you follow the right steps. Here are the basics of how the average SEO expert optimises your page:
- Set the On-Page SEO: Setting the on-page SEO deals pretty much with the overall structure of the article. The headings, the subheadings, the keywords used within the text – everything that will decide how your website will look like.
- Write Interesting Titles: Do some keyword research and find out what people are mostly searching for – and based on that, write a few killer titles. After all, the first thing that people see when accessing your post is the title – so, you need to make the titles as catchy as possible.
- Write Long Posts: No one really cares about short articles anymore. This is why, ideally, you should make articles going from 1500 to 2000 words long at least.
- Post Regularly: For you to gain Google’s trust, you have to post regularly – but also consistently. Don’t be random in your post and try to maintain a pattern – in both timing and content.
- Backlinking: The more authoritative backlinks and internal linking appear in your article, the more trustworthy your website becomes. This is why you need to add links from authority sources that will support everything you are saying.
Whilst each of these aspects on their own can be simplified down, depending on the business you’re in. If you’re looking at growing an eCommerce business, it’s probably advisable to bring at least a consultant in to help with the strategy.
Also if you’re having indexation issues, cannibalisation, these issues will require someone with experience to get over them, so it isn’t worth trying this on your own without prior experience.
Doing your own SEO is not impossible to go through. However, you have to be careful about how you are going around it. It may take some time until results appear – but eventually, they will show up.
Keep in mind that being consistent is more important than putting in a load of work sporadically, being consistent is key to your success as an SEO. If you are looking to become a professional SEO expert, go to the SEO blog Bounce Rank by Raj Clark for tips, how-to guides and templates.
