There are a lot of thoughts on how to best optimize your website and business for organic search traffic.
The trouble with a lot of the things out there is they are focused on quick results that may or may not work in the long run.
You can set yourself up for a huge letdown by getting rankings and becoming dependent on the traffic and sales. This has happened to folks in the past that have built certain types of links only to see Google improve the ranking system and give credit back to sites that do SEO the right way.
It can also be very costly to invet in things like link building and other SEO tactics.
The best way to build your SEO program is with the slow build where you build content assets and a brand reputation that is strong enough to withstand any change in rankings.
In fact, by doing both of these things – content and branding – you’ll generate traffic from more than just organic search giving you a diversified source of traffic, leads and sales, which always protects you should one source go away.
Here are five ways you can build affordable search engine optimization strategies that will slowly build your content and reputation.
1. Blogging
Blogging is the best way we at GBW see to optimize your site for search (and social and direct referrals).
Here is the proof – 92% SEO traffic increase in five months.
Blogging is a big undertaking, but if you put in the effort yourself the cost is limited. You might spend a couple hundred bucks on design and development to get a blog on your website, but you can do the writing yourself.
There is a lot of time invested, but creating a post on your own won’t cost you money. For a small, growing business it’s a great way to grow while keeping your marketing budget low.
It worked for Crazy Egg when they had a small marketing budget.
Each post you create is an asset for your business. The post will be online forever always working to rank for various keywords that bring your website traffic, leads and sales.
If you’re a busy small business owner (Who isn’t?) then you might need to outsource blogging. That’s why we exist at Ghost Blog Writers. Our prices are competitive on purpose to compete with other paid marketing efforts.
However, we feel that over time blogging is a better investment than paid models. Remember, you only pay for a post once, but it works to bring you traffic from search and social forever.
And ad has a lifespan.
2. Earned Media
Earned media is the art of building content to gain the interest of your target audience. You create this content or teaser content for other sites and places with existing audiences and bring them back to your site to get the full breadth of the concept you’re sharing.
You collect information and the person turns into a lead for your business.
Earned media can be in the form of articles, graphics, videos, quotes and other snippets you share on other websites. You tap into another audience bringing value to them while earning attention for yourself and your brand.
Over time, the interest builds. You become a source of knowledge and value. You give people more on your site so they have a reason to come to your site. Those people turn into leads.
As you build your reputation you’re also building your brand, which has an influence on your SEO. Engines like Google can tell when your traffic increases. They can see those mentions throughout the Internet. They can see when people are converting on your site.
As your brand grows you get more authority with Google and that means higher rankings.
3. Social Media
Social media and search engine optimization are becoming more connected each day. Engines are looking at social information to determine the content people want to find online.
The biggest push in social media seems to be for individual pieces of content that are popular along with brands that are trusted. In order to earn that trust and reputation a brand needs to create content – blog posts, videos, guides, etc. – on their own channels while also producing content on the social channel sites.
The idea of sharing one useful tip on social media (such as a Tweet on Twitter) and then linking to more tips on a blog post or guide is one we like at GBW. It’s also a strategy Go Daddy has used to grow.
Growing your social media presence will impact your SEO. As you build your reputation you’ll see your rankings improve because the engines will recognize you as a trusted source of information.
4. Content Marketing
Blogging is part of content marketing and so are earned media and social media.
Content marketing comes down to these things:
- Creating Content
- Promoting Content
- Converting Traffic to Sales
A content marketing strategy is diverse, but focused. You can do it with only blogging and promoting of your blog content, but it’s even better to create guides, graphics, videos and other content that people find useful.
5. Community Content
This is another one that is hard to create, but it’s affordable SEO. You can build a community within your brand and on your web property.
Some brands have done with forums for years dating all the way back to the ’90s.
Bowhunting.com is one example I love. Their forums are packed with great content.
But that kind of community isn’t built overnight. It takes years to build, but once you have that community you get all this content that search engines love.
American Express did something similar with the Open Forum blog. People can write for the site and it builds great content, which the engines love.
You don’t have to spend a lot of money doing this, but it will take effort and time.
If you can do it you’ll reap the rewards.
Conclusion
You don’t have to spend a lot of money to improve your company’s SEO.
You will have to invest in the future and that means putting forth effort and time to create assets.
Much of SEO is about creating useful content. This means creating things your target customer finds educating, entertaining and enlightening. It takes a great effort to do this, but if you do it consistently over time you’ll build assets that will bring organic search traffic as well as traffic from other sources.
And in the process your brand reputation will grow, which also has an impact on your rankings.
Image: Flickr