Can I Do My Own SEO?

Can you do SEO yourself?

Yes, you absolutely can. But do you want to?

Suppose you wanted to install some new cabinets in your kitchen. Could you do this yourself? Certainly. You can do anything you set your mind to. But do you have any experience or any of the skills needed to do such a thing? If not, you could take a class. Buy a DVD series and some books. Even hire someone to teach you. With time, effort and practice you could become anywhere from proficient to brilliant in all aspects of cabinet installation. But is that what you want? Or do you just want new cabinets?

Ask yourself this:

Would you rather spend time or money?

There are search engine optimization and internet marketing services out there for every budget. A small business, sole proprietorship, or hobby site doesn’t have the same needs and demands of a Fortune 500 company. SEO companies are well aware of this and charge accordingly. Hiring an SEO is probably more affordable than you think.

If you don’t want to spend any money at all, or there is simply nothing in the budget for it, then learning to do your own SEO is the road you’ll need to take.

How much do you already know?

Let’s go back to the cabinets for a minute. What level of skill would you be starting this project with? Do you know your way around a wood shop, or have you never held a hammer before? Success is possible from both starting points, but with the latter scenario, it could be years before you get those cabinets in. Do you want to wait? Can you afford to wait?

Do you update your own website? Could you update your own website? If yes, you’re in good shape to start learning and implementing some SEO basics. If no, you’ll need to start there. Learning basic SEO practices and principles will be impossible without some web site structure fundamentals to build upon. To grasp SEO concepts, you’ll need to get to a basic level of knowledge about how websites work and how search engines work to build upon. You’ll also need to know how to implement changes to your site, or be able to instruct a designer to implement them for you. Once again, you need to ask yourself if you’re interested or patient enough to put in the time.

Spending the time on learning SEO to save money could be taking the time away from helping your business make money. If your passion isn’t SEO related, the choice seems clear.

Hiring an SEO consultant to do part of the work is also an option.

Many search engine marketing companies offer SEO consulting, SEO audits, or DIY SEO (Do It Yourself). This is less costly than full plate SEO services, though it will of course require an investment of your time. Services will vary, but most of these offerings will generally involve the auditor investigating and researching your website, from both a technical and content perspective, and then providing you with a list of recommendations designed to improve its organic search engine rankings. An SEO audit will point out any existing or potential problems that may be hampering the site’s progress in the search engines as well as outlining methods to improve most aspects of the web site. Some consultants may also investigate and list potential backlink opportunities. It will be your responsibility to implement all these recommendations. This can be a good compromise if you’re confident in your abilities, or have someone who can make the changes for you.

So you’ve decided you’re going to learn how to do your own SEO.

Where do you start? You can begin immediately by simply running some searches and getting down to reading. Or you could sign up for a course or buy some books.

Probably the biggest potential pitfall for doing your own on-site SEO is following bad advice. There is a LOT of misinformation out there. You’d think that paying for an SEO course would guarantee quality information, but unfortunately that’s not the case. There’s no certification system for SEOs, and there’s no one monitoring its instruction either. Buying a book from a known publisher would probably be “safer” than buying an ebook from a random website, but SEO information goes stale quickly. Search engines are always changing, and in the time it takes to write, edit and publish a book, some of that information will become out of date.

Most of this bad SEO advice is not harmful enough to get your site in trouble (penalties, bans, etc) but plenty of it is incorrect or just not helpful. Meaning, you could spend a lot of time implementing changes that don’t do a thing to improve your organic results, or worse, actually cause your existing search engine results to sink. Time and experience will teach you what matters and what works when it comes to search engine optimization, and hiring an SEO gives you the benefits of years of hands-on experience and learning now. Which brings us back to the original question – would you rather spend time or money?