Search engine optimization, or SEO, is one of the most basic and effective ways to drive targeted traffic to your website. As such, having a well optimized site can be financially beneficial to the owner. However, if the website owner is unable to carry out effective SEO in house, then the costs of outsourcing this task can run into hundreds of dollars.
In reality, there is plenty of online information, some good some not so good, on how to carry out SEO at minimum cost. This article covers four low cost SEO methods for the website owner to explore further and implement:
1. Link Exchange
Obtaining links to your website is generally considered key to effective SEO. One-way links are preferable but you are only likely to obtain these through natural means, that is by other webmasters choosing to make a ink to your site, although paid for one-way links are indeed possible. Another way to obtain links, two-way in this case, is to exchange links with another website. Depending on the websites that you exchange links with, this method is likely to cost you nothing at all. You will need to contact the owner of the website you want to have a link exchange with and arrange a link swap. After some time you should notice an increase in your website’s page ranking using this method of optimization.
2. Key Word Rich Articles
Writing and publishing truly informative and keyword-rich articles is one of the most effective ways to increase the visibilty of, and drive traffic to, your website. This process is usually completely free; you author your articles and publish them on reputable article directories. Careful use of the author resource box will enable you to provide a link back to your website. Take care when composing your articles – the readability and freshness of your written work will still be the basis of whether your readers keep on coming back to your website or not.
3. Domain Name Selection
The domain name that you choose for your website should, as closely as possible, be one of your keywords or at least be reflective of the niche you are targeting. It helps if the domain name is also short and easy to remember, this for the benefit of your visitors. Although registering a domain name is not free, the creativity behind its selection is.
4. Site Map and Site Navigation
You should set up a site map for your website to make it easier for the search engines to crawl. In addition, setting up an easy to navigate site is one way to make your visitors more at ease and spend more time browsing the site, as well as making revisits more likely. This, in turn, will improve the flow of traffic to your website.
Low cost SEO is always evolving and there are many methods that can very well land you on the top ten rankings of Google, or on any other search engines, for your chosen keyword. Some SEO methods may require considerable outlay, however there are techniques that can give you the same results at little or no cost.
By Keith Blackburn