4 Cost-Effective SEO Strategies That You Can Implement Right Now

SEO is one of the most affordable digital marketing strategies available to brands and businesses. But how do you make your SEO dollars stretch the furthest? Do you have a boss or client putting pressure on you to get results but with a limited advertising budget? Whether you use internal or external resources, there’s always a cost to higher search rankings.

So, what are the most cost-effective SEO strategies? Here are four budget-friendly ways you can level up your SEO right now!

1. Use Internal Linking

The first of our cost-effective SEO strategies has the best price tag—it’s free!

Some of your pages already rank well in the SERPs, or they get more organic traffic than others. These high-ranking pages have “link juice.”

Links coming from pages with high organic search results rankings can pass on some of their “juice” to your target pages. You can use these pages with more clout to elevate relevant content that doesn’t rank as well yet. This technique is commonly known as “PageRank sculpting.”

While you’ll want to follow best practices for link building, even internally, you can skip the “rel=nofollow” attribute in your internal links. These are, after all, links that you approve of.

Some SEO thought leaders recommend content silos. This is a good content marketing strategy for basic internal link building because it automatically creates natural opportunities for links.

But you shouldn’t limit your links to content within the silo. Let’s consider an example!

Imagine that you’re a high-tech ecommerce retailer. Your content strategy may look like this:

The arrows represent links that go in both directions. So, your page about computers links to the pages about desktops and laptops. Then, your laptop page links back to the computer page, as does the desktop page.

But that’s not enough. You should also link relevant content between silos, as shown by the red arrows in the image below:

The black arrows should be internal links between the different pages, and some of the red arrows only go in one direction. Let’s say your page on desktops ranks highly. You can pass on some of the authority from that page to your weaker CAT6 page.

You should find a natural way to link the two pages in terms of content. Desktop and CAT6 have a natural connection in that you need a CAT6 to connect to Ethernet ports in your home or office. This improves the overall user experience, offering them relevant topics, and it also improves your SEO.

How Internal Linking Works in Cost-Effective SEO Strategies

We’ve seen this work across industries and types of sites. A client ranked highly for niche long-tail terms with little volume and extremely high seasonality. One of their main category pages, which focused on a broad and incredibly competitive keyword, had minimal ranking but a high search volume.

We linked the long-tail terms internally to the broad category page, passing along that link juice. After a few months, the web analytics showed that the broad term had increased ranking slightly but grew web traffic exponentially due to higher search volume.

2. Find a White Hat Backlinking Program

Backlinks have been and still are a key component of PageRank. As search engine algorithms have become more sophisticated and digital marketers have become more savvy on the internet, earning valuable backlinks has become a real challenge.

You can’t rely on old SEO tactics for forums and comments on blog posts, even if they look like cost-effective SEO strategies. All of these old shortcuts no longer work:

• Blog and forum comments
• Niche edits
• Private Blog Networks (PBNs)
• Paid posts labeled as guest posts

Social media is one option, but the tried-and-true SEO strategies are the same—finding sites that rank well in the organic search results, reaching out with high-quality content, and getting accepted.

With the massive growth of search engine optimization, it’s harder than ever to identify and connect with high-authority sites and bloggers to get a link. Those business owners are better versed in SEO and Google Search algorithms than ever before.

Bulk link sellers typically work with a variety of small sites. Link builders like The Hoth or Fatjoe don’t usually get placements above 50 DA (domain authority) because those high-quality sites don’t accept mass postings.

Even with the challenges to a backlinking program, for most sites, it’s necessary. However, doing it internally is slow and will consume large amounts of resources that could be better used on other SEO tactics.

The best way to start a backlinking program is to outsource and find an SEO agency with high credibility and a proven track record in link building. While this may have a higher initial cost, the long-term return on investment is impressive.

Creating Content for Outbound Placement

Outbound links are still important for establishing credibility and authority. But it has to be done correctly. For starters, the content should be relevant to your industry. As an example, it doesn’t help a healthcare provider to be mentioned in an article titled, “Things to Do in Nashville.” Even if the healthcare provider is located in Nashville, the main focus of the article is on tourism, not medicine. So, this type of article isn’t ideal for outbound placement. Enter cost. Effective. SEO.

These articles should be high quality. The content has to be relevant to work well. “Spun” articles are bad for search rankings and for human eyes. Even items written by normal people can be badly written, poorly researched, redundant, or boring.

Look out for link builders that charge extra for good-quality writing. If they have to specify “good English,” then their base writer pool likely isn’t made up of native English speakers. Their “good English” pool is better than non-native, but not necessarily professional writers or journalists.

You want an article that brings valuable information to the table, with a unique perspective and a voice that matches your brand. That’s not something you can reliably get for pennies per word. Any penalties to links due to poor-quality content can decrease the cost-effectiveness of your content marketing strategy. So, it’s essential that you pay attention to SEO pricing for copywriting.

Calculating Cost-Effective SEO Strategies for Backlink Projects

So, how do we measure the SEO benefits of a backlink project? Calculating the SEO cost-benefit ratio can be based on a number of factors, like an increase in rankings. But metrics, like conversions or bookings, might be some of the most beneficial.

Assuming you have an average value for your goals—whether it’s a shopping cart, an appointment booking, or a subscription—it’s easy to calculate the cost-effectiveness of backlinking. Most SEO agencies charge a monthly fee for a set of services.

Backlinking takes time to show its full impact, so it’s smart to plan a three-month lead time for an ROI. You’d calculate the increase in your goal value at the end of the plan, then divide it by the cost of the services rendered.

LinkGraph has helped thousands of clients diversify their backlink profiles among high-ranking sites in their market. Working with LinkGraph makes a white hat backlinking project one of the most cost-effective SEO strategies possible. Cheap linking can cost you more in the long run due to Google penalties for using bad practices.

3. Revamp Old Content

This cost-effective SEO content marketing strategy is great for bigger sites that have already covered a lot of target keywords. Google likes to see fresh content. And as your landing pages age, relevance declines. You can lose visibility in the search engine results pages if your content sits for too long. 

As the Google Search algorithm improves and other players in the industry create content, your pages could easily get left in the dust and fall further down the search engine results page. A 500-word article that ranked in 2015 will need to be expanded to cover developments in the industry and stay ahead of the curve. If you used effective SEO strategies in 2015, these same strategies may not hold up against today’s competition.

This is because Google is always trying to improve how its algorithm understands and classifies content. As artificial intelligence gets better at understanding and creating natural language, your content marketing strategy will have to measure up. That means more focus on optimizing content before publication.

Optimizing content isn’t just focusing on one keyword but hitting the right frequency of related keyphrases and focus terms. Our page optimization tool helps you and your team create high-quality content that attracts both search engines and your human target audience.

But before you write and polish your content marketing strategy, you’ll want to check your keyword research.

You might ask, “Why repeat this research if you know that your content ranked for Keyword A six months ago?” Well, there are a few reasons:

• Searchers might use different terms.
• Keyphrase alternatives may have lower competition or bigger volume.
• Long tail keywords may have become more important.
• Competitors have a better understanding of the content.
• It’s a great way to avoid keyword cannibalism.

Our Keyword Finder tool uses a proprietary algorithm to bring you fresher, more accurate keyword results for a better content management system. Remember, SEO audit tools that pride themselves on expansive crawls also need time to complete those crawls, resulting in data that may be weeks old. You don’t want your web page to rank for last month’s keywords.

Tracking Performance on Content Revamps

This cost-effective SEO strategy can be done completely in-house or with external resources. Either way, measuring ROI for these content creation projects is very straightforward.

1. First, the web page was ranking at X, driving Y traffic.
2. Then, it dipped to ranking Z, lowering the traffic to Q.
3. After the revamp, the content shot up to R, resulting in an S% increase in web traffic.

4. Make Your Page Schema-Friendly

Lastly, we’ll round out our suggestions with a technical SEO suggestion. Schema, or other structured data markups, can actually boost your organic search rankings, clicks, and conversion rate optimization.

Structured data allows search engines to understand the context of a web page better. The biggest change when you implement structured data is the possibility of rich snippets showing up in organic search results. Google Search snippets, for example, could include reviews, address information, and sub-pages—all within the results themselves.

This additional information is critical for your potential customers because it makes the information on the results pages easy to process, eventually increasing traffic and CTR without changing rankings.

Schema is one of the best cost-effective SEO practices for e-commerce sites. Star rating visibility in the organic results can make your listing stand out, even if it’s a little further down the page. This is because positive ratings and testimonials are a visual trust signal for your target audience. They’re also social proof that other people have bought the product and were excited enough that they were compelled to leave a review.

Obviously, you’ll want to work on encouraging customers to leave positive reviews about your brand or product. Just as a 5-star review is strong positive social proof, a low star rating doesn’t help your SEO analytics.

For local websites, structured data is a no-brainer. Schema presents product reviews and location-based information, including events and maps that contribute to local searches. LinkGraph used structured markup to promote local auctions for a client in the automotive industry, increasing CTR overall.

Enhanced SERPs are also helpful in local SEO campaigns and highly competitive terms. The additional information provided increases the listing’s real estate on the page, pushing out competitors and claiming space among information like maps.

So, why aren’t more SEO specialists using structured data? There’s no evidence that rich snippets increase rankings in organic search, which is what most SEOs are focused on. 

Many SEO professionals may know the basics of schema but are out of their depth when it comes to the coding and technical aspects of search engine optimization. To get the most out of this investment, it would make sense to find technical SEO services with experience in structured data implementations.

Measuring Cost-Effective SEO Strategies With Structured Data Campaigns

Since the objective for a schema campaign isn’t organic ranking but rather clicks, you’ll want to set your metrics around these objectives to measure the impact of these SEO marketing efforts accurately.

The great thing is that you should be able to tie a direct economic value to your efforts. Even with the least amount of detail, you can apply an industry standard conversion rate to the number of clicks to estimate the results of this cost-effective SEO strategy.

Partnering With LinkGraph for Affordable SEO Services

Whether you’re into technical, on-page, or off-page SEO, there are cost-effective SEO strategies for your area of expertise. Internal linking and content revamp projects can make your pages work harder for you.

A white hat backlinking program reaches out to share your site’s amazing content, increasing your rankings and traffic. Lastly, adding structured data allows search engines to better understand and present your page, especially helping e-commerce and local sites increase CTR.

If you’re not an expert but see the potential value of these strategies, LinkGraph is an experienced partner with the capacity to take on projects of any size. Let us help you increase rankings, CTR, or traffic without breaking the bank! Reach out to our team and unleash your brand potential.