It is entirely possible to optimise your business online by yourself, a process commonly referred to as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation), AIO (All-In-One Optimisation), or GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation).

You can achieve this through your website and your overall online presence. However, there are many different elements to consider in this process.

Optimisation occurs both within the website (on-page optimisation) and outside it (off-page optimisation). 

Search engine optimisation isn’t just about maximising the website itself. There are external factors that need to be addressed as well. What matters is the brand’s overall presence across the internet.

Understand that ranking well takes time. Results are gradual, to begin with. You’ll need to build trust and authority, which doesn’t happen overnight.

I encourage you to keep going. It takes 6 months to a year to start seeing results, especially for a small business with limited hours and budget.

But it’s so worth it!

Make sure you have the most basic SEO factors in place by watching our simple website checklist video. 

Here’s a quick sweep through those factors.

• Reliable domain name.
• Fast web host.
• Mobile-friendly design.
• SSL certificate.
• Good user experience (UX).

I’m going to show you some tools and tactics to do SEO yourself. The first three steps I recommend are the most daunting, but you only need to do these once.

Get these done and just keep going! The fun bits come later.

Where to Start When Optimising In-house

Step 1: Google Search Console

The first thing to do is to monitor the website in Google Search Console. There’s a great guide from SEM Rush on setting up Google Search Console. 

To get set up, visit search.google.com. You need to be signed in to a Google account.

• Add a property to the Google Search Console.
• Choose a PROPERTY TYPE – this will normally be the option ‘whole domain’. The URL prefix option will separate results by subdomain, such as blog.kaydee.net. Or maybe a mobile version of your site – m.kaydee.net.
• Now you’ll come to a screen that asks you to Verify Domain Ownership. You’ll need to add a TXT record to the DNS via your host. Ask your web developer or your host to do this for you. You’ll need to provide them with that long code on the screen; this is a TXT record, so copy that and send it straight to them. If you’d like to have a go yourself, then Google provides instructions for many common hosts.
• Once the DNS record is added, come back to the console to verify your domain. Done!

Google Search Console will show you the website’s performance for key phrases it ranks for.

It also flags certain errors, such as 404s (missing pages and dud links). 

You can submit URLs when you add or change content to request that Google crawls it quickly. 

It’s a pretty useful tool for SEO.

Add a Sitemap to the Search Console

If you’re using WordPress, install a plugin called Yoast SEO, which will provide a sitemap for you.

WIX and Squarespace both automatically generate a sitemap.

The URL is almost always domain.com/sitemap.xml.

If you would like more control, use pro-sitemaps.com which will scan the site and create an XML file for you to upload. As your site grows, remember to manually keep the sitemap up to date.

Step 2: Analyse

Analyse the website independently using SEO software. Google Search Console will only provide so much information.

When you measure the small successes, SEO becomes easier and more interesting – almost like a game.

SEO tools and software can:

• detail rank for key phrases,
• suggests more key phrases to rank for,
• compares competition,
• suggests links opportunities,
• shows SERP features,
• measure how well pages are optimised.

My favourite tools to analyse a website are – 

• analytics.moz.com/pro/keyword-explorer
• keywordtool.io/pro
• semrush.com/analytics/keywordmagic/start
• ahrefs.com/pricing

Step 3: Correct Errors

The next step is to correct website errors that Google Search Console should flag. 

We call these crawl errors, and they exist in many ways.

• Dud links.
• 404 errors
• The title tag is too long. 
• The description is too long.

A tool called Screaming Frog can help you scan the website for these errors, and there is a free version which is plenty for a small business website.

Now the Creative Part of Optimisation

Okay, so those are the three tasks to complete first if you are doing SEO yourself. Once complete, start the fun part of optimisation.

Let’s learn a few basic terms first.

The Basic Terms of Optimisation

PageRank

PageRank is generally our biggest concern when it comes to SEO. It’s the position on which your page/post appears on a SEARCH ENGINE RESULT PAGE (SERP) when a search term is entered.

Pages rank for many search terms; it doesn’t have to be just one.

Key Phrases

Keywords make up key phrases. A key phrase consists of more than two keywords – certainly 50% of online searchers use more than four in a query.

Longer terms contain up to 10 keywords and are known as long-tail key phrases. When we search, we usually use long-tail key phrases to make the search more precise.

Website owners give a page or post intention using a key phrase – by doing this, they target those search queries.

Find out more about key phrases here.

In-house Off-page Optimisation

Before you start really looking at your own website and building on it, I advise you to do some off-page SEO tasks first. These are fairly easy. 

You just need a day at the computer and a good supply of tea.

NAP Consistency

To identify a business’s actions across the internet, search engines need to first recognise the business.

So it’s important to use the same business name and contact details across all platforms.

Search engines can then acknowledge that the business is active online.

Inconsistent business names and contact details can confuse search engines.

So, if the business name is “Kelly’s World Hikes” in one place but “World Hikes by Kelly” in another, search engines will see them as two different businesses. 

Even small differences such as Kelly’s Hikes Ltd v Kelly’s Hikes.

It doesn’t end there. 

NAP stands for NAME, ADDRESS, PHONE NUMBER, but it really means a tonne of other things too.

The website address is hugely important.

To a search engine or AI crawler, all of these variations are different website addresses:

• www.kaydee.net
• kaydee.net
• https://kaydee.net
• https://kaydee.net

Stick to one and always use that one and only that one when you create a link to your website.

I use the latter – https://kaydee.net. That way I know that everything links to my secure site (HTTPS). I never use www; it’s not required.

Consistent opening times and price range come under NAP Consistency too.

And the logo. Always use the same logo. I do tend to switch between my full logo and my truncated logo which fits into a circle as an avatar, but they are very obviously my brand colours, font and symbol.

Show search engines you have taken the time to keep your details up to date all across the web.

Google Business Profile

A Google Business Profile carries a lot of weight in optimisation. GBP is a social tool for businesses, a directory, and part of Google Search itself.

A business that has a Google Business Profile receives a listing on Google Maps – one of the most influential places that a location-based business can be listed.

Using the Google Business Profile tool, a business owner can update their listing on Google Maps and in the sidebar of Google search results, which appears when someone performs a local search. 

Within the tool, complete every field to keep visitors informed. And encourage Google reviews.

These two simple tasks will ensure that your listing appears before competitors (or at least close to them) when someone places a local search.

The more reviews and the better they are, the higher the listing.

Find out more about Google Business Profile.

Directory Listings

Directories are big websites – local guides, industry-specific directories and general directories such as yell.com that list businesses, for free.

Most intend to charge for upgrades or advertising when businesses see value in it.

They scrape websites for initial information, so listings become outdated as a business grows and changes.

Search the internet for your business. 

Search each variation of the company name and right anything you find that is incorrect.

How? Often you just have to trawl through the net. 

Once you find a page with your business details on it, look on the website for a link to “Claim this business”, “Update the business”, “Is this business yours?” – something like that. 

Usually, you’ll need to create an account to update a listing.

Check that the business details on all directories correlate – change the business name, check the website address, use an up-to-date logo, add opening times where possible and have a consistent description to use across them all.

Social Platforms

The same goes for social media platforms.

Make sure each profile is up to date and agreeable with the rest of your online presence. Even if you aren’t particularly active on the platform, it should still have the correct details. 

Whilst we are on the topic of social media, let’s look at how important social is when it comes to doing SEO yourself.

Social Media and Optimisation

Google has never said that social media has any effect on PageRank whatsoever. Popularity on social media isn’t an official signal to search engines.

But there is evidence that activity and engagement on social media help with ranking. 

Facebook reviews appear on the Google Local panel when we search for a local business. Tweets become features on search engine result pages. Articles that get social media engagement and shares tend to rank higher. 

To me, it is obvious. Social media affects PageRank.

Social media activity shows search engines that the brand is popular, valuable, and interesting – all the things that Google requires to rank content well.

Social media must help Google recognise influential figures across industries through shared content and hashtags.

Even though I believe social media has an impact, please understand that any links from a social profile are ‘no-follow’. 

No-follow tags tell search engines to ignore the link, so the destination does not receive search engine ‘juice’ or credit. 

So, social media will not be part of your link-building strategy, and I don’t think it ever will be. 

This brings me nicely to backlinks.

Backlinks and Mentions

Backlinks are links from one website to another, and they are the icing on the cake when it comes to SEO. 

They are tough to achieve because people don’t link to poor websites. A link is like a recommendation from another website.

A website can build domain authority through backlinks, measured by a number between 1 and 100. High numbers are assigned to websites with strong domain authority, although I don’t know of any website over 65. 

The authority of the domain increases with quality backlinks. In turn, that means better PageRank.

Now, not ALL backlinks are good.

As a general rule, encourage backlinks from websites on a similar plane as your site.

It’s not worth linking to a website with a low domain authority score. It can have a negative effect. 

Avoid backlinks from websites flagged with a SPAM score – many of these are black-hat websites or aren’t abiding by SEO rules. 

Usually, analysis software will unearth the websites with a high SPAM score. 

Link building is pretty hard – backlinks are best treated as a final goal. People only link to websites they trust.

Work on your website first to make it unique and worthy. Use video to allow an audience to get to know you and your personality.

Analysis software will unearth the websites with a high SPAM score. 

Link building is pretty hard – backlinks are something to have in mind as a final goal. People really only link to websites they trust.

Work on your website first to make it unique and worthy. Use video to allow an audience to get to know you and your personality.

Guest blogging also helps in link building – you can write worthy articles for other blogs and ask them to link back to your own.

Use networking to build strong relationships. I can’t express enough how valuable real-world connections are.

Once you have a strong website and great contacts, ask directly for backlinks.

Let’s get the website’s internal parts strong now, too.

In-house On-page Optimisation

Here, I outline on-page optimisation that you can do yourself.

Content

If you’ve been learning about optimisation for long enough, you’ll have seen articles with titles like “Content is King”, and it really is. 

Content can be written articles (posts, pages, products, events, PDFs), images (illustrations, photographs, infographics, animated GIFs), and video and audio (podcasts, sound files).

It can be embedded on the website from external sources, such as a YouTube channel, but think about your NAP consistency and make sure the channel aligns with your brand, so search engines know this is your own content.

When used well, all of these media will help your website rank well. 

Content is search engine fodder. Consistently feed the machine, show your knowledge, your uniqueness and your passion. This will certainly help your SEO rank.

I can’t provide you with a secret tool that will help you produce content quickly. Like anything worth doing, it has to be worked at.

Some website owners use curation tools, but original content ranks best.

The beauty is that producing all this content for SEO means you will have more to share on social media. 

Once you write a blog post, always share it to get it in front of your social media followers and achieve more hits whilst it’s fresh.

Control how your posts look on social media.
What is an OG image?

Read on to learn how to use content when doing SEO yourself.

Landing Pages

There’s a bit of confusion online about what a landing page is.

In optimisation terms, a landing page is developed around a specific topic or product. People continue searching and click on these. They are strong pages containing your best content. 

Visitors come to a website in so many different ways, and that is why we use landing pages – to capture those people that are searching for a term that may not be on our home page.

The home page is often quite generalised on a website or a blog – you can hardly niche it down because you need so much information on it. 

Think carefully about each of your products or services and split them into individual landing pages. Make the key phrases unique for each one and target them to a specific audience. 

Category pages can be targeted too.

Create pages that cover a topic and give it real intention – like the answer to a question – so Google can’t resist them. 

Avoid what Google calls Doorway pages – creating multiple pages for similar key phrases that push people into another part of the website. 

Doorway pages aren’t included in the menu system; they are extra pages created only for search engines, and the website can get penalised for this.

This is very different from having a clear, honest landing page. The landing pages I’m talking about will be included in your menu, never hidden. They are primarily to help your visitor, and they are super informative.

Blogging

After you’ve made an incredible effort on all your pages, you can start blogging, which is really where you will build valuable content.

Blogging helps the website to expand its reach, appealing to a wider audience. We write around extra, related topics to help our client base. 

All content across a domain must relate. Build authority in one industry or at least related industries.

Don’t start trying to rank for Formula 1 Cars on your Fluffy Cat blog. Unrelated.

By blogging, a business can rank for thousands of key phrases and dominate a specific area of search.

Other media can also be hosted in this blogging area, such as photos, infographics, and illustrations. Here you’ll embed videos from your chosen platform (I recommend YouTube) and podcasts.

Each piece of media can rank independently, and when something starts to rank well, it helps the rest of the content.

Building related content strengthens the domain.

I constantly monitor my blog to work out what is not being visited and what is not ranking well. I improve on my weak content or revise articles for different key phrases. 

A blog can also be used as an effective customer service tool. It becomes a hub of information that you can send clients to. 

It appears so professional when someone asks you a question, and you can send them a link to a blog post that answers everything and even includes links.

A blog is a place to show knowledge, teach or entertain an audience.

It’s even a place for your thoughts to show your true beliefs and personality so you can connect with your ideal customer base.

Writing for Optimisation

Writing is food for search engines.

When you start optimisation yourself, concentrate on writing evergreen content to begin with. Evergreen content is relevant over a long period of time – years in fact.

Timely content, about trending topics, can come later. 

Google crawls a strong domain more frequently. So build up good evergreen content first, build domain authority. Only then will a topical post rank well and quickly. 

Learn to write well, for humans with a slight twist for search engines. That twist is so subtle because really, what we want to do with our writing is to help people. 

Search engines are intelligent enough to weed out articles written only for search. It’s damaging for your credibility, so always have humans in mind.

Support it with attractive images and YouTube videos.

Do-it-yourself Video for Optimisation

People consume content in many different ways, depending on their preferences and environment. 

People read in-depth when relaxing on a train or watch a quick ‘how-to’ video if they are in the middle of something.

Provide different ways for visitors to absorb your information. Help their experience and your search engine rank.

Embed related videos in blog posts to boost your rankings. Video will appear at the top of search results for certain searches when Google deems it useful.

Video can be pretty daunting. The only way to learn is to do it.

A great place to learn video skills is over at The Video Marketing School by Owen Video.

Parts of written blog posts can be easily transformed into video or podcast scripts, and vice versa. Content can always be repurposed when you’ve put lots of time into it.

Create a YouTube channel and host all videos there – they’ll be conveniently formatted for all platforms.

Embed videos onto related pages and posts on the domain. Choose where they will be most suitable and relevant to the text.

Linking Content

Throughout written content, link to other helpful blog posts on the same domain. 

This is known as internal linking and helps the visitor navigate the website.

Search engines follow these links too.

Provide a simple, practical path for the reader and the crawler.

Regularly use external links throughout your writing too. But like backlinks, make sure the link is to a valuable website.

Only ever link to the content you’ve thoroughly checked over and trust implicitly.

Linking externally helps to encourage backlinks. 

Any good website owner will analyse backlinks, get in touch and reciprocate.

Newsletter Lists

The effort you’ve put into your DIY SEO will pay off when it comes to building an e-newsletter list. More visitors means more email addresses to capture. 

Remember that no one provides their email address for nothing, so develop a lead magnet – something truly valuable that people will exchange their email address for. 

When someone has entrusted you with their email address, they really are a fan. Your newsletter list is truly precious. 

Regular Checks

A growing website/blog should be constantly scanned for errors and analysed for weak spots. 

Return to your analysis software at least every week to check things over and catch anything that is going wrong. 

Checklist on How to do Optimisation In-house

• Long-standing domain name.
• Reliable and fast web host.
• Mobile-friendly design.
• SSL certificate.
• Good user experience (UX).
• Link Google Search Console to the website. 
• Submit a sitemap to Google Search Console.
• Analyse.
• Correct errors.
• Produce content such as blog posts and videos.
• Place helpful links throughout – internal and external.
• Share on social media.

So, if you can find your way around a computer and are passionate about the business you serve, optimisation is a lot of fun to do in-house with a great team.

Become dedicated and enthusiastic about your website, writing for your business and creating content that people will love. Build a plethora of material that can be shared on social media and other blogging platforms.