Lately I’ve had people reach out to me saying, “I’ve been told I need to pay someone to help me with SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Can you help me with that? If not, do you have someone you could recommend?” Well I don’t really “do SEO,” but I am happy to help any website get better search rankings for free. It’s not as complicated as you might think:

1. Use a website platform that handles Search Engine Optimization for you automatically (like Squarespace) and submit the website domain to Google and Bing for them to crawl and index.
2. Use your website to share a steady and consistent stream of great content that naturally uses keywords in the content itself that people would use to find you.
3. Create and schedule a steady and consistent stream of compelling social media posts that link to your great content on your website.

Websites that end up as top results in searches have the most traffic, and are indexed with the strongest legitimate use of keywords in the page titles, headings, and body text. Getting indexed properly of course requires that your website have the proper formatting. Google is ranking websites higher in search results that also have SSL security to protect users, as well as being mobile friendly with responsive web design coding. All of the popular CMS web hosting platforms keep up with such things so you don’t have to think about them.

Once your website is indexed by the search engines and you have that consistent content stream giving you traffic from social media to your website, only then should you invest in an “SEO specialist” whose main role would be to run ad campaigns for you.

As you have heard us say many times before, “it’s all about the content!”

read more What Authors Need to Know About SEO