Can I do SEO on my own?

Meet Emma, a small business owner with a growing e-commerce store. Her products were fantastic, but not many people were visiting her website. After hearing about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) from a friend, she wondered, "Can I do SEO on my own, or should I hire someone to help?"

To save money, Emma decided to learn about SEO herself. She soon discovered that SEO has many parts, like Local SEO Optimization, Mobile SEO, and Technical SEO Services.

It felt like a big topic, but not impossible to understand.

In this blog, let’s find out if Emma—and you—can do SEO on your own or if hiring a professional makes more sense!

Highlights

• What is SEO?
• Emma’s First Steps into SEO
• Challenges Emma Faced
• Professional Help: When to Consider It
• Deciding the Right Approach

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s improving your website to make it appear higher in search results on platforms like Google.

The higher your website ranks, the more people will visit it. This can lead to more sales, inquiries, or visibility for your business.

Emma discovered that SEO has different areas, each playing an important role:

1. Local SEO Optimization

This type of SEO is great for small businesses that serve a specific area. It helps your website show up in local searches like:

• “Best pizza in [city]”
• “Coffee shop near me”

What it involves:

• Adding your business to Google My Business.
• Collecting reviews to build trust.
• Ensure your business name, address, and phone number are consistent online.

2. Mobile SEO

With so many people using smartphones, having a mobile-friendly website is a must. If your site works smoothly on a phone, you’ll rank higher in searches.

What it involves:

• Ensuring your website looks good on small screens.
• Improving page load speeds so visitors don’t leave.
• Making buttons and text easy to tap and read.

3. On-Page SEO

This part of SEO focuses on the content and structure of your website. It’s about making each page clear and valuable for visitors and search engines.

What it involves:

• Use keywords (words people search for) naturally in your content.
• Writing clear and catchy meta titles and descriptions.
• Organizing content with proper headings (H1, H2, etc.).

4. Technical SEO Services

Technical SEO is all about making sure your website works well behind the scenes. Search engines need to “crawl” and understand your site, and Technical SEO makes this easier.

What it involves:

• Fixing broken links that might frustrate visitors.
• Make sure the site loads quickly.
• Creating sitemaps to help search engines navigate your site.

SEO may sound complicated, but focusing on one area at a time can make it easier to manage. With the right approach, Emma realized she could tackle the basics herself and seek help for advanced tasks if needed.

Emma’s First Steps into SEO

Emma knew she had to start somewhere, so she began with the basics:

1. Keyword Research

Emma wanted her website to show up when people searched for her products. She used free tools like Google Keyword Planner to find common words and phrases her potential customers might search for.

What she did:

• Found popular keywords related to her products.
• Added those keywords naturally into her product descriptions and blog posts.
• Made sure the content felt helpful and not “forced.”

2. Optimizing Content

Emma realized that her website’s content needed to be clear and engaging. She focused on writing meta titles and descriptions—the small text that appears in search results.

What she did:

• Created catchy titles to grab attention.
• Wrote short, clear descriptions to explain what each page was about.
• Organized her content with proper headings to make it easy to read.

3. Improving Mobile Experience

Since most of her customers used smartphones, Emma worked on making her website mobile-friendly.

What she did:

• Tested her website on different phones to ensure it looked good.
• Fixed issues like slow-loading pages and hard-to-click buttons.
• Choose a responsive website design that adjusts to screen sizes automatically.

4. Local SEO Optimization

To attract nearby customers, Emma worked on Local SEO by setting up a Google My Business profile.

What she did:

• Added her business hours, photos, and location.
• Made sure her business name, address, and phone number were consistent across online platforms.
• Encouraged happy customers to leave reviews, which boosted her visibility in local searches.

By focusing on these simple steps, Emma was able to improve her website’s SEO without feeling overwhelmed.

Each small change brought her closer to her goal of attracting more visitors and growing her business.

Professional Help: When to Consider It

This chart shows how the $500 monthly budget for professional SEO services might be divided among various tasks.

Let me create it for you.

Here's the pie chart illustrating how a $500 monthly budget for professional SEO services can be allocated across different tasks.

It provides a clear breakdown of the percentage dedicated to each key area:

Breakdown:

Keyword Research (20%): Identifying high-value keywords.

On-Page Optimization (25%): Optimizing meta tags, headers, and internal links.

Technical SEO (30%): Fixing site speed, broken links, and other technical issues.

Local SEO (15%): Enhancing visibility for local searches.

Reporting (10%): Tracking progress and providing insights.

This visual can help readers understand where their investment goes when hiring SEO services.

Deciding the Right Approach

Emma had been doing her website’s SEO on her own, but she found it took up a lot of her time and was hard to keep up with.

She wanted to improve her website’s ranking but wasn’t sure if she could handle everything.

After thinking about it, she decided to hire an affordable SEO company to take care of the more technical parts, like fixing site speed and improving backlinks.

This way, Emma could focus on what she loved most—creating great content for her store. With the help of professionals, she hoped to make her website better and grow her business more easily.

Conclusion: Can You Do SEO on Your Own?

Like Emma, you can start with the basics of SEO on your own, especially if you have time and are willing to learn.

However, for advanced needs like Technical SEO Services or competitive industries like e-commerce, working with experts can make a big difference.

Whether you go the DIY route or hire professionals, the key is consistency. SEO takes time, but with the right strategies, you can see your website climb the ranks and attract more visitors.

So, can you do SEO on your own? The answer is yes—but sometimes, getting help from a company offering affordable services can save you time and effort while delivering faster results.

Need help with SEO?

Chat with Aruna Tyagi on LinkedIn!