How To Save Money With SEO in 2024

It’s no surprise that money matters remain the most pressing challenge for small businesses. Naturally, such companies look to save money on SEO (search engine optimization) and other marketing efforts.

Fortunately, advanced tools are giving businesses the ability to handle some of the basics of SEO on their own. Discover how to maximize your SEO spend with a few of our favorite tips.

Save Money With SEO by Learning More About It

What Francis Bacon, Thomas Jefferson, and “Schoolhouse Rock” said still holds true: “Knowledge is power!” The first step to saving money with SEO is knowing what it is, how it works, and how you can do it yourself.

In particular, staying current on the latest tips and how search engine algorithms change is crucial. Relying on yesterday’s SEO news could leave you in the dust of your competitors.

As an example, recent estimates put the number of changes to Google’s search algorithm somewhere around 500-600 annually. Major updates are much less frequent but happen regularly. There were nine in 2023 alone.

Subscribe to blogs that keep you in the loop about the latest SEO chatter. This blog is an excellent choice, as are the articles from Content Marketing Institute and Search Engine Journal.

Put Quality Ahead of Quantity

SEO is all about quality. That’s why it remains much more affordable than other types of digital marketing, especially paid ads. Once your content gains traction, it continues to give you long-term results. That’s not true with paid ads, which can’t do much more for you after a campaign is over.

Comparatively, it’s more cost-efficient to start a blog. However, you can’t just pump out a bunch of mindless, AI-generated information. In fact, that can hurt your SEO rankings.

Search engines prioritize people-first content that provides a good page experience. Your articles and posts should always strive to demonstrate E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. Getting these right the first time and not having to go back and constantly fix things will save money with SEO.

Get Help Where You Need It

Have you ever tried to save money by taking on a DIY project only for it to end up being more expensive than if you’d paid a professional to handle it? SEO is no different.

At some point, if you really want to gain traction and visibility, you’re going to need a pro. Large companies often have the resources to hire a full-time in-house team for that. However, that’s rarely practical for small and mid-sized companies.

The cost-effective way to get the same results as big enterprises is to outsource content creation to an agency. Actually, hiring an in-house writer can cost almost seven times more than outsourcing. Plus, you not only eliminate worries about getting the resources and expertise to create and edit content, but you also get the ability to scale up or down quickly.

Do Keyword Research 

Even after you hire an agency for content creation, you can still save money with SEO by handling some of the work yourself. A great place to start is by researching keywords for your articles. Many agencies ask which keywords you want to target, or they can perform that research for an extra fee. Likewise, content that doesn’t target a keyword is less likely to gain traction, meaning you need to spend more on articles to see the same results.

Basic keyword research is as easy as seeing what suggestions and filters pop up when you search for a word or short phrase that relates to your industry. Also, look at related searches and the “People also ask” section to see other long-tail keywords to target.

You can also buy keyword research tools that help you dig even further into what your audience is searching for. When you can find and focus on the most important keywords, you won’t have to create as much content and can save money with your SEO.

Create More Content Yourself by Making Employees Brand Ambassadors

Leaving in-house content creation to only a few folks on your team can ensure consistency, but it’s not necessarily using your resources effectively. Individuals throughout your organization likely have helpful information to share with your target audience. Give others a chance to create content or at least submit ideas for your blog and social media.

You might need to incentivize these efforts, but you could also discover that ambitious team members are willing to take on the task without extra reimbursement. Free content is a great way to save money on SEO. Just make sure your content marketing team reviews and edits everything for accuracy and tone.

Build Internal Links

Pages that have more links pointing to them are more likely to rank higher. Therefore, using links to other blogs on your site can boost SEO and optimize your efforts.

Of course, you should add links within reason. You shouldn’t cram every sentence with irrelevant links. Still, you can and should add hyperlinks to point to parts of your site that have more information or display products and services that can help with the subject you’re discussing.

Create a Content Marketing Budget

Carefully creating and monitoring your marketing budget is also essential when you want to save money with SEO. Some companies don’t hire an agency because they think it’s too expensive. The lack of help can become more costly in terms of missed customers and revenue. Others might spend recklessly on the wrong marketing, throwing money at the problem without focusing on their return on investment.

Determine how much time and money you’re already spending on SEO efforts. Then, calculate the return you’re seeing on that. That could lead you to trimming expenses on things that aren’t working and putting capital toward new tools or hiring an SEO agency.

We Can Show You Even More Ways To Save Money With SEO 

As with most services that are critical to your business’s success, there’s only so much you can do on your own. Hiring a reliable partner to keep on track with your goals is always going to be a primary way to save money with SEO. Talk to us at BKA Content, and we’ll show you how our managed SEO services help you get the most from your marketing budget.