5 Cheap SEO Strategies You Can Use to Generate More Traffic

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Looking for cheap SEO strategies is a bit like looking for the cheapest pair of running shoes. Sure, you CAN do it…but do you really want to. You might end up doing more harm than good.

I bought a pair of running shoes from a company a few years back — I won’t say who; but it rhymes with “May Bless” — my feet hurt, my joints ached and after two weeks I was worse off then when I started. (“Thanks, May Bless!”)

The key is when looking for SEO solutions — as when looking for cheap shoes — to not expect miracles on a shoestring budget. Sure, you can buy the odd pair of flip-flops or a pair of lime green sneakers you might wear once, but if you need something that will sustain you over the long haul, don’t depend on a couple of Fiverr backlinks to do your SEO heavy lifting for you.

That said, affordable SEO services, in whatever form they come, can be a fantastic additive to your existing SEO plan. And with the right foundation in place you can see huge benefits with small, inexpensive moves.

So, here are 5 cheap SEO strategies you can use to generate leads, rule the world and make so much profit you never have to shop at “May Bless” again.

5 Cheap SEO Tactics That Will Move the Needle (and Not Break the Bank)

Strategy #1: Find Low-Hanging Fruit

Most SEO disappointments come down to one factor: brands try to optimize their content for search terms that are too competitive and will take decades of content to rank for.

Now, you could certainly spend HOURS and HOURS learning a suite of SEO tools, such as WordTracker or SEM Rush, to give you the latest real-time analysis on keyword competitiveness. But learning and mastering these tools can sometimes be as hard as ranking the content in the first place.

A better option is to simply go to a site like Upwork or Fiverr and have an SEO freelancer run a SEO report on a group of keywords related to a specific topic. For example, this very article you’re reading right now was inspired by somebody doing a report for me on good SEO keywords to optimize for.

Here’s how it worked:

I asked them to search for SEO keywords
They compiled a document which found a group of keywords that all had 10-1000 searches a month and had a Google competition score somewhere below .35
I combed through the list and removed the crap that wasn’t relevant and came up with the 4-5 keywords all around a single topic (In this case, “Cheap SEO”)

It’s not perfect, and I could certainly pay an SEO agency 5k to do a better job, but I’ve got better ways to spend my money. (Like buy this 6k coffee maker)

Strategy #2: Create an SEO Cheat Sheet

The best way to make sure all of your content is optimized properly for SEO is to make it automatic, something you and your team can do without thinking. In this case, a step-by-step procedure for how you will optimize all your content.

Let’s take a look at this very column you’re reading. You’ll notice I have the primary keyword (“cheap seo”) in places such as:

The URL
The Title
Bolded in the first paragraph
Italicized int he last paragraph
Included in one h2 tag (the big guy at the top)
Included in one h3 tag (at the end)

And that’s not by accident. I do this for every single piece of content I’m optimizing for a single keyword. The piece doesn’t get published until I do.

You’ll also notice what I don’t do:

Stuff the primary keyword everywhere
Put the primary keyword in every subheading (big no-no)
Hyperlink the keyword to somewhere else on the site

This cheat sheet does not lead to magic, earth-shattering results. I don’t publish a post and then suddenly see millions of page views.

But it does show the Google Overlords that I know how to organize my content — and my site — in a way that makes it easy for people to understand what things are about. This page is about cheap SEO. Another page is about Affordable SEO services.

This focused, no-brainer system works for me and I’m pretty damn sure it will work for you.

Strategy #3: Tell People How Long It Will Take to Consume Content

This strategy was so subtle I didn’t even consider it for the longest time. But then I started to see it crop up in different places. And then I came across this article which talked about a WordPress plugin that lets you generate an estimated reading time for my content.

And you know what happened? My bounce rate — the percentage of people who click on a link and then click away within a few seconds — went down. And my Time on Site went up.

Coincidence? I think not.

I could give you all kinds of psychological reasons why this might work. Stuff about setting expectations and how busy people are these days. But I don’t really care. All I really know is that it works.

If you’ve got a WordPress site then you can use the Reading Time WP plugin. But if you’ve got a custom site then you might need a developer to help you set it up. Either way it’s a cheap quick-way to boost the engagement with your content, without signing another agency contract.

Strategy #4: Backlinks to Real Estate You Don’t Own

By real estate you DON’T own, I mean huge megalithic platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Amazon, Instagram or Pinterest.

So, why the HECK would we want to build backlinks to property we don’t own. First, building links to your own site — especially if it’s not a highly-trafficked one — will be viewed as spammy by the Google police.

Which it is.

But if you build backlinks to, say, your YouTube channel or your Pinterest board or that Instagram story you just did you not only can’t hurt those locations — those companies are too mega — but you can help that particular silo of content rank higher than other similar-themed silos of content.

This works because NOBODY else does this. I mean, nobody.

And as long as you have backlinks from your off-site platforms back to your site, then a couple of Fiverr gigs can help generate serious traffic back to your site and help your silos zoom up the search engine charts.

Strategy #5: Publish a Press Release About…Anything!

The only kind of “paid” backlink that I do recommend you use for your own content are press releases. This is because, for the most part, Google respects press releases.

God knows why. Most of them are horrendous and actively annoying. But I guess most spammers don’t go to the trouble of creating a press release for their POS spammy article. It’s only “real” companies that use press releases.

Whatever the reason publishing a press release that links back to your website, using a targeted keyword, is a great way to get your content noticed by the Google Drones and found by the people who you want most…potential customers.