By YEC | In: Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization
Thanks to search engines leveling the marketing playing field, even the smallest business can today benefit from the reach that search engine marketing (SEM) offers. But when you’re short on money, time, and resources, learning all about SEO and SEM—and how to leverage them effectively in your digital marketing strategy—can be a challenge. Here, 13 leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council share SEO and SEM tips that work for them, and that won’t break the bank.

Search engine marketing relies heavily on quality content that converts readers into customers, so outsourcing your content production to an expert copywriting team with great knowledge of SEO strikes a good balance between having a limited budget and not enough time to create content yourself. The cost will pay for itself in no time. —Mark Stallings, Casely, Inc
 

One easy way small business owners with limited budgets can take advantage of search engine marketing for their business is to start a blog and post an article a week about the most interesting topics related to their business. Over time, this will build an audience and the business will slowly rank in the search engines, which will bring traffic to the site. —Alfredo Atanacio, Uassist.ME
 

The key to ranking high is putting out content that users want to read. Create the best articles on a specific topic. Write detailed articles and post them online in an easy-to-read format. Once you’ve done that, you will rank higher through the natural sharing of links. —Peter Boyd, PaperStreet Web Design
 

An effective way for a small business to ramp up its search engine marketing is to allow other experts to write guest posts or write on its blog. This is a great way to get free content while helping another expert with their expertise and authority. It’s a win-win for both parties. —Kristin Kimberly Marquet, Marquet Media, LLC
 

One low-cost way to boost your SEO ranking is to optimize your site for voice search. Consumers are using voice-activated devices more than ever before. As a result, their search habits are changing. If you implement this strategy, you could see more traffic, sales, and engagement. The best way to get started is to use keyword variations that reflect what someone might say when searching. —Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights
 

Don’t forget YouTube SEO! What most people don’t realize is YouTube is the second-largest search engine behind Google. Videos on YouTube are a powerful way to boost your SEM for the long run since YouTube videos are part of Google search results, too. Videos are also an opportunity to increase brand awareness and build an audience of interested potential customers. Make sure to include YouTube in your SEM strategy. —Devesh Dwivedi, Idea2Inception

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One way to take advantage of search engine marketing is to index all your website pages for major search engines like Google, Bing, etc. This will help you boost your visibility in different search engines, which is a great way to increase your brand reputation. It will also help you increase brand awareness and attract new leads to your website. —Josh Kohlbach, Wholesale Suite
 

Part of SEM is implementing those practices into your social media marketing strategy. If you’re well known on social media or your posts gain traction, you can use that to perform search engine marketing that pairs relevant keywords to your brand. —Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
 

One way to take advantage of search engine marketing is to optimize your website for the local user base. This will help you boost your website visibility to your local users and help you to appear in more relevant local search results. You can do that by using local terms on your website homepage, like “best gift store in Mumbai.” Also, add a page with your address, contact number, business name, etc. —Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
 

Google My Business is a free profile for your business, and for many businesses it will be the first place your customer interacts with your brand. More and more, consumers are finding what they need from their GMB listing and taking action from there. Depending on your industry, a large percentage of users may not even make it to your website. —Kevin Getch, Webfor
 

Internal linking within your website is key. This looks like linking references on one of your webpages that sends a reader to another page on your own site. This action will help reduce your bounce rates and keep your audience within the confines of your site for longer periods of time. Not only that, but it also will help Google index your website. —Matthew Podolsky, Florida Law Advisers, P.A.
 

You can improve your search engine position by getting more outbound links. One way to accomplish this task is to look for guest posting opportunities. Check out publications in your industry and see if they are accepting credited guest posts. If so, pitch your idea and wait for a response. Once you get posts published, you’ll get more links to your site, which will result in SEO growth. —John Brackett, Smash Balloon LLC
 

A low-cost way to build backlinks and improve your SEO is to create a helpful tool on your website. This can be a calculator, a content analyzer, or some kind of unique and helpful tool that answers a need for free. You can also offer a library of helpful content. Free tools create backlinks in a legitimate way. You can hire people to make these tools or buy them at low cost online. —Blair Williams, MemberPress
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