• Jun 11, 2010 modified: Apr, 10 2026

DIY SEO

There are many things you can do to improve your site in search engines.

However the same techniques may work better for some sites than others.

The 5 important requirements before your start SEO

1 Full access to your domain name and ability to update DNS records

2 Setup Google Analytics

3 Setup Google Search Console

4 Combine Google Analytics with Google Search Console

5 Full access to your website or your website blog

Always maintain your domain name or have someone you trust manage your domain name. Google Analytics measures engagement. When combined with Google Search Console you have all the tools required for proper analysis of your website.

Search the steps for setting up the important 5 before you make any decision on site design and developer.

Potential clients coming to me asking for SEO on their site.
The sites are sometimes put together on the cheap or without the knowledge of SEO.

Shortcuts are made in the construction - the site may look reasonable to some, however when Google goes to crawl it there is very little of value for Google to work with.

DIY SEO can work if the site you are working with has a good structure to start with.

• Good Menus
• Emphasis on Keywords
• Good domain name
• Good internal and external linking
• Ability to add original content that is recognised by Google

SEO strategies vary

Strategies vary depending on the site and the competition. However there are some constants. Often other opportunities arise during a campaign, we may see some keywords do really well and then start building on them. Google Search Console and Google Analytics are great tools for identifying keywords and the pages that are working or nearly working well. If you are getting a lot of impressions on a keyword, check the page that is generating those search listings and improve it. Google Analytics can be used to check the engagement of that page. By linking GA4 with Google Search Console you can get reports like this Landing Page + query string-:

What we learn-:

• 90.48% Engagement rate for the home page / is very good
• The home page had 10 Google search clicks in this period
• The average engagement time per active user is 3m 03s
• That home page is functioning well (when it gets clicks)
• The other page /amazons-role-in-e-commerce is not functioning as well

Involvement Devices

Google tries very hard to look for good original content and rank the site accordingly.
Hence I sometimes come up with a unique tool or comparison chart or other device (involvement device).

I believe the better value SEO's are multi-skilled to be able to create quality content just as Google intended.
Web Videos, custom web applications, audio - hence we create our own in house CMS (this article is using it) with content easily added by clients.

Clients are then coached on how to maintain there sites up the top. In many cases this is built into the site - so all sites are not equal.

Yes you can DIY SEO your site successfully, you will be even more successful if the original site is created by someone with SEO expertise.
In many cases my sites out perform sites that have bigger SEO budgets - mainly because we have our own techniques and a broad skill range.

Using Social Media

After a lengthy study of social media including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Myspace it was considered that YouTube has some significant value - at the time of writing (2010) other social media sites did little to enhance SEO. (Update 2018 this has changed with some specialists accounting up to 10% of SEO performance attributed to social media)

Update 2022 - now a major strategy for SEO could be what we call Twitter for SEO.

Many may question my SEO skills based on this however anyone can set up a social network site and I see little evidence of it boosting traffic numbers without a substantial investment in time unless you can generate a network effect. That time could be spent making your site hold visitors better improving the user experience. Also some social media companies do not actually return a profit meaning they could collapse or be replaced by the next fad or increasingly need to advertise and upset users to survive. Fast forward to 2025 and we can see clear evidence of social media companies making you the product. Often producing "Not what you want to see but what you can't look away from". Artificial Intelligence has many benefits however there is a notable lower perceived authenticity and discussion quality in recent times. Social media is becoming a less effective direct selling tool for many businesses due to a "trust recession".

SEO Bad Practices

Check our document about SEO Bad Practices highlighting some of the problems poor SEO can cause.

Protecting your Website logins

The basic items you need to have passwords for-:

• Domain Name
• Social Media logins
• Google My Business listing
• Google Analytics
• Google Search Console
• YouTube Channel Login

A lot goes into setting up a website

• Domain name access and DNS entries
• Emails and email forwarding
• Google Analytics
• Google Search Console
• Hosting
• Google My Business
• Social media logins

A professional SEO doesn't just rely on knowledge and manual effort - they build an ecosystem of specialised tools that automate grunt work, surface insights faster, and allow them to operate at a scale and precision that a DIY may struggle to match. However DIY SEO is fun, and very rewarding if successful. Every professional started somewhere.