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If you’re not getting a lot of traffic from search results, there are a few on-site changes you can make that will help your SEO—and you don’t need to hire an expensive SEO expert to do it. Here are four steps you can take yourself that will help your SEO in 2020.

Do your keyword research. What terms do people use to look for what you sell on Google? Keyword research involves identifying the most-used search terms people type into Google when they’re looking for, say, homeowners insurance.

A strong list of keywords can have an effect on your business similar to a strong, engaged list of emails to market to—in other words, it’s really important. There’s typically a three-step process to choosing your keywords:

1. List a lot of words you think people are using to find what you sell.
2. Enter them into a keyword generation tool to find related keywords people are using.
3. Assess the stats on each keyword, and identify your top-priority keywords.

The stats on your highest-priority keyword aren’t necessarily the highest search volume. Some high-volume keywords are also extremely competitive—true, you could get a massive audience by ranking for that keyword, but you’ll never rank for it unless you have a massive SEO budget.

The sweet spot usually looks like a keyword with relatively high volume and low competition. That balance will look different depending on your industry.

There are many keyword research tools, both free and paid, that work well and provide slightly different stats. Here’s a roundup of paid tools, https://www.shoutmeloud.com/best-keyword-research-tools-niche.html
as well as one for free tools. https://www.semrush.com/blog/12-free-keyword-research-tools/

Optimize your pages for certain keywords. Once you’ve done your keyword research, you can overhaul your current web pages to target them.

This doesn’t involve just shoehorning your target keyword into a page’s content as many times as possible. That’s called keyword stuffing, and it can actually hurt your SEO.

Instead, make sure your pages are delivering on the intent of the searcher. Do a search using one of your target keywords and see what kinds of pages come up—blog posts? Long articles? Sales pages? That will give you a clue on the kind of pages you need.

Targeting keywords may mean changing your sales pages to more effectively sell the thing that the person using your keyword is searching for—but it may mean creating an informative blog post answering a question they have.

Start a blog. Speaking of—starting a blog is one of the most effective ways you can target specific keywords.

Many people searching online are looking for information—answers to pressing questions they have. You can write blog posts developed around specific keywords that answer those questions—which is exactly the kind of content Google is looking to promote.

This strategy works well because it’s working with the search engine’s mission of delivering valuable content—not against it.

Spruce up your title tags and meta descriptions. Title tags are the parts of a web page’s code that specify its title. They’re the text that appears in blue in the search engine results. Meta tags are the descriptions that appear beneath it.

Both are important to your search results. They need to be compelling enough to entice a user to click on them. Higher click-through rates often mean more sales—and also higher rankings.

These should be short—as Google will cut off your descriptions after a certain point. You should also include the keyword you’re targeting. Don’t just cram these full of keywords, though—that’s overstuffing, and it won’t persuade people to click.

This is only a start. There are many other steps you can take to raise your website in the search results—and generate more clicks and sales. Once you get started with DIY SEO and see the results, you may find it addictive.