Can you rank without spending lots of money?

[Ryan.Shahed]

Hello Everyone,

This is a general question, and its one I have been thinking about recently because I am working on promoting couple of websites. I want to know if it is still possible to make websites rank consistently without spending lots of money. I am self employed, and 5 or so years ago, I remember I did all my own link building/content for about 6 or so websites that I owned, and I managed to make most of them rank consistently. I am not in the SEO business, and I have not touched any SEO type of work for about 5 years now. And I always did it for my own websites/business. I know this is a fast moving industry, and my general knowledge may be a bit out of date.

I kind of get the feeling that the days of when small business owners could make a website rank on a shoe string budget and make a bit of money with an online business may have died or is dying. I am a realist and I know that only a very tiny percentage of websites make really good quality/fresh content that everyone wants to reads. I know a common advise is that you should create a site with such amazing content that everyone talks about you and mentions/links to you without you even to need to do any link building. But in my opinion (I could be wrong), but I feel that this probably happens to less than 0.01 percent of websites. And I also know even third rate websites with blogs or content sites charge to post an article with a link. So this makes me think that nowadays you need a good budget and plenty of time to make a website rank. Am I wrong? In today's internet, do you need to spend money to rank?

I genuinely want to know peoples experience and or opinion on this subject.

Thanks.

[EGOL]

I know a common advise is that you should create a site with such amazing content that everyone talks about you and mentions/links to you without you even to need to do any link building. But in my opinion (I could be wrong), but I feel that this probably happens to less than 0.01 percent of websites.

I agree with every word.  You "get it".   There are only ten positions on the first page of Google and if you are not able to earn one of them for many keywords in your niche, your business is probably going to fail.

If you must rely on a linkbuilder then you will be spending big money to catch up with the people who have been working hard for the past ten years.  If you have crap content today, meaning if you have one of those 99.99 percent of sites that can't make it on their content, then you will be paying a linkbuilder for five years and the amount of work that the linkbuilder will have to do will accelerate over time - because your competitor is adding awesome good content every day.

Some people don't "get" this.  They think that they can toss up crap content and a linkbuilder will make it rank.  Those days are gone.  Today you must please the visitor and produce a website that will attract them because something is there.  If you rely on a linkbuilder to deliver visitors to crap content the visitors will arrive, look around and say WTF?  and leave.  With that Google will realize that your site is crap and demote you.

The days of fooling google with linkbuilding are gone.  The people who try that are eaten by Penguins.  The days of fooling google with crap content are gone.  People who try that are eaten by Pandas.   You are now in The Age of Real Websites.

Can this be done without money?   Maybe, if you can produce the content that is needed.  As you know, only 0.01 percent can make that happen.  If you are one of those and have the money, spend it on a technical SEO to be sure that your website is functioning properly and working efficiently to deliver pages fast, mobile-friendly, not producing duplicates, etc.

[Ryan.Shahed]

Hi, Thanks for a detailed response. I completely agree with you, content is not king, its the Emperor of the Universe at the moment, in my opinion. However, this is the situation or dilemma I am faced with. I am sure others are faced by similar. I am about to work on a creative service niche site that I hope to rank across English speaking countries. However, I want to use a small business niche as an example. Of the small business projects I am involved in, one is a specialist Mac repair. I say its not like a normal repair shop, in the sense that most customers who come to us, have often exhausted all other avenues, like going to Apple direct, and seeing other Apple Authorized stores. We actually encourage and want people to go to other repair shops first, by accident its kind of worked to our advantage in a weird way. The business has great online and handwritten reviews etc, that are excellent that people could be forgiven for thinking its fake. The reason being is that we only take on a few jobs on a week, and its very personal service, so its quite controlled. Intentionally we don't take that many jobs because of various reasons. And we are probably expensive compared to your average "repair business" and people know that. Now, this business has had a new website for a number of years now, but I don't think it has any links, and zero SEO has been done in terms of link building and content.

Now if we assume I want to create that repair business into a good content site, that is well thought of, and maybe even a thought leader in the long term. I know if I put my mind and time into it I could probably create descent articles and content. Obviously I will never be as good as a professional who solely do content as its not my area of specialisation. As an example, I could create various articles about discussions in that industry, how to do articles, and even videos. You know, and I know, every man and his dog is doing this. And you also have big established Mac/Apple sites that already do similar stuff like iFixit, MacWorld and MacFormat and iMore and hundreds of others. Now, I may be able to create good enough content and videos that put the content in the top say 10% or 15% of that industry. However, even that is probably not good enough in my opinion, for someone to link to you, or say on Twitter/FB to their friend, check this site or article out about the problem you've been having etc I know from my personal experience, I rarely say on social media or forums to check this or that out, unless I am having a conversation about a subject at that time, or its a real standout site or subject. In my opinion, most businesses that do "well" probably fall into that top 10% or 15% of content, where the content is not all that, its not amazing, but its good enough and useful enough to rank by Google. Maybe not at the top, but high enough to make it bring enough traffic for it to make financial sense to the owners. I think unless you are very very talented and think of a great subject matter, and you then focus on one single subject single mindedly, then maybe you can be that 0.01 percent. However, for the majority of mortals like us, its probably like shooting at stars, at least for now.

Anyway, that's what I think. And I need to find a way of making it into that 0.01 percent somehow (not with Mac example above). Thanks.

[EGOL]

If you have a service that is based upon people "carrying a device into your office" then you need to be looking at local search to cultivate that business.  Your publishing would be a separate activity and it could earn income from ads, affiliate programs, direct sales, and you could attract some consulting services done by skype or other media.

The 0.01 percent number is based upon a single piece of content.  However, lets say you have a website that regularly publishes high quality articles that are extremely helpful, entertaining or valuable in some way you can attract a following of subscribers.  Here the bundle of what you are offering is in the 0.01 percent, even though individual posts are in the top 10%.

Slowly that website and its subscribers can become valuable and grow to thousands of people.  Each time you publish they will flock to your site to see your new content. That is an opportunity for you to show them ads, offer a product, offer a service.  Lots of people have built highly successful business this way.  For this to work you gotta know your stuff and your stuff must be something that has recurrent appeal to large numbers of people who are excited about the topic that you publish.

Based upon your writing and the thoughts behind it, I think that you have potential - although your paragraphs are way too long

[Ryan.Shahed]

Thank you, your responses have been very helpful. They have confirmed what I have been thinking. Regarding the Mac example I used, I had already been thinking about separating the "Mac" content publishing side, and I had bought a domain and put certain things in place. The truth is I am not looking to grow that business, I have actually downsized it on purpose, although I am reasonably competent and making businesses work, I don't play well with others, and although I have all the skill set to grow the business, I don't have the personalty trait to be dealing with the public. I am also at an age, where I no longer feel I have to, if that makes any sense.

Lastly, you are absolutely write, even though this is a forum response, I have a bad habit of babbling on, and writing stuff long winded. I never ever thought my writing skills were any good. I would have have described it as poor, even though have formal education. I was never that good at it. However, I don't know how to describe it, but it felt like it was the right angle or topic or approached the right way. I suppose what I am trying to say is it felt right, rather then the writing style or grammer etc being good.

Anyway, thanks for your input. Very much appreciated.