When a small company tackles SEO for the first time, somebody usually offers them a package of backlinks. It is the most expensive possible first step and almost always premature. This is the order in which SEO is worth doing if you have a limited budget and want results that last.
First, be findable: the technical foundation
No number of links will help a page Google cannot crawl or does not want to index. The first step is always Google Search Console — it is free, takes ten minutes to set up and in the very first week shows you how many of your pages are actually indexed and which ones Google rejected. It is usually an unpleasant surprise: e-shops with four thousand products often have four hundred indexed.
Then comes speed. Not because speed is a magic ranking factor, but because a slow page on a phone loses visitors before the content even appears. Measure it on a real phone over mobile data, not on a laptop plugged into fibre — the difference is usually several times over.
Write about what people actually search for
The second step is to align the way you talk about your work with the way customers search for it. Companies naturally reach for professional terms — 'landscape realisation' — while people type 'how much does a new lawn cost' into Google. Both describe the same thing, but they only meet if both phrasings exist on your website.
The source of ideas is free and sits in Search Console under Performance. Sort queries by impressions and look at those with many impressions and few clicks — these are topics Google already shows you for, but your page does not answer them precisely enough. Every such row is a ready-made brief for one page or article.
Local SEO: the cheapest wins for a small company
If you serve a specific region, local SEO is the best-invested time there is. A Google Business Profile can be set up in an hour and puts you on the map for queries you would otherwise fight for in the regular results for years. Work through this list — one afternoon is enough:
- Create and verify a Google Business Profile with an exact address, opening hours and a category that genuinely fits.
- Use the same name, address and phone number on your website, in the profile and in business directories. Inconsistencies confuse Google.
- Add structured data about your company and a map to your contact page. It makes it easier for search engines to place you in the region.
- Ask satisfied customers for reviews continuously, not in bursts. Ten reviews spread over a year are worth more than thirty in a week.
- If you operate in several towns, build a separate page for each with genuinely specific content — not the same page with the town name swapped.
Only then worry about links
Backlinks do matter, but only once there is something worth linking to. With a technically healthy site, pages that answer real queries and a solid business profile, links start appearing on their own — from suppliers, trade articles, local media. Bought directory links add almost nothing at this stage and in the worse case do harm.
A good rule is not to spend a euro on links until Search Console shows a growing number of queries ranking between positions five and fifteen. That is the signal that Google already takes your content seriously — and exactly the point where a link can push a page over the edge onto page one.
The first three steps you can do yourself and they cost nothing but time. If you need to know which one will bring you the most and in what order, that is exactly what an online marketing audit gives you.
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