I really want to get some good rankings for my site but I don’t have a lot of money. Can I realistically expect to get some decent rankings without hiring a professional SEO to do it for me?
I would be more interested in your website. Is it the type of site that people will like so much that they will return again and again? Is it interactive? Is it useful or cool or worthwhile?
If you have the above right, you really don’t need much SEO. You can do things like submit to a few directories or add a signature link. But what is most important is that your site grows as a result of what people do after seeing it for the first time.
With literally hundreds of signals, google probably already knows what your website is about and has it indexed. Your job is to make sure people want to come back once google sends someone to it.
It depends what kind of market segment or niche you’re in, and how competitive it is. It is possible to get good rankings without doing any explicit SEO if you have good content, a well-written and well-structured site and you’re not competing against hundreds of other big sites for the same audience.
To stay in competition, you have to do that. SEO is long term process and you alone can’t do this along side your business. My advise is, you should hire an SEO expert.
I agree with simonmathew. SEO is a long term process and you can do it only if you have an in depth knowledge about it. If your site has rich content you can get ranking soon. Content is very essential.
I think if you have average SEO knowledge, you no need to hire a SEO expert. If you have no idea then it takes a bit longer to time to learn and start working.
If you want quicker ranking then it is better to hire an experienced SEO professional initially.
There is another thread with the same subject currently running.
Let me refer you all to that thread and close this one.