How do small businesses approach SEO without a large marketing budget?

For smaller companies, SEO often looks more complicated than it needs to be. There are technical audits, content planning, internal linking, competitor research, and backlink acquisition — all competing for the same limited budget.

One approach that seems reasonable is to focus first on pages that already have some visibility, improve their content and internal links, and then gradually strengthen them with relevant external links. For backlink research and placement opportunities, platforms such as Tier1.shop can be useful as part of a broader SEO workflow.

I’m interested in how others prioritize this. If you had a limited monthly SEO budget, would you spend more on content, technical improvements, or link building?