Can I do SEO myself?

A lot of SEO is genuinely do-it-yourself and costs nothing but time. You can set up Google Search Console and a Google Business Profile for free, research what people search with free keyword tools, write pages that answer those questions, and get the on-page basics right — clear titles, descriptions, headings, and internal links. You don't need to code: most website builders and CMSs handle the technical plumbing, and plugins cover sitemaps and structured data. A motivated beginner can rank a small or local site this way.

It gets harder where SEO actually gets competitive. Technical issues (site speed, crawl and indexing problems, Core Web Vitals, schema), earning credible backlinks, and knowing which efforts move the needle all take experience — and consistent time you may not have. Cheap shortcuts and 'guaranteed rankings' tend to backfire.

A sensible path is to do the fundamentals yourself and bring in an agency when the opportunity is worth more than your hours, when you're stuck on technical problems, or when you're up against well-resourced competitors. Many businesses start DIY, then hire help once SEO is clearly paying off.