Zero to Ranking: A Case Study on Ranking a Local Website Using Only Free SEO Tools

Table of Contents

Introduction:

In 2025, when it comes to ranking websites, you often need to spend money on expensive SEO tools, paid ads, or expensive link-building campaigns to be successful. What if you could get a local business’s website from zero to the first page of Google without spending a dime? That’s what I wanted to do with a small bakery in Dhaka. You don’t need Ahrefs, SEMrush, or paid backlinks. All you need is determination, a plan, and free tools that anyone can use. This isn’t just a theory or a thought experiment; it’s a real case study that demonstrates how we progressed from nothing to ranking in the top 10 on Google, utilizing only free resources, time, and careful planning.

Meet the Business: A New Bakery in Town

When I first met my client, whom we’ll call the bakery “Sweet & Simple,” they didn’t have a strong online presence. They did have:

No website.

No accounts on social media.

No idea what SEO meant at all.

Their main goal was clear: they wanted to show up on Google when someone searched for “birthday cakes in Dhanmondi.” It was a significant goal for a business just starting online, but it wasn’t impossible. We didn’t have any money to work with, so every step had to be important and every effort had to be innovative and effective.

Step 1: Making the Website (for Free)

The first thing we did was create a simple website for Sweet & Simple without incurring any expenses. We used one of the free, professional-looking themes on WordPress.org as our content management system. We used InfinityFree for hosting because it was free and gave us decent uptime. The most important thing was to keep the site clean and straightforward, without being fancy or complicated to use. We focused on the most important things:

A simple homepage with text that is optimized for our main keywords, such as “birthday cakes in Dhanmondi.”

A gallery page to show off pictures of the bakery’s cakes and other baked goods.

A contact page featuring the store’s phone number, address, and a simple form for submitting questions.

A Google Map was built to enable easy location of the store.

A blog section (which we planned to use to attract visitors, as I’ll discuss later).

We even used Adobe Express, a free graphic design tool, to create a logo and some visually appealing images for the site. The website looked clean and gave the business a professional look online, and it didn’t cost anything. We had our foundation in place once the site was up and running. Now came the hard part: getting people to look for it on Google.

Step 2: Use Google and Ubersuggest to do keyword research

Next, we needed to identify the search terms potential customers were using so that we could incorporate those keywords into the website. I went back to the basics without premium keyword tools: Google itself. I typed in things like “birthday cake Dhanmondi” and paid attention to the suggestions that appeared in the autocomplete box. I also checked out the “People also ask” and “Related searches” sections at the bottom of Google’s results page. These were great hints about what real users were looking for.

I used the free version of Ubersuggest to get an idea of how many people are searching for things and how tough the competition is. This helped us figure out which keywords were most likely to be useful. We identified several promising keywords based on our research. For instance:

“birthday cake Dhanmondi” has low competition and a fair number of monthly searches.

“Custom cakes in Dhaka” is a term with a moderate search volume, indicating that people are seeking cakes specifically made for them in the city.

“Order cake online Dhaka” is a broader term with a significant search volume that we could utilize in a blog post about how to order a cake online.

We selected five key terms to focus on. There would be a separate page or blog post for each of these keywords on the site. This would ensure that our content answered what people were looking for.

Step 3: Use a free plugin and the Search Console to do on-page SEO

We moved on to on-page SEO after getting our target keywords and setting up the basic pages of the site. We utilized Rank Math, a free SEO plugin for WordPress, to enhance each page. Rank Math helped us make sure we covered all the basic SEO on the site:

Putting the target keyword in the page’s title and main heading (H1) to let people know what the page is about.

Writing clear, engaging meta titles and descriptions for each page that included our keywords (to get more people to click on our links in Google’s results).

Adding descriptive “alt text” to every picture is crucial for a bakery site featuring numerous cake images, and it also benefits SEO and accessibility.

Linking between pages and blog posts on the site so that both visitors and search engines could easily find related content.

Once we had optimized our pages, we needed to inform Google about the site and monitor our progress. We sent our sitemap to Google Search Console, a free tool that every SEO project should utilize. We could see which pages Google indexed, how our pages appeared in search results, and any clicks or impressions we received. We can also quickly identify any technical issues (such as crawl errors) that may arise. In short, our site became search-friendly and easy to find thanks to on-page optimizations and Search Console.

Step 4: Content Marketing – Blogging Without the Buzzwords

We needed high-quality content to attract visitors to the site after it was built. This is when blogging became our secret weapon. We didn’t write generic or fluffy articles full of buzzwords. Instead, we wrote blog posts that answered real questions that potential customers might have. Every post was meant to be useful (which is also suitable for SEO). We wrote about things like:

“How to choose the perfect birthday cake design.” This article helped people choose the right cake style and showed off our bakery’s custom design options.

“Eggless cakes in Dhaka: What you should know.” This is for individuals who prefer egg-free or vegan cakes, demonstrating that our bakery can cater to these needs.

“Can I get a custom cake in Dhaka in 24 hours?” – An article that answers a common urgent question and shows how our bakery can handle custom orders at the last minute.

There were about 600 to 900 words in each of these posts, and they all focused on one long-tail keyword or question. We ensured that internal links (for example, the cake design post linked to our gallery and contact pages) were included, and we also mentioned our location and service area (Dhanmondi, Dhaka) where relevant. This made us more relevant to people in our area. We maintained a friendly and down-to-earth tone, avoiding jargon and marketing fluff so that readers could find the information truly helpful.

We also added a special feature to our content marketing: we showed customers how to use a customized online form on our website to order custom cakes. We made a drag-and-drop order form on the site (with a Custom software without coding, so no developers were needed) so that people could design their ideal cake and send in an order request online. When appropriate, we discussed this useful feature in our blog posts. This small technological advance not only gave customers more value, but it also got people talking. A few tech bloggers from the area thought it was noteworthy that a bakery was utilizing a “no-code custom order system,” so they wrote brief pieces about it on their blogs. The articles linked back to our site, which gave us some extra backlinks and local buzz.

Step 5: Use Google Business Profile for Local SEO

We knew that for local businesses, it was crucial to appear in Google’s map results and regional listings, even though our website’s organic rankings were gradually improving. We made and improved a Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) for Sweet & Simple. This helped people find the bakery when they searched for “near me” or in the Google Maps area for related searches. We concentrated on a few critical things:

Claimed and verified the bakery’s Google Business listing to take charge of the information that was shown.

To make the listing look authentic and appealing, we added high-quality pictures of our best cakes, the storefront, and the interior.

Collected reviews from customers. We made sure to ask happy customers to leave a review on Google in a polite way. We received approximately 25 positive reviews in the first month, which significantly improved our profile.

Quickly answered every review. We thanked people who wrote reviews and used keywords in our replies when it made sense to do so. (For example, “We’re so glad you loved the custom birthday cake! Thank you for choosing us for your celebration in Dhanmondi.” This not only showed good customer service, but it also subtly reinforced our relevant keywords.

I wanted to ensure that the bakery’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) were consistent across other well-known local directories, as well as Google. I found out which online directories and listing sites we were missing by using Moz’s free Local Listing Checker. After that, I entered the bakery’s information by hand on sites like Bing Places, Hotfrog, and JustDial. These free local citations helped us get more exposure and trust in the local SEO world. It took a little time, but it made search engines more confident that Sweet & Simple was an honest and reliable business in the area.

Step 6: Free Backlinks – They take a long time, but they work.

Links from other websites to yours are like “votes of confidence” in the authority of your site. Since we didn’t have the budget to purchase links, and because buying them can be risky, we decided to focus on earning backlinks naturally, even though this approach required more time. This is how we did it:

Contacting local bloggers: We contacted several food and lifestyle bloggers in Dhaka and offered them a complimentary cake in exchange for an honest review or a mention on their blog. Some of them did, and those led to nice articles about Sweet & Simple with links to our site.

Participating in Q&A sites: I continued to use sites like Quora and Reddit. I would always give helpful answers when people asked me questions about cakes, bakeries, or where to find certain baked goods in Dhaka. If someone asked a question that was related to one of our blog posts or our website, I would include a link to it. For example, if someone asked how to choose a cake design, I would link to our “how to choose a cake design” post.

Joining community groups: We joined Facebook groups and online communities in our city that are about baking and food. I made sure to connect with people by giving them baking tips, answering their questions, and so on. If someone asked for cake recommendations or more information, I would mention our bakery or share our website in the comments when it was appropriate.

These tactics didn’t yield hundreds of backlinks immediately, but the ones we did acquire were high-quality and functional. It took time and genuine involvement with the community, but it was worth it. The week after a popular food blog in Dhaka mentioned our bakery, our website traffic increased significantly. It also helped Google see our site as more trustworthy. This demonstrates that you can still obtain valuable backlinks for free in 2025 by being creative and helpful, rather than relying on spam or costly link schemes.

The Results: In 90 Days, From Nothing to Page One

After putting in a lot of work for about three months, the results were fascinating for a bakery site that had been hard to find before:

Top Google Rankings: Sweet & Simple’s website reached #3 on Google for our main target keyword, “birthday cake Dhanmondi,” and also climbed to #7 for “custom cake Dhaka.”

Increase in Organic Traffic: Sweet & Simple’s website started to receive approximately 400 organic visitors per month from Google searches, a significant achievement for a small local business website that had just begun operations.

Blog Traffic Share: About 60% of the traffic came from our blog posts that focused on questions. This showed that our content marketing strategy was working.

No Money Spent on Ads or Tools: We achieved all these results without spending a dime on ads or expensive SEO tools. We only grew because we utilized free resources effectively and conducted SEO work on a regular basis.

The bakery went from having no online presence to getting phone calls and orders from people who found them online. Reaching the first page of Google made Sweet & Simple visible to people in its area as soon as they were searching for the products it sells. This led to real business, with more inquiries and cake orders coming in from organic search.

Free SEO Tools and Resources We Used

To sum up, here are the most important free SEO tools and resources that helped this SEO work:

WordPress (with a free theme) + InfinityFree hosting – used to make and host the website for free.
Adobe Express allows you to create logos and other graphics or social media images for free.
Google (Autocomplete & People Also Ask) – a research tool that helps you find real-world search queries and questions to get ideas for keywords.
Ubersuggest (free version) – for basic keyword research, like finding out how many people are searching for a word and how hard it is to rank for it in search engines.
Rank Math (a free WordPress SEO plugin) helps you improve your on-page SEO by giving you advice on things like meta tags, headings, and content analysis.
Google Search Console – to send in sitemaps, keep an eye on indexing, and keep track of how well the site does in search over time.
The bakery’s Google Business Profile allows you to control how it appears in Google Maps and local search, as well as respond to customer reviews.
Moz Local (free features) – to make sure that NAP is consistent across the web and to find any local directory listings that are missing.
Community Platforms (Quora, Reddit, Facebook Groups) – to connect with possible customers, answer their questions, and get free backlinks by having honest conversations.

We were able to create a powerful DIY SEO toolkit by compiling all these free resources.

Final Thoughts: “Free” Doesn’t Mean Bad; It Means Being Creative

This case study demonstrates that SEO doesn’t have to be expensive. For a small business in the area, starting with free methods can be more valuable and practical. Time, effort, and creativity were the most important parts of this project. Sweet & Simple went from being completely invisible online to ranking on page one of Google by sticking to the basics: smart keyword targeting, creating helpful content, solid on-page SEO, optimizing local listings, and genuine community engagement. And we did it without spending a single taka on fancy tools or ads.

If you’re new to the web or don’t have a lot of money to spend, keep in mind that “free” strategies can get you very far. When you use free SEO tools, you have to think about what you’re doing and do it yourself, which often helps you learn more about what works and what doesn’t. Ultimately, your dedication and ability to find solutions are your greatest assets. You can establish a strong online presence for your business without incurring significant expenses if you are creative and diligent.

About the author:
Amir Sohel is a portfolio manager with a deep understanding of operational efficiency and strategic planning. With experience in aligning teams, projects, and resources across complex portfolios, they bring a practical, results-focused approach to turning meetings into measurable action. LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/aroushtechbd/