Search engine optimisation SEO

Why it matters

When someone searches for what you sell, SEO decides whether they find you or your competitor. Unlike an ad, you don't pay per click, and a page that earns its place can keep sending visitors for years. That makes it a compounding asset, though a slow one: results usually take months, not weeks, and nobody can promise a position.

Google's own guidance describes the job plainly: help search engines understand your content and help people decide whether to visit. It breaks into three parts.

The three parts

• Technical. Pages must be crawlable, indexable and quick on a phone. See Core Web Vitals.
• Content. Each page answers a real question better than the alternatives, in the words your customers use.
• Authority. Other credible sites mention and link to you, as covered under backlinks and E-E-A-T.

For local businesses there is a fourth, the Google Business Profile.

How to start

• Write down the 20 questions customers ask you and give each an honest answer page.
• Give every page one clear topic, a descriptive title and a useful opening.
• Check Google Search Console for pages that appear but don't get clicked.
• Fix what blocks indexing before you write more.

Common mistakes

• Buying links or mass-produced pages to shortcut the work. Google's spam policies target both.
• Targeting terms nobody buys from. Traffic is not the goal; enquiries are.
• Changing everything at once, so you never learn what worked.
• Treating it as a one-off project. Search results and your competitors keep moving.

SEO also feeds AI answers: the same foundations apply to GEO.