So you’re ready to dive into SEO. Maybe your website’s live but traffic is low, or maybe you’re about to launch and want to start on the right foot. Either way, the early steps you take can set the tone for everything else. In this blog, we’re going to walk through the essential foundations that make all the difference. Not fluff. Just the groundwork that gives you a solid start.
Let’s be clear, this isn’t about stuffing keywords into your homepage or chasing quick wins. Good SEO starts with structure, clarity, and consistency. It’s about making sure your site can be found, understood, and trusted by search engines and users alike.
Start with a SEO Site Audit
Don’t make changes before you’ve taken a proper look at what’s already there. A site audit gives you a snapshot of how things currently stand. Use tools like Screaming Frog SEO Spider or SEMrush to run a crawl of your site. Google Search Console will also flag any indexing or mobile usability issues.
You’re looking for broken links, duplicate titles, slow pages, and unindexed content. These are the obvious technical issues that quietly eat away at your visibility. You can’t fix what you haven’t diagnosed.
Technical SEO Basics
Once the audit is done, move straight into fixing the technical stuff. This is the foundation of everything. Googlebot doesn’t see your design, it reads your structure. If your site is slow, unsecure, or hard to crawl, you’ve already lost ground.
Make sure your robots.txt file isn’t accidentally blocking key content. Submit a clean XML sitemap. Switch to HTTPS if you haven’t already. And check mobile usability—most users are coming from their phones.
Also look into Core Web Vitals inside Search Console. These metrics are becoming more important in rankings and reflect things like how long your site takes to load and how stable it is when it does.
Keyword Research That Makes Sense
Now we get into the strategy part. Keyword research is not about chasing volume, it’s about aligning your content with what your users are searching for. It’s also about understanding the intent behind those searches.
Use Google Keyword Planner or a tool like Ahrefs or Ubersuggest to get started. Look at what your competitors rank for. More importantly, think about what problems your ideal customer is trying to solve. AnswerThePublic is a good tool for pulling in natural, question-based searches that work well for blog content.
Start small. Choose a few core keywords for your key pages. You want relevance, clarity, and focus. Avoid targeting everything all at once. Spread your keyword themes across different pages so each one has a clear purpose.
On-Page SEO: Time to Get Structured
This is where it all starts to come together. You’ve done the research, now you need to apply it to the content and structure of your pages. This means optimising title tags, meta descriptions, headers and URLs.
Your title tag should start with the focus keyword and your meta description should actually make people want to click. Use headings to break content into digestible chunks, and structure your URLs so they reflect the content hierarchy—not random strings of characters.
Also don’t forget image optimisation. Use alt text that describes what the image shows, compress your files to keep page speed high, and name your files logically.
Internal links are important too. Link related blog posts together. Link your services to your homepage. These small steps improve crawlability and user experience.
Set Up Google’s Essential Tools
At this point, you need visibility on how your site is performing. Google Search Console, Google Analytics 4, and Google Tag Manager are all free and incredibly useful. They’ll tell you what’s indexed, what’s broken, and how people are using your site.
Even if you’re not a data person, get these installed now. Later, you’ll use them to guide your content and track growth.
SEO Isn’t Set and Forget
It changes constantly. Your competitors improve. Google updates its algorithms. Your content ages. Having tools to run ongoing reviews is key.
Free checkers like SEOptimer, Woorank, or Neil Patel’s SEO Analyzer are great for spot checks. For something more comprehensive, try Sitebulb or the audit functions inside Ahrefs and SEMrush. Use them monthly to make sure nothing major has slipped.
How AI Is Changing SEO
We can’t talk about SEO in 2025 without mentioning AI. Google’s algorithms are evolving. It’s no longer just about keywords and backlinks, it’s about meaning, user intent, and topical authority.
Search is getting more contextual. Tools like Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) and Bing Chat mean that your content needs to provide real answers, not just keyword match. AI looks at relevance across clusters of content, internal linking, and semantic signals.
To keep up, you need to write with clarity, depth, and intent. A page can’t just exist to rank for one phrase, it needs to satisfy a search journey. This means building topical hubs, answering related questions, and keeping content regularly updated.
Structured data and schema markup are also becoming more important, as AI-driven search results pull in rich data and featured snippets. If you’re not marking up your content clearly, you’re missing out.
Final Thoughts
Getting SEO right at the start makes the long-term work much easier. You’ll never get it perfect in one go—but if your technical base is clean, your content is structured, and your tracking is set, you’ll be way ahead of most sites.
And now, with AI rapidly shaping the way people search and how search engines respond, getting your content aligned with intent and structure isn’t optional—it’s essential.
If all of this still feels a bit overwhelming or you’d just like an expert set of eyes on your setup, I’m happy to take a look.
Chris Chapman , Director at Finsbury Media
linkedin.com/in/chris-c-953a9549