Starting SEO: 25 Actionable Tips for Businesses
Starting an effective SEO strategy can feel overwhelming for businesses new to search optimization. This article breaks down 25 actionable tips backed by insights from industry experts who have helped companies grow organic visibility from the ground up. These practical recommendations cover everything from technical foundations and keyword research to content strategy and building authority through genuine expertise.
Build Search-Intent Clusters Instead of Keyword Lists
If I could give just one piece of advice to businesses starting SEO today, it would be building search-intent clusters instead of keyword lists. Google's AI Overviews and task-based search mean people don't land on your site because you "rank for a keyword" anymore. They land because you've mapped an entire problem and created content that answers every step of it.
Pick one core problem your audience searches for, then create a small cluster around it: an in-depth guide, 3-5 supporting articles, and one strong conversion page. Interlink them clearly, make the content genuinely helpful, and keep updating based on what the AI overview surfaces.
Secure Early Authority Through Digital PR
If you're just starting out with SEO, prioritize building early authority through digital PR. Securing even a handful of high-quality mentions from relevant blogs, local news outlets, or industry publications gives Google the trust signals it needs to view your brand as credible. Strong content helps you rank, but digital PR accelerates the entire process by putting your business on the map faster than keywords alone. Local citation can also be very helpful even for national brands.
Claim and Optimize Your Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile. Set it up today. Right now. Before you worry about anything else.
Here's why. For local businesses, the map pack drives more phone calls than anything else. I see companies spending months obsessing over their website before they've even claimed their GBP. That's backwards.
The action. Claim your Google Business Profile. Verify it. Complete every single field: business hours, categories, services, photos, business description. Then start posting weekly. Respond to every review within 24 hours. Update your hours immediately when they change.
This takes maybe two hours to set up properly and 30 minutes weekly to maintain. But it gets you visible in local search immediately. Your website can take 3-6 months to rank. Your GBP can show up in the map pack within weeks if you're active.
When we launched our Longmont office, we had the GBP ranking in the map pack within seven days. One review. Still ranked because the technical foundation was solid.
The mistake new businesses make. They build a beautiful website, launch it, then wonder why nobody finds them. Search visibility doesn't happen automatically. You have to tell Google you exist and prove you're active.
Start with GBP. Get visible locally. Then worry about your website, content strategy, backlinks. You need quick wins to fund the longer game. Map pack visibility is that quick win.
Design Content Pillars Around Customer Lifecycle
If you're just starting out with SEO, focus on building content pillars that reflect your customer's lifecycle, not just your product catalog. Every brand wants to rank, but ranking only matters if your content meets people where they are in their buying journey.
At Forge, we treat SEO as part of a full-funnel growth system. For our health, wellness, and ecommerce clients, that means mapping search intent across awareness, consideration, and conversion. We build topic clusters that educate early-stage audiences, compare options for those evaluating, and reinforce trust and proof for ready-to-buy customers.
In 2025 and beyond, traditional SEO will no longer cut it. According to Capgemini, 58% of consumers have already replaced traditional search engines with generative AI tools for product research and recommendations. That means your content must not only rank in Google, but also be structured and credible enough for AI systems to surface and summarize.
Start with your customer journey, then design your SEO strategy around it. When your content pillars mirror how your audience learns, compares, and decides, you create visibility that actually drives growth.
Study Exact Language Your Customers Use
If your business is new to SEO, the best place to start is by understanding the exact language your ideal customers use when they search for your product or service. Engage with them, read their emails, study their questions, and how they transform those questions into Google search queries, then build a focused list of high-intent keywords based on real-world insight. From that point, create a few valuable pieces of content that directly answer those questions or needs. And don't ignore digital PR. Even starting with simple outreach, sharing your expertise with journalists, partnering on guest articles, or contributing data to industry conversations. You can earn early, high-quality links that accelerate your momentum. Get those fundamentals right, and everything else becomes much easier to scale.
Create One Intent-Driven Question-Answering Asset
My advice for businesses just starting out with SEO is to obsess over search intent before you obsess over keywords. One action I'd prioritize is this: make a simple, living document of the exact questions your ideal customer is asking—and then build one clear, optimized page (or mini content hub) that answers those questions better than anyone else, in natural, conversational language.
Here's what that looks like in practice: write down 20-30 real questions your audience asks you in emails, DMs, consult calls, and social comments. Include them the way they'd actually say them out loud, because that's how they use voice search:
* "How do I get press without hiring a PR firm?"
* "What should I put in a media kit?"
* "How do I raise my prices without losing clients?"
Then, choose one core topic and turn it into a pillar page that:
* Clearly states the main question in the title and H1 (and a close variation in the meta description).
* Uses subheadings that mirror those real questions (great for both SEO and voice search snippets).
* Gives genuinely useful, step-by-step answers—not fluff, not keyword soup.
* Sprinkles in a few conversational phrases your audience would actually say: "what does this mean," "is it worth it," "how do I start," etc.
Instead of trying to "do SEO" on your entire site at once, you're creating one intent-driven, question-answering asset that can work for text and voice search: Google can lift your headings and answers directly into featured snippets and voice results because they sound like an honest response, not a robot. Once that first page is working, you repeat the process for the next cluster of questions.
So the key action in one sentence: build one high-intent, human-sounding, Q&A-style page around your audience's real questions—and treat that as your SEO foundation. Everything else (internal links, blog posts, service pages, even offers) can eventually anchor back to that core, but you start with intent, not tricks.
Audit and Fix Technical SEO Foundations First
I've been practicing SEO since 1997, when Google was still a research project at Stanford. And after observing thousands of websites over nearly three decades, I've identified a critical oversight that stunts many websites at launch: the lack of foundational technical SEO.
While most agencies chase algorithm updates and trendy tactics; and businesses chase their competitors, most are overlooking the unglamorous basics that determine whether their site can compete at all.
Without proper technical foundations, you'll likely accumulate redirect chains, orphan pages, sitemap and robots.txt errors, and analytics gaps, such as organic traffic misattribution because thank-you pages lack noindex tags. I've even seen YMYL businesses in healthcare, e-commerce, and IT suffer significant setbacks because their policy pages were marked noindex instead of nosnippet, which removes essential trust signals that Google needs to rank these special industries.
My advice to businesses is to audit and fix your technical SEO foundations first. Ensure your site(s) can be properly crawled and indexed and that your best pages are easily discoverable by search engines and AI. Nailing these essentials at launch will give you the competitive edge you're searching for!
Establish Keyword Fundamentals Before Anything Else
If there's one key action I'd tell any business that's just getting started with SEO to prioritise, it's this: get your keyword fundamentals right before doing anything else.
A lot of businesses jump straight into content creation or technical fixes without first understanding what their audience is actually searching for and why. Since 2010, I've worked with companies across Finance, Insurance, E-commerce, Medical, B2B, and SaaS — and the pattern is always the same. When the keyword strategy is weak, everything built on top of it struggles.
Identify high-intent keywords your target customers use when ready to act, usually long-tail or problem-focused terms. Use these to create tailored content, optimise pages, and organise your site effectively.
As a certified adult educator, I always emphasise this because it's one of the easiest, most practical steps businesses can take — and it immediately sets the foundation for long-term SEO success.
Start Publishing Content Consistently Now
My advice for businesses just starting out with SEO is simple: don't wait for perfect. Start getting words on your website now. It's important to consistent publishing, even if it's just one page or one blog post to begin with. SEO success doesn't come from perfection on day one, it comes from showing up consistently and improving over time.
Too often, I see content creators spend weeks or even months trying to map out the "perfect" SEO strategy before they ever publish a single page. But in that time, they're missing out on impressions, clicks, and potential customers. Search engines can't rank content that doesn't exist. If you wait too long trying to figure everything out, you're already falling behind. You can use ranking data and analytics from Google Search Console or an SEO tool like Aherfs to improve your content later.
Most businesses starting SEO don't have a large volume of content, backlinks, or domain authority—so your best move is to build momentum. Start with foundational service pages, location-based content, and blog posts that answer common customer questions. As you grow, you can track what's working, update existing content, and adjust your tactics.
Remember: SEO is a long game. The sooner you start creating helpful, relevant content, the sooner you'll see results. Focus on progress, not perfection. Consistent action beats endless planning every time.
Write One Clear Page Explaining Your Business
When a business is new to SEO I always suggest starting with one simple action. Create one clear page that explains who you are, what you offer and why it matters. Write it as if you were introducing your business to someone in person. This helps search engines understand you and it helps visitors feel confident about choosing you. Keep the language natural and avoid trying to write for an algorithm. Real details about your work are more valuable than tricks or tactics.
Once that foundation is in place it becomes easier to add a few practical steps that give you early visibility. A complete Google Business Profile is one of the easiest. Add real photos, your opening hours and a short description that matches what you show on your site. This alone can help you appear in local searches.
It also helps to list your business on a few local platforms where you genuinely belong. It might be a local chamber of commerce or a trusted local directory. These listings often give you clean backlinks and help confirm that your business information is accurate. If you work with partners or suppliers you can ask them for a simple link from a relevant page. It does not need to be complicated. Small, honest signals like these build trust for both search engines and customers.
With a clear main page and a few solid listings you create a base that supports all future SEO work without overthinking it.
Talk to Customers and Map Their Words
My advice is to resist the urge to dive straight into tools and tactics, and instead talk to your customers first and turn their words into your SEO strategy. Have short conversations with 5-10 customers or ideal prospects and write down the exact phrases they use to describe their problems, what they'd type into Google when looking for a solution like yours, and the questions they ask before buying. From there, group those phrases by intent (research, comparing options, ready to buy) and map each group to a specific page you'll create or optimize, your homepage, service pages, blog guides, FAQs, etc. That simple "search intent map" becomes your north star, so every page on your site is designed to match what real people are actually searching for, rather than guessing at keywords from a tool. Once that's in place, all the classic SEO work, on-page optimization, content, internal links, even link building, becomes far more effective because it's driven by real demand, not assumptions.
Define Core Brand Identity Before Technical Execution
When businesses are just starting with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), my advice is to understand that SEO is ultimately about establishing a visible, reliable presence in the digital world, which must be supported by a clear foundational strategy. While SEO is acknowledged as a marketing strategy with a high Return on Investment (ROI), second only to email marketing, its effectiveness is stunted if your core brand lacks definition and purpose.
The key action they should prioritize is intentionally defining and architecting their core brand identity and presence before dedicating significant effort to technical SEO execution. Having a great product is insufficient; establishing visibility, authority, and credibility takes so much more. I have observed that many small businesses, focused solely on their niche skill or passion, fail because they don't have a real marketing plan to strategically communicate their value proposition and capture market attention. Successful branding helps improve Google ranking and is necessary to achieve the crucial differentiation strategy required to stand out.
This intentional architecture requires strategic processes to define the brand's look, feel, and voice. If you don't proactively architect your brand's experiences, customers will define it for you, risking costly inconsistency. Therefore, the core actionable takeaway is to create a Brand Style Guide. This guide should codify your company's tone, logo usage, typography, and color palette. This consistency across your entire brand ecosystem including your website and social channels is vital, ensuring the investment in visibility drives measurable results.
Collaborate With Journalists Using Expert Employees
Select 2-4 company employees who are experts in their field. For example, this could be the business owner, the CTO, the head of sales and marketing, and the head of HR. Use their knowledge to collaborate with journalists on resources like Qwoted, Featured, and HARO. Being cited on reputable and relevant resources is crucial today, not only for SEO but also for GEO. This will help align the three key parameters Google wants to see in its search results: experts (company employees), brand, and the company's website. To help with the formatting of your responses, you can hire a professional editor or copywriter.
Capture Bottom-of-Funnel Long-Tail Queries
When it comes to startups, the first rule of SEO is not the ability to generate volume, but rather, to establish intent. Competing for keyword phrases with a high level of competitiveness is not as important as much as capturing the search terms indicating that your target audience is ready to buy. Consider bottom-of-funnel, long-tail queries like "best [solution] for [a use case]" or "alternatives to [competitor name]." These terms have relatively low overall traffic compared to other terms in the above-funnel, but those long-tail terms convert significantly better than above-funnel, less-specified queries.The bottom line is that you will be directing the consumer who already has their mind made up, especially if they exhibit clear commercial intent.
We have seen early-state brands scale their MQLs by 3-5x within 6 months, all for mapping these searches against targeted landing pages, comparison content, or use-case driven blog content. The main goal should be to generate SEO content around how actual prospects engage in searching for solutions, not how the marketers frame them. Start small and narrow, and don't hesitate on the little details.
Structure Pages With Proper Headers Strategically
I do multiple audits every day. The most common thing we see is a lack of understanding of how a page should be structured. Research and learn about proper headers and how to place them into your content that you're writing. This small change has consistently lead to near instant gains. Where SEO typically takes months, we can do some quick wins and this is one one them. It's good for the user experience. When a user sees a H1 Header, its generally the largest text, all other headers should be a h2, this is a smaller text. For a user, they will subconcously relate the smaller header font size to a sub header. Most users don't read all the content on the website. So making sure our headers can tell a story about what the page is about at a high level will help those that skim the page. (we all know you're guilty of it too). If a user wants more information on that topic, then the user will read the section. Now, from a SEO and AI point of view, this structure makes it easy to read and understand. Now we have a basic all encompasing strategy that is often overlooked and simple to implement. And one last thing... use the headers strategicially, it's not just larger text, it has a purpose.
Identify and Own a Specialized Niche
New businesses starting an SEO campaign should identify and own a niche where they can lead the conversation. Instead of attempting to rank for every general, high-volume keyword out there, spend your efforts on finding the exact topics and questions your ideal customers are searching for.
This is where growth begins — by gaining authority in a SPECIALIZED NICHE that you are bright enough to provide and your customers require. In our agency, we've noticed that new brands start flying out of the gate, even in packed, narrow niches, when they focus on content that solves niche problems rather than chasing generic search queries. This method creates trust, get backlinks naturally and bring you target leads who are already looking for what you have.
Ensure Content Exists in Plain HTML
If you're starting with SEO, your first job isn't keywords or backlinks. It is making sure your content exists in plain HTML without JavaScript.
Modern search engines try to understand new sites with the least resources possible. That means they'll often crawl your raw HTML and skip or delay executing heavy JS frameworks.
If your homepage is basically an empty <div> until Javascript frameworks like React or Vue hydrate, you will have a visibility problem.
There will be nothing for the crawler to read. Fixing this is one step usually beats any "tactic" a beginner could try in 2025-26.
Understand Your Audience Before Anything Else
My advice for businesses just starting with SEO is to focus on understanding their audience before anything else. Many new brands jump straight into keywords and tools, but real results come from knowing what your customers are searching for and why.
Start by researching the questions your audience asks online and create simple, helpful content that answers them. Even a few well-optimized pages built around real user intent can bring early organic traffic. Once that foundation is set, it becomes much easier to scale your SEO strategy over time.
Build Clean Keyword-Driven Site Structure
For businesses just starting with SEO, the smartest first move is to build a clean, keyword-driven site structure. Before creating any content or chasing backlinks, map out the pages your audience actually searches for and optimize each page around one clear intent. A well-planned structure acts like a navigation lighthouse for both users and search engines, helping Google understand your business from day one. Everything else in SEO becomes easier when your foundation is organized and aligned with real search demand.
Demonstrate EEAT With Team and Author Credentials
Building EEAT should be the first priority. Show your team on the About Us page from top level to bottom with their photo, name, position, a small bio, and a link to their LinkedIn profile.
This helps your audience and customers see who is behind the business and their expertise. All your informative or problem-solving posts should include an author bio with real credentials to show the actual experience of the person who knows the topic well. Back up your claims with credible sources.
Create your own data or insightsmm, for example, run a survey in your industry and publish the results. This naturally attracts backlinks. Include case studies, whitepapers, or portfolios as well.
Exhaust Topic Clusters Completely Before Moving Forward
Go extremely deep on topic clusters.
Most businesses make the mistake of creating one page per topic and moving on. Instead, you need to exhaust each topic completely - go "a mile deep" rather than "an inch deep."
For example, if you're targeting "best dive sites," don't just create that one pillar page. Create 10-15 supporting pages covering each specific dive site, species, conditions, and related subtopics. Interlink them all together.
This approach gives you:
- More opportunities to capture long-tail searches
- More pages to attract backlinks
- Stronger topical authority that search engines reward
- More internal linking opportunities to boost your core pages
The key is to fully exhaust one cluster before moving to the next. This depth signals true expertise and creates a content moat that competitors can't easily replicate.
Create Genuinely Helpful Content for Real People
Content is king. Many businesses forget that content is the most important part of SEO. Imagine you attract a lot of traffic, but your content is weak — users will have a bad experience and will leave quickly. As a result, they'll associate your brand with low value. And Google will notice those negative signals and push your website down in the rankings.
So create content for real people. You run a business — you know your customers. What questions do they constantly ask you? What information do they need to understand your product, service, or industry? Focus on answering those real needs.
Don't obsess too much about SEO tools or algorithms at the beginning. Focus on helping actual people and solving real problems. I see a lot of businesses ranking well for competitive keywords simply because they deeply understand their customers and write genuinely helpful content.
Start by creating honest, useful content. Once you have that foundation, you can become more strategic with SEO. If you don't try, you'll never know what works.
Establish Strong Foundation Before Chasing Rankings
My biggest piece of advice for businesses just starting out with SEO is simple: focus on building a strong foundation before you start chasing rankings. Too many businesses jump straight into content or backlinks without first making sure their website is technically sound, user-friendly, and aligned with clear goals. SEO isn't a single task — it's an ecosystem — and when you start with the right structure, everything else compounds more effectively over time.
The first step is to get your on-page fundamentals right. That means optimizing title tags, meta descriptions, header structures, and URL slugs, but it also means ensuring that each page has a clear purpose and answers a real user intent. Every page should serve a role — whether it's to educate, convert, or support another piece of content. Think of your site like a roadmap: Google should be able to crawl it easily, and visitors should be able to navigate it intuitively.
Next, make sure your Google Business Profile and local SEO setup are in order if you're a local business. It's one of the fastest ways to build early visibility while your organic rankings grow. I've seen countless new companies double or triple their lead volume just by optimizing their GBP, gathering reviews, and ensuring their NAP (name, address, phone number) information is consistent across the web.
When it comes to content, prioritize quality and relevance over quantity. It's better to have five really strong, well-optimized service pages and a few informative blog posts that demonstrate expertise than 50 pieces of generic content that do nothing for your brand. SEO is about positioning your business as the best answer to your audience's questions — and that starts with genuine value, not keyword stuffing.
If there's one key action I'd tell every business to prioritize, it's this: invest in understanding your audience's search intent before you create content. Use keyword research to uncover what your customers are truly searching for — not just the words, but the intent behind them. When you align your pages and blogs with that intent, your content not only ranks better but converts at a much higher rate.
And finally, don't expect SEO to work overnight. Treat SEO like a compounding investment. Stay consistent, measure your progress, and let the data guide your next move. Over time, that steady, strategic approach will outperform any short-term hacks or shortcuts every single time.
Master One Single Dominant Keyword Completely
The #1 Action: Find Your "Single Dominant Keyword"
Most startups make the same mistake—they target 50+ keywords at once, create dozens of blog posts, and get zero results. I see this constantly.
My advice after 10+ years: Pick ONE keyword that represents your ideal customer, master it completely, then expand.
Greedy targeting splits focus and wastes resources. Instead, find the ONE keyword where your ideal customer is actively searching, competition is beatable, and revenue potential is highest.
Why This Works
Fast Wins: Ranking #1 for even one keyword generates real traffic, leads, and revenue. This proves SEO works and justifies continued investment.
Authority Compounds: That #1 ranking attracts backlinks and mentions naturally. These strengthen your domain, making related keywords easier to rank for next.
You Learn What Converts: Deep focus teaches you audience pain points, messaging that resonates, and which content formats actually work.
How to Find It
List problems your customers search for (SEMrush, Answer the Public, Google autocomplete)
Pick the one with highest buyer intent (ready to hire/buy, not just researching)
Check competition (can you realistically rank in 3-6 months?)
Estimate revenue impact (will #1 ranking move your business?)
For E-EAT Minds, this was "Digital Marketing Freelancer in Bangalore."
6-Month Action Plan
Months 1-2: Create the definitive answer to your keyword. Better than everything on Google.
Months 2-3: Build 5-10 supporting blog posts answering related questions, linking back to your main page.
Months 3-6: Acquire 10-15 quality backlinks from relevant sources.
Month 6+: Rank #1, then expand to your next 3-5 related keywords.
The Result
You go from "We're not ranking" to "We're #1 in our space" in 6 months. Real leads. Real revenue.
A startup generating 10 qualified leads from one keyword beats 100 random visitors from 50 scattered keywords every time.
That's the SEO strategy I'd recommend to any startup.
Answer Repeated Customer Questions in Small Clusters
Whenever we start a new project or work with a new team, I always point them to one simple habit. Pick a real problem your customers already talk about and build a small cluster around it. The first time I tried this, it was eye opening. Instead of chasing dozens of keywords, I answered the handful of questions people kept repeating, added original data, and kept updating the pages as search behavior shifted. Treating SEO like an ongoing conversation, not a checklist, was what finally moved the needle.
