A simple SEO action plan (that actually makes a difference)

SEO

Despite the rise of social media and AI, search engines remain one of the most trusted ways people find services.

In fact, UK research shows 42% of people still use search engines first when looking for a product or service (more than double those who rely on social media).

Search engines are still one of the most powerful ways to get found online, and even with the rise of AI, the fundamentals of SEO haven’t gone away. The key is knowing where to start and what actually makes a difference for your business.

(Because, let’s face it, life is busy and none of us have time to waste nowadays.)

This simple action plan gives you 6 steps you can take right now, without being technical or spending a fortune. These actions are chosen as I believe they deliver the best return on investment; actioning them will help your website make the best progress compared with other SEO activities.

Make sure your website is mobile-friendly

More than half of searches in the UK are on mobile devices. If your site is hard to use on a phone, people will leave (and Google will notice).

• Do a manual test – on your desktop, shrink the window size. The elements should naturally “stack” so that the webpage is easy to read.
  
• If your text is tiny, the content doesn’t “stack”, or buttons are hard to click, talk to your web designer or consider a website refresh.

It should change from this…

To this…

Make sure your website page speed is fast

Search engines do not favour websites that take a long time to load. Think about it – if a search engine recommends a website in the results and it takes ages to load, the user will think the search engine is not high-quality and leave for a competitor. 

So, make sure your website loads quickly on desktop and mobile versions. 

• Visit https://pagespeed.web.dev/ 
• Input your website’s address.
• You need as high a score as possible across all the metrics (mobile and desktop). 

Perfect your metadata. 

Metadata is the information that provides the context for each page on your website. It’s effectively “data about data”, and makes it easier for search engines to understand and organise the information on your website.

Metadata normally includes things like page title, page description, author information and creation date. You can normally see some of it on the search results page. It looks like this:

Your page meta titles and meta descriptions are key to telling Google what each page is about. You can change your meta titles and meta descriptions by using an SEO plugin such as Yoast or Rank Math on your website.

Update the meta title on each page to include a keyword and your business name. Aim to use a keyword that best matches the content of that page. 

• Example: Instead of “Home”, try “Financial Advice for SMEs | Fairmont Consulting”
• Example: Instead of “Websites”, try “Website Design Service | Brighteye Creative

Claim, complete and use your Google Business Profile

If you’re a business that interacts with clients/customers at a physical location, this is one of the easiest and most powerful things you can do.

• Head to https://business.google.com/uk/business-profile/  and make sure your listing is claimed.
  
• Add your services, location, contact info, photos, and opening hours. Complete as much information as you can and keep it as accurate as you can. Make sure the name, address and phone number on your website and Google Business Profile match.
  
• Ask happy customers for reviews; reviews help you rank and build trust.
  

Create LOADS of “money pages”. 

Google’s AI Overviews and other AI tools are reducing the number of click-throughs that websites receive.

The latest research by the Authority Analytics company has found that a site previously ranked first in a search result could lose about 79% of its traffic for that query if results were delivered below an AI overview (Source: The Guardian, 24 July 2025). 

AI Overviews tend to fire more for informational queries that normally bring up blog content, so switching to creating more “money” pages can help to improve visibility. 

Money pages tend to surface when people are using commercial or transactional queries. Examples include:

• Commercial cleaning service
• Menopause Coach Birmingham
• Buy Acer Intel Evo laptop 

Combining a service with a location can yield great results. For example, a commercial cleaning company might create pages like:

• Commercial cleaning Redditch
• Commercial cleaning Kidderminster
• Commercial cleaning Worcester
• Etc…

These pages don’t need to be visible from your main menu. Just make sure they’ve got a link in your footer and don’t copy and paste! The content needs to be unique on each page.

Write content in an AI-friendly way

AI tools and search engines read website content in a different way than human beings. Rather than starting at the top and moving down, these tools will look at the headings and subheadings of an article first, before reading the content underneath. 

So, writing an article that’s useful for humans, but great for Search Engines and AI tools, is a tricky balance.

If you want your content to appear in AI-generated results, you should:

• Cover not just the main query, but also likely follow-up questions or subtopics.
• Structure your content in a way that clearly answers each aspect.
• Use real-world, conversational questions as subheadings.
• Include concise summaries and strong, trustworthy sources.

Doing this increases your chances of being cited as a credible, comprehensive source in AI responses.

Here’s the best way to approach it:

Identify a keyword

Much like traditional SEO, ranking in AI Overviews requires you to identify a keyword (query) that users are searching for. Perform keyword research using an SEO tool to determine which keyword you want to rank for. 

If you’re not sure how to conduct keyword research, you can read our handy article How to do keyword research here. 

Cover query fan out

“Query fan-out” is a concept used in AI-driven search (like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, etc.) where a single user query is expanded into multiple related sub-questions or topics in order to provide a more comprehensive answer.

For example, say a user asks:

“What’s the best protein powder for women?”

AI tools may “fan out” that query behind the scenes into related questions like:

• What are the different types of protein powder?
• What are the benefits of whey vs. plant-based protein?
• What should women look for in a protein supplement?
• Are there any side effects of using protein powder?

Then, the AI gathers and synthesises answers from multiple sources to provide a richer, more nuanced response.

Structure your content in an AI-friendly way

Once you’ve determined the different points that you need to include in your blog, you need to write the content in a way that appeals to AI Overviews.

• Write a summary at the beginning of your blog post that answers your query in a concise manner.
• Keep paragraphs short, a maximum of three sentences.
• Keep sentences short and to the point.
• After each main section, include a brief takeaway for that section.
• Add a comprehensive conclusion.
• Add related queries after the conclusion.
• Use bullet points to break up text to make it easy to read.

Include your keyword in key locations on your webpage

Make sure that your keyword is included in the following locations:

• In the title.
• In the meta title.
• In the meta description.
• In the alt text for the featured image.
• In the first 100 words that you write. 
• 3 times throughout the content. 
• Within one subheading. 

What is alt text?

Alt text describes an image so that a screen reader can read it. You can change the alt text of an image you’ve uploaded to a webpage in your media library.

Include keyword clusters

“Keyword clusters” are groups of related keywords that share a common search intent or topic. Instead of using a single keyword with each blog post or webpage (the old-school SEO approach), modern SEO uses keyword clustering to create more comprehensive, relevant content that ranks for multiple related search terms at once.

For example, let’s say your main topic is “Local SEO for small businesses”. A keyword cluster for that topic might include:

• local SEO tips for small businesses.
• how to improve local SEO.
• Google Business Profile optimisation.
• local SEO checklist.
• SEO for service-based businesses.
• get more local traffic online.

All of these keywords are connected by the same underlying intent: a small business owner looking to improve visibility in local search.

Signpost your authority and expertise

Google really, really cares about EEAT (Expertise, Experience, Authority and Trustworthiness). Although it’s not a direct ranking factor, it aims to showcase content that demonstrates these qualities.

Signpost your authority and expertise in your niche by including:

• Real-world examples or case studies.
• Author bios.
• Opinions.
• Original thought.
• Original data you’ve gathered.
• Quotes from other sources.

Add multimedia elements

Multimedia elements, like images, videos, infographics, tables, charts, and screenshots, help your blog content rank better in AI Overviews by enhancing clarity, trust, and user engagement.

• Add alt text to every image (important for SEO + accessibility).
• Use clear filenames (e.g., google-business-profile-example.jpeg).
• Include captions for charts or graphs.
• Break up long sections of text with visuals to aid skimming.

Want to supercharge your SEO efforts?

There’s no denying that SEO requires consistent effort. Even after your website is optimised properly, off-page SEO requires constant work, competitors need to be monitored, and content created to respond to new search trends.

If you’re finding it’s simply too much to keep up with, never fear! You can outsource your SEO campaign to our team.

We’ll take care of everything, from strategy to content to backlink building.

For more information, learn more about our affordable SEO campaigns.

SEO: Keep going

SEO can feel quite overwhelming when you get started, but small wins add up. My advice would be to start with the technical side (steps one and two in this guide), as if your website isn’t fast and friendly, the other activities will have limited impact. Then, set yourself one SEO task per week.

Make sure you track your progress using Google Search Console. Stay curious! SEO changes, but the basics always matter.