A useful SEO strategy connects technical improvements, relevant content and business goals. This guide turns the process behind our SEO work into practical steps you can use to plan, implement and review your website improvements.
1. Define your goals and starting point
Decide what organic search should help your business achieve: enquiries, appointments, sales or another meaningful action. Record your current organic traffic, leads and the pages bringing visitors to your website before making changes.
- Identify your audience, services and target markets.
- Check that important conversion actions are being measured.
- Choose a small set of metrics you will review consistently.
2. Research search intent and competitors
List the questions potential customers ask before they contact you. Review the pages appearing for those searches and identify whether people need an explanation, a comparison, a service or a product. Give each priority topic a clear home on your website.
Build each page around a real customer need.
- Group related searches by topic and intent.
- Map those groups to existing pages or planned content.
- Look for useful information your current pages are missing.
Learn keyword research with Semrush, Google Ads and Keyword Surfer.
3. Run a technical SEO audit
Review the foundations that allow search engines to discover and understand your pages. Check site architecture, internal links, indexing settings, canonical URLs, redirects and mobile performance. Use Search Console to inspect important URLs and investigate indexing problems.
- Check that priority pages return the expected HTTP status.
- Review robots directives and accidental noindex settings.
- Look for broken links, redirect loops and conflicting canonical URLs.
- Check page experience and Core Web Vitals before choosing performance fixes.
Check loading speed with PageSpeed Insights too
Enter the URL and select Analyze. Review Mobile and Desktop, identify the LCP image and check image sizes and render-blocking resources. Test navigation on a phone and tablet too; a lab score does not replace real-user data.
Where to run your technical SEO audit
Select a check to see the tool and steps. You need access to the property to view its private Search Console data.
HTTP status codes and redirects
In Chrome: Inspect → Network → enable Preserve log and load the URL. Select the document request and check Status Code and Location. A published page should return 200; a moved URL should redirect to its intended destination. To find chains, loops and broken links across the site, crawl it with Screaming Frog and review Response Codes and Inlinks.
Robots and indexing
In Search Console: Indexing → Pages → open an exclusion reason and inspect an example URL. In URL inspection, check whether crawling and indexing are allowed; use Test live URL to check the current version. Also review /robots.txt, the HTML meta robots tag and the X-Robots-Tag response header. Do not block a URL in robots.txt when Google needs to crawl it to detect noindex.
Canonical URLs and internal links
Inspect the indexed version in Search Console → Page indexing and compare the user-declared and Google-selected canonical. The live test does not predict which canonical Google will select. Check the intended destination against the HTML, sitemap and internal links. Use a crawler to find conflicting canonicals and links pointing to redirects or errors.
Mobile performance and page experience
In Search Console → Core Web Vitals → Mobile, review affected URL groups. Open a URL in PageSpeed Insights: distinguish real-user data (when available) from Lighthouse lab diagnostics. Prioritize LCP, INP and CLS and the elements causing problems; a lab score does not prove that a page passes Core Web Vitals. Test navigation and forms on a real mobile device too.
An audit is the starting point: the next step is deciding what to fix first and how to measure the results. As an Atlanta SEO company, Ikusa turns those findings into priorities for technical SEO, content and local search, with a focus on reaching potential customers.
4. Prioritize and implement improvements
Turn the audit into a work plan. Start with issues preventing access to important pages, then address structural and content improvements. Assign each task an owner and a way to verify completion.
Check and prioritize these tasks in Google Search Console.
Hover over a task, select it with your keyboard or tap it to locate the report.
Indexing → Pages shows reasons pages are excluded. URL inspection lets you review a specific page and test its live version.
5. Improve on-page content
Give every page a clear purpose, descriptive title and useful heading structure. Explain your offer in language your customers understand. Use original examples and relevant images where they help someone make a decision.
- Write helpful descriptions of services and products.
- Keep page titles, headings and content consistent with the topic.
- Link to related pages with descriptive anchor text.
- Use structured data only when it describes the visible content.
Where to check content and on-page SEO
Open a task to locate the check. These are illustrative guides, not screenshots of your account.
Titles and descriptions
Crawl your website in Screaming Frog and open Page Titles and Meta Description. Filter missing or duplicate titles and review each URL. In your CMS, edit the SEO title and description to explain the page and its value; the SEO title and H1 are separate fields.
Headings and helpful content
For one page, open SEO META in 1 CLICK in Chrome → Headers to see H1–H6 in HTML order. For multiple pages, use Screaming Frog → Start → H1 and H2 tabs. Check the page to see whether headings organize useful content and meet reader intent. In Search Console → Performance → Search results, filter by page and review Queries to find questions that deserve a better answer.
Internal links and images
Select a URL in the crawler and open Inlinks to see incoming links. Review their context and anchor text on the website. In Images, locate missing alt attributes and add alternatives when the image conveys information; decorative images can have empty alt text.
Structured data
Enter the URL in the Rich Results Test, review detected supported items and fix errors. Match the markup to visible content. Step 7 includes full instructions and the Schema.org validator.
6. Adapt the plan to your website
Local SEO
For businesses serving a real location or service area, keep business details consistent and maintain an accurate Google Business Profile. Create location content that reflects the services you actually provide.
International SEO
For multilingual websites, provide complete localized pages, working language links and reciprocal hreflang annotations between equivalent translations.
Ecommerce SEO
Organize categories and product pages around how customers browse and compare products. Review duplicate URLs, navigation and product information as the catalog grows.
7. Where to create profiles and find relevant link opportunities
Build relevant backlinks for local SEO and organic search
Backlinks are links from other websites to yours. They are part of building authority and can bring discovery and qualified visitors. Local SEO and organic SERP results share signals: there are no two separate link types that guarantee rankings independently.
For local SEO: seek mentions and links from business associations, chambers of commerce, local media and relevant local directories. Keep your business name, address and phone consistent where applicable. A business citation can exist without a link; choose sources that help real customers.
For organic results: publish original resources, research or documented case studies that relevant websites can cite. Share them with related publications and organizations, proposing useful editorial collaborations and linking to pages that meet the reader’s needs.
Review linking pages and domains in Search Console → Links (a sample, not a complete inventory), referral visits and resulting enquiries. Prioritize relevance and usefulness over link counts. Avoid buying links to manipulate rankings or arranging excessive exchanges; advertising links should use rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow".
Where to create profiles and find relevant link opportunities
Start with websites your customers actually use. Search for an existing listing before creating one, so you can claim it and avoid duplicates. These resources support local visibility and referrals; not every profile provides a crawlable link or passes SEO authority.
- Cylex: Find and claim your business listing, or register and request a new listing if none exists. Add the appropriate category, services and website URL.
- Yelp: Check for an existing listing and request access through Yelp for Business. Review availability and requirements for your country and business category.
- Google Business Profile: Create or claim your Business Profile and verify the business if it meets the eligibility requirements. Keep the website, hours and contact details current.
- Bing Places: Add or claim your business to manage its information on Bing. Check the details and complete the verification requested by the platform.
- Apple Business: Review the options for managing your location on Apple Maps and verify your business where required. Availability varies by country and service.
- Páginas Amarillas: For businesses in Spain, search for an existing listing and review the available registration through “Incluye tu negocio gratis”. Check what is included before purchasing additional services.
- Cámara de Gipuzkoa: A local example: contact your own chamber of commerce or business association about relevant directories, activities and collaborations. A published backlink is not guaranteed.
How to work through these opportunities
- Prepare your business name, phone, public address where applicable, category, useful description and canonical website URL. Keep genuine business details consistent.
- Claim or create relevant listings only. Verify ownership and avoid duplicate locations or adding cities where you do not operate.
- Record the profile URL, date and status. Once published, check that the website link works; do not assume it is dofollow or will be indexed by Google.
- Review referral visits and resulting enquiries. Complement directories with case studies, genuine partnerships, associations and relevant editorial coverage.
8. Publish and measure
After implementation, check the live pages and their internal links. Review Search Console impressions, clicks, queries and landing pages alongside your own conversion tracking. Traffic is useful when it brings people who may become customers.
Check structured data with Google
Before signing off a page, use Google’s Rich Results Test to check which supported rich result types its markup may enable.
- Enter the public URL or paste the code you want to check, then run the test.
- Review detected items, fix errors and assess warnings against the requirements for that content type.
- After publishing your fixes, test the URL again and use Search Console to review how Google sees the page.
The tool checks types supported by Google’s rich results. “No items detected” does not by itself mean that JSON-LD is missing or incorrect: types such as Service do not have a dedicated rich result. You can also use the Schema.org validator to check Schema.org vocabulary. Passing the test does not guarantee that Google will display a rich result.
- Record what changed and when.
- Compare relevant periods and account for seasonality.
- Review organic enquiries and sales as well as visibility.
9. Review, improve and repeat
SEO is an ongoing process. Refresh content when your offer changes, resolve new technical issues and use performance data to choose the next improvements. The timing and impact of changes vary; no agency can guarantee a first-page position.
Measure business outcomes alongside search visibility.
For examples of our work, explore our SEO and development projects. If you need help putting a plan into practice, discuss your SEO project with Ikusa.
Further reading
For Google's own guidance, see the SEO Starter Guide and getting started with Search Console.