Idiots Guide to SEO
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The Idiot’s Guide to SEO

Take control of your SEO (without losing your mind)

SEO becomes a lot easier when you stop thinking of it as a dark art and start treating it like what it really is: a series of simple, repeatable steps in plain English, that you can do to help people find you, without paying an agency to "optimise your synergy funnels”.

Start with the A, B, Cs of Basic SEO Errors (the ones everyone makes)

A — Absent Basics
No page titles. No meta descriptions. No headings. No structure. Google looks at your site and thinks, “Bless them, they tried.”


B — Broken Stuff
404s, slow pages, images the size of a small moon, links that go nowhere. If your site feels like a treasure hunt, users won’t stay for the treasure.


C — Confusing Content
Walls of text. No clear services. No location. No call to action. If people can’t work out what you do, Google won’t either.

Fixing these three alone puts you ahead. 

Excited person achieveing SEO success

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A slightly longer quick step guide

  • Step 1: Understand How People Search

    Search engines don’t rank you because you’re brilliant. They rank you because you match what people are typing.

    What to do:
    ·    Make a list of the questions customers ask you every week.
    ·    Turn those into keywords and page topics.
    ·    Use natural language, the way real humans speak, not “industry‑leading jargon thinking outside the box solutions”.

    Why it matters:
    If you don’t use the words your customers use, Google won’t connect the dots. It’s that simple.

  • Step 2: Structure Your Website Properly

    A well‑structured site helps humans and Google understand what you do, a clean, SEO‑ready hierarchy — and it’s the backbone of good SEO.

    What to do:
    ·    Give every page one clear purpose.
    ·    Use headings to break up content.
    ·    Create a simple navigation that even your most sleep‑deprived customer could follow.
    ·    Use clean, predictable URLs (e.g., /legal/family or /trades/plumbing).

    Why it matters:
    If your site feels like a maze, people leave. When people leave, Google sulks.

Thank you so much for the care and attention, the website was done about 9 years ago and the market has shifted, our identity gets lost and it drives my BP mad. I will keep you in the loop and it is very much appreciated what you have done Diogo x

Diogo

CEO

  • Step 3: Write Content That Builds Trust

    Every sector has its own trust signals. A solicitor needs clarity and authority. A café needs menus and photos. A plumber needs availability and reviews.

    What to do:
    ·    Explain what you do in plain English.
    ·    Add FAQs based on real customer questions.
    ·    Include reviews, case studies, or examples of your work.
    ·    Keep it human — people buy from people.

    Why it matters:
    Trust is a ranking factor. If users trust you, Google does too.

  • Step 4: Fix the Basics That Quietly Ruin Rankings

    Most SEO problems aren’t dramatic. They’re tiny, boring, and everywhere.

    Your A, B, C checklist
    ·    A — Absent basics:missing titles, missing descriptions, missing headings.
    ·    B — Broken stuff:404s, slow pages, giant images, dead links.
    ·    C — Confusing content:unclear services, vague locations, no call to action.

    Why it matters:
    Fixing these puts you ahead of half the internet.

  • Step 5: Measure What’s Working (Without a PhD)

    You don’t need dashboards that look like aircraft controls.

    What to track:
    ·    Which pages get the most visits
    ·    Which keywords bring people in
    ·    Which pages convert into calls, bookings, or sales
    ·    What users search for on your site

    Why it matters:
    If you know what’s working, you can do more of it. If you know what’s not, you can fix it.

  • Step 6: Take Control

    SEO doesn't belong to agencies. It belongs to you.
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