SEO basics

Search engine optimisation, or SEO, is the practice of helping search engines find, understand and show your web pages to people searching for what you offer. When someone searches for "accountant Parramatta" or "how to start a podcast", the search engine decides which pages are most relevant and useful. SEO is about making sure your pages deserve to be among them, and that nothing technical gets in the way.

SEO has a reputation for mystery and tricks, but most of it is common sense: create helpful pages, make them easy to access and understand, and earn the trust of other sites and of the people who use them.

How search engines work

Search engines work in three broad stages.

Crawling. Automated programs, often called crawlers or bots, discover pages by following links from pages they already know and by reading sitemaps. If no other page links to yours and you haven't submitted a sitemap, a crawler may never find it.

Indexing. The search engine analyses each page's text, images, video and structure to understand what it's about, and stores that information in its index. Pages that are blocked, duplicated, very thin or low quality may not be indexed.

Ranking and serving. When someone searches, the search engine looks for matching pages in its index and orders them using many signals, including relevance to the query, the quality and usefulness of the content, the user's location and language, and page experience factors such as whether the page works well on a phone.

Nobody outside the search engines knows exactly how ranking systems weigh every signal, and the systems change constantly. That's why it's better to focus on fundamentals than on chasing supposed ranking factors.

Understanding what people search for

Good SEO starts with understanding your audience. What problems do they have? What words do they use to describe them? Customers rarely use industry jargon, so a podiatrist's customers may search for "heel pain" rather than "plantar fasciitis".

Start by listing the questions customers ask you. Type your main topics into a search engine and look at the autocomplete suggestions and the "people also ask" questions. Free keyword tools give a rough idea of how often terms are searched. Look at what already ranks for your target searches: if the results are all guides, a sales page is unlikely to compete, and vice versa.

Aim for one main topic per page, and write the page to answer that topic thoroughly.

Creating helpful content

Google's guidance asks site owners to create helpful, reliable, people-first content. In practice that means content that:

• provides original information, research, analysis or experience;
• answers the question fully, so readers don't need to search again;
• is written or reviewed by someone who knows the subject;
• is accurate, up to date and clearly sourced;
• is presented clearly, with a descriptive title and headings.

Avoid content written mainly to attract search traffic, such as pages stuffed with keywords or many near-identical pages targeting different suburbs. Search engines are increasingly good at spotting this, and it doesn't serve readers either. Our writing for the web guide has practical tips.

On-page basics

A few on-page elements help search engines and users understand each page:

• Title tags. Each page should have a unique, descriptive title that reflects its content. The title often appears as the clickable headline in search results.
• Meta descriptions. A short summary of the page. It doesn't directly affect ranking but may be shown in results and can encourage clicks.
• Headings. Use one main heading and logical subheadings that describe each section.
• URLs. Short, readable addresses with words rather than strings of numbers.
• Images. Use descriptive file names and alt text that describes the image for people who can't see it.
• Internal links. Link related pages with descriptive anchor text, so readers and crawlers can find their way around.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO makes sure search engines can access and render your site. Key points:

• Make sure important pages aren't blocked by robots.txt or "noindex" tags.
• Use HTTPS.
• Make your site mobile-friendly, because search engines primarily use the mobile version of a site for indexing.
• Keep pages fast. Compress images and avoid heavy scripts.
• Submit an XML sitemap and verify your site in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
• When you move or rename pages, use permanent (301) redirects from old addresses to new ones, so visitors and search engines aren't sent to dead pages.
• Avoid duplicate content, and use canonical tags where similar pages must exist.

Local SEO

For businesses serving a local area, local search results, including map listings, can matter more than anything else. Create and verify a Google Business Profile, choose accurate categories, add opening hours, photos and services, and keep the information up to date. Make sure your business name, address and phone number are consistent across your website and directories. Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews, and respond to reviews politely.

Don't fake reviews or offer incentives only for positive reviews. The ACCC has warned that fake or misleading reviews can breach the Australian Consumer Law, and platforms remove fake reviews.

Links and reputation

Links from other websites help search engines discover your pages and are one of the ways they assess importance and trust. Earn links by creating genuinely useful resources, getting involved in your industry and community, supporting local events, appearing in media and being listed in relevant directories and associations.

Search engine spam policies prohibit buying or selling links that pass ranking credit, large-scale link exchanges and automated link building. Paid or sponsored links should carry rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow" attributes.

Measuring SEO

Google Search Console shows which searches your pages appear for, how often they're clicked and any indexing problems. Website analytics show how visitors from search behave once they arrive. Track outcomes such as enquiries and sales from organic search, not just rankings for a handful of terms. Rankings vary by location, device and person.

Choosing an SEO provider

If you hire help, ask how they will improve your site, what they will report and how they measure success. Be cautious of guarantees of first-place rankings, secret techniques, large numbers of cheap links and long lock-in contracts. Make sure you keep ownership of your website, domain and accounts.

SEO and AI-powered search

Search engines now show AI-generated summaries for some queries, and some people use AI chat tools to find information. The fundamentals still apply: clear, accurate, well-structured content from a trustworthy source is more likely to be surfaced and cited. Make your key facts easy to find, keep business information consistent across the web, and keep pages up to date.

A simple SEO routine

For a small site, a monthly routine is enough. Check Search Console for errors and for searches where you appear but get few clicks. Update one or two important pages with new information. Publish something genuinely useful. Ask a satisfied customer for a review. Fix any broken links. Over a year, these small steps add up.

Common mistakes

• Targeting jargon customers don't use.
• Publishing thin pages for every suburb or keyword.
• Blocking the whole site by accident after a redesign.
• Changing URLs without redirects.
• Buying links or fake reviews.
• Judging success only by rankings, not enquiries and sales.

Key points

Search engines crawl, index and rank pages. Help them by creating helpful, people-first content that answers real questions, getting the technical basics right, building a strong local presence and earning links and reviews honestly. Measure outcomes, not just rankings.