You have built a website. It looks good, it works, and you are proud of it. Now you wait for visitors. And wait. And wait. Here is the hard truth: building a website is only half the job. The other half is making sure people can actually find it. That is where SEO — Search Engine Optimisation — comes in. This guide covers the absolute basics every new website owner needs to know.
What SEO Actually Means
SEO is the practice of making your website as attractive as possible to search engines like Google. When someone searches for ‘plumber in Manchester’ or ‘handmade jewellery UK’, Google decides which websites appear on page one — and which appear on page ten where nobody ever looks. SEO is how you give your site the best possible chance of ranking well for the searches that matter to your business.
Good SEO is not about tricking Google. It is about making your website genuinely useful, fast, clear, and trustworthy. Google’s entire business depends on showing people good results. Your job is to be one of those good results.
The Two Sides of SEO
SEO divides into two broad categories:
On-Page SEO
Everything you control directly on your website: your words, your page titles, your image descriptions, your site speed, your internal links. This is where you should focus 80% of your effort as a beginner.
Off-Page SEO
Everything that happens away from your website that affects your ranking: links from other websites pointing to yours, social media mentions, your Google Business Profile, directory listings. This is about building your site’s reputation across the wider web.
Both matter, but on-page SEO comes first. Without a solid foundation, off-page efforts will not achieve much.
SEO Basics: The Five Things to Get Right from Day One
1. Page Titles That Work
Every page on your site has a title tag — the text that appears as the clickable headline in Google search results and in your browser tab. This is the single most important on-page SEO element.
A good page title:
- Includes your main keyword naturally (the phrase you want to rank for)
- Is under 60 characters (longer titles get cut off in search results)
- Reads like something a human would actually click on
- Is unique — every page should have a different title
Bad: ‘Home — My Website’
Good: ‘Handmade Silver Jewellery | Bristol | Sarah Kent Designs’
2. Meta Descriptions That Get Clicks
The meta description is the snippet of text that appears under your page title in search results. It does not directly affect rankings, but it heavily influences whether someone clicks your result or scrolls past it. More clicks signal to Google that your page is relevant, which can indirectly boost your ranking.
A good meta description:
- Summarises what the page is about in 150-160 characters
- Includes your main keyword
- Includes a gentle call to action (‘Learn more’, ‘Browse our collection’, ‘Get a free quote’)
- Is unique for every page
3. Headings That Structure Your Content
Headings — the H1, H2, H3 tags in your page — do two jobs. They help readers scan your content and understand its structure quickly. And they help search engines understand what your page is about and which topics are most important.
Rules of thumb:
- Use one H1 per page — it should be your main title and include your primary keyword
- Use H2s for major sections and H3s for sub-sections within them
- Include relevant keywords in headings, but write for humans first
- Keep headings descriptive — ‘Our Process’ is better than ‘Step Two’
4. Content That Answers Questions
Google’s job is to answer people’s questions. The best SEO strategy is to publish content that does exactly that. Before writing any page, ask yourself: what would someone type into Google that should lead them here?
For a service page, the question might be ‘affordable web design Bristol’ or ‘small business website designer near me’. For a blog post, it might be ‘how to choose a domain name’ or ‘what is SEO and how does it work’.
Write naturally. Use your target phrase a few times where it fits, but do not force it. Google is smart enough to understand synonyms and related terms. A page that reads naturally and covers a topic thoroughly will almost always outperform a page stuffed with keywords that reads like a robot wrote it.
5. Technical Basics You Should Not Ignore
A few technical factors matter a lot for SEO, even if you are not technical:
- Mobile-friendliness. More than 60% of searches happen on mobile phones. If your site is hard to use on a phone, Google will penalise you. Test yours with Google’s free Mobile-Friendly Test tool.
- Page speed. Slow sites lose visitors and rank lower. Compress your images, use a good host, and keep your site lightweight. Test yours with Google PageSpeed Insights.
- SSL certificate (HTTPS). The little padlock in the address bar. Google prefers secure sites. Most good hosting providers include a free SSL certificate — make sure yours is enabled.
- Clean URLs. yoursite.com/contact is better than yoursite.com/?p=123. WordPress handles this automatically if you set your permalink structure to ‘Post name’ in Settings.
SEO Tools Worth Using
You do not need expensive tools to do basic SEO. Start with these free ones:
- Google Search Console — Essential. Shows you exactly which searches bring people to your site, which pages rank for what, and whether Google sees any problems. Free and made by Google.
- Google Analytics — Shows you how many people visit, which pages they view, how long they stay, and where they come from. Also free.
- Yoast SEO or Rank Math (WordPress plugins) — Help you optimise each page’s title, meta description, and readability. They flag issues and suggest improvements in plain English.
- Google PageSpeed Insights — Tests your site speed on mobile and desktop and tells you exactly what to fix.
What NOT to Do
SEO has a history of people trying to cheat the system. Do not be one of them. Specifically:
- Do not stuff keywords. Writing ‘cheap web design Bristol cheap web design affordable web design Bristol’ over and over will get you penalised, not promoted.
- Do not buy links. Paying for links from low-quality websites is against Google’s guidelines and can get your site demoted or removed entirely.
- Do not copy content from other websites. Duplicate content is ignored or penalised. Write your own.
- Do not expect overnight results. SEO takes time. Most new sites take three to six months to start seeing meaningful organic traffic. Be patient and consistent.
How Daedalus Design Builds SEO-Friendly Sites
At Daedalus Design, SEO is not an afterthought or an add-on service we try to upsell you on. It is built into every website we create from day one:
- Every page is structured with proper headings and semantic HTML that search engines understand
- We optimise images, code, and hosting for fast load times
- We set up clean URLs, SSL certificates, and mobile-responsive design as standard
- We configure meta titles and descriptions that actually get clicks
- We install and configure an SEO plugin so you can manage the basics yourself
- We connect your site to Google Search Console and Analytics
And we explain everything in plain English so you understand what we have done and why — no jargon, no mystery, no ‘trust us, it is technical’.
Want a website that looks good AND gets found? Get in touch with Daedalus Design for a free consultation. We will review your current site or help you plan a new one, with SEO baked in from the start.
Photo by the author. First published on the Daedalus Design blog.