How to do SEO for a website step by step

 If you’re starting to learn about SEO, you may wonder how to do SEO for a website step by step. Yeah, that’s an awkward sentence, but it’s got the keyword in it, and sometimes, that’s what it takes. 🤣 SEO is a pretty simple process, a few steps that we do on a website page, blog post, or even podcast episode to make it easier for the search engine to understand our content. Doing SEO allows our content to be seen by more potential readers who could become customers. 

 

You may be wondering, Can I do my own SEO for my website?

Let's start here, yes, you can do your own SEO on your website. I want you to learn how to do it and follow the best practices for both traditional and AI-based SEO so that your site is visible and your business can grow. I teach small business owners how to do SEO on their own sites every week. I work with 6 and 7-figure entrepreneurs one-on-one where we set their SEO strategy, review their marketing, make their numbers make sense, etc. And I teach small business owners and entrepreneurs who aren't ready to hire someone to do SEO for them how to do it themselves so it's done right. So yes, you can definitely do SEO for your website, with the right guidance. I recently wrote a blog post on this that gives you more insight and ideas on how to do SEO on your own. I can also teach you how to do it step-by-step in Simple SEO Content. 

 

You may also be wondering, can ChatGPT do SEO? 

That one's going to be a no. ChatGPT can't do SEO for you. Now, there are some things it's actually pretty good at and can do well to help you with your SEO, but on its own, it can't do it. I've worked a lot with both ChatGPT and Claude to see how much they can do because I use both tools, as do most of my students and clients, and I'm all for making things as easy as possible for you because you've got a business to run. I know you're doing SEO in addition to everything else you have to do to grow your business. I wrote a blog post recently that goes into what ChatGPT can and can't do when it comes to helping you with SEO. 

 

You might even wonder, is SEO dead or just evolving in 2026? 

Before we get into how to do SEO on your website, I feel like I need to answer the question that's basically the elephant in the room for most everyone. Is SEO dead, or is this an evolution? Did AI kill SEO, or will AI kill SEO? Every time there's a major change to the Google Algorithm or something new like AI search, people immediately scream SEO is dead, this is the end of SEO, etc. And, over the past 15+ years that I've been in SEO, I've watched it evolve, change, and our industry has adapted. There have been many changes to how SEO is done over the years. Things that worked before 2010 don't work today. Things that work today might not work 10-15 years from now. But for more than a decade now, the focus has been on using SEO and content together to create high-quality content that's helpful to your audience and then optimizing it so that it's easy for the search engines to understand. I've covered these topics on the blog too. Here's one on whether or not SEO is dead, and another on what to do for AI-based search, or this latest version of SEO. 

 

Now that we know that SEO isn't dead, you can learn how to do it yourself, and you can use ChatGPT to help you, but don't let it do SEO for you (or try to teach you how to do SEO). It's time to get started. How do you set up SEO for your website?

 

How do you do SEO for a website step-by-step?

First, you want to choose the page or blog post you're going to do SEO on. It's easier to work one page at a time than to try to do little bits of SEO work on a bunch of pages at once. If you've never done SEO before, I recommend you start with the most important pages on your website. Start with your homepage, About page, and any important product or service pages so you can get more traffic to those pages ASAP. 

 

You can make a list of the pages you want to update, but work on one at a time. When one is done, go ahead and work on the next. This will help you ensure that you don't skip any steps in the process.

 

Next, brainstorm SEO keywords for your page

You’ll want to brainstorm keyword ideas and consider what type of content you could create for your audience. If you’re not sure what keywords are, this blog post will help. What I did there is called an internal link. I’m linking from this blog post to another post on my blog. I did this because it provides value, and it’s also part of SEO. It’s a more advanced tactic and not something you have to fully understand right now, but when you’re writing, if it makes sense to link to something else, do so; it will help both the reader and the search engine.

 

Think about the questions your ideal customer might be asking AI search

In addition to brainstorming keywords, you want to think about the questions your ideal customer might be asking an AI-based search tool to make sure you're covering the right information on your page or blog post. With AI answers, you have to have the answer to the question on your site, and in an easy-to-find and understand manner, to be included in the results. There are tools you can use that will help you find the questions people ask in AI search. I personally use AnswerThePublic, and I also look at the questions in the People Also Ask section on Google for more insights into the types of questions I should make sure to answer in my content. I've used AnswerThePublic for content ideas for more than a decade. Now it has AI search questions and keyword search volume in it, so it's an even more powerful tool for content marketers and small business owners who are doing SEO on their own sites. 

 

Next,  you need to choose an SEO keyword for the page you're going to do SEO on

You need to review your keyword ideas and use an SEO tool like the Google Keyword Planner to check the keyword search volume. Choose the best option from your brainstorm list. What you're looking for here is a keyword with some search volume and low enough competition that your website has a good chance of ranking at the top of Google's search results. 

  

Choose an SEO keyword research tool to use

If you're using the Google Keyword Planner, the competition information it shows is for paid search, but it will be similar for SEO. You want to look for something with low to medium competition. 

  

You can also use a tool like Ubersuggest. Many of my students use this one and like it because it's easy and user-friendly. Ubersuggest will give you a red, yellow, or green highlight and a score of 1-100 in the search difficulty column. In this tool, SD is the same as the competition. What you'll want to do is choose a green or yellow keyword. Green is ideal for small sites or newer websites, but sometimes, yellow can work, too. 

 

I personally prefer a tool called Keywords Everywhere and start my students with it because it has a Chrome plugin that lets them do keyword research directly in Google. Once you understand the data the tool gives you and you know how to interpret it, you can quickly spot keyword ideas for your website directly in the search results. I teach my students and clients to trust but verify... meaning, take the data the keyword research tool gives you, but verify that data directly at the source (in the Google search results) to see which websites are actually ranking for that keyword, so they can start to tell if it's a good fit for them. Sometimes a tool tells us a keyword isn't super competitive, and we find out that it actually is. Other times, it looks like a great keyword, but when we look at the search results, we can see that what we are including on the page isn't a good fit for what people expect to find when they search with a keyword. There are different reasons a keyword might not work for a website, so I always recommend taking a look at the search results before making a final decision. Keywords Everywhere lets me do it all in one place. Ubersuggest has a Chrome plug-in too, but I find it does not work as consistently as Keywords Everywhere, so I have both. I chose to pay for both tools because they do different things for my business, and I use them in different ways. 

  

Check out the competition before you start doing SEO on your website 

Go to Google and type in the keyword you’re considering using for your website SEO, and see what type of websites are on page one. Are the sites you’re familiar with and would you consider them to be one of your competitors, or are the websites you recognize because they’re at the mall (or the equivalent for your industry)? If they’re brands at the mall, you need to choose another keyword because you’re probably not going to rank.

 

You need to choose a keyword where the websites currently ranking on page 1 are similar to yours if you want to have a good chance of ranking there, too. Don't waste your time doing SEO on your website or blog and using a keyword that's too competitive for you because you won't get traffic, and you'll waste your time. 

 

 

Now it's time to do SEO on your website step-by-step

You'll use your keyword in your SEO elements—title tags, meta descriptions, SEO copy, and even image file names on the page you're doing SEO on. These are your SEO elements, and they're where Google looks for clues as to what your content is about. 

 

Most of these elements are seen by both the searcher and Google, so you want to format them correctly for Google but write them for your potential website visitor.

 

If you're not sure what any of the SEO elements are or how to add them to your website, request a copy of my Beginner's Step-by-Step Guide to SEO today, and it will walk you through everything you need to understand to get started. 

 

What else matters for SEO?

Your website's overall SEO is influenced by a few factors: your content (the words on your pages), links from other websites, and how people engage with your website. To rank higher in Google's search results, all three of these need to be focused on. Choose SEO keywords you can rank for and use them in the SEO elements where Google will search for clues about your website's content. Create a great user experience for visitors to your website. Be sure your site loads quickly and is easy to read no matter what screen they're on - desktop, tablet, or mobile. Monitor your engagement metrics in Google Analytics to ensure people are engaging with your content and website. It's super important to your rankings. Google wants to be sure the sites they're sending people to are good and provide value. If people don't engage with your website content, they'll stop sending you traffic, and your SEO program won't work. 

 

What about AI SEO, AEO, GEO, whatever you want to call it? 

In addition to traditional SEO, you'll also want to make sure you're anticipating the questions your ideal customer will be asking AI so that you can have that in your content too. You don't want to just stop with keywords. You want to be sure your content is helpful, provides value, answers questions, and anticipates the next questions your ideal customer will ask once they've read the first answer. You want to make sure your website is SEO friendly, no matter where they search. If your customers are searching Google, Podcast Apps, or with AI, you can be visible if you're doing SEO correctly for the platform. If you want your business to be visible, you need to learn and implement SEO on your site. 

If you're ready to learn how to do this on your website in the easiest way possible, join me in Simple SEO Content, and I'll walk you through SEO on your website step-by-step.