SEO Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide for 2026

When it comes to SEO, keeping it simple is best. I will walk you through SEO Made Simple in a super easy-to-follow step-by-step guide in this training. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is one of the most misunderstood marketing channels. It represents a huge opportunity for your business, but people often shy away because they’re afraid it’s techy, complicated, or above their pay grade. I’m here to help you see how easy SEO can be and teach you how to use it to help your business be visible online. Whether your ideal customers are searching on Google or using an AI tool like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Claude to search for them, SEO helps your business be found online. When I originally wrote this post, all we had to focus on was traditional Google SEO; however, over the past few years, SEO has expanded and now includes AI search. Some refer to AI-based search as GEO (generative engine optimization) or AEO (answer engine optimization), but it's all SEO (search engine optimization). And it's all important to your business.

What is SEO?

SEO (search engine optimization) is a series of steps we need to take on our websites to help Google understand what they are about. Most entrepreneurs think about SEO as something they do at the end, after they build their website and add content. Generally, it's thought of as being keyword-based. However, SEO is a lot more than choosing the right keywords. It's about making sure you have the right information on your website and that it's easy for the search engines to crawl and understand, so that when your ideal customer searches for information related to your business, your website is one that they find.

How does SEO work?

SEO works by helping Google better understand your website. When Google better understands your website, it’s easier to show it to people searching for relevant information. It also works by helping you understand what information your ideal customer is searching for online, so you can make sure you have the right content on your site. It might include creating new pages on your site that you find your ideal customer is searching for. It could also include writing a blog post that answers questions that they ask an AI tool like Claude, ChatGPT, or Perplexity about. What you want to think about is who your ideal customer is, what information they need, and whether you have that information on your website. Do you use the words they use? Do you answer the questions they ask? If you don't use the same words they use or don't answer the questions they ask, you're going to limit how visible your business can be online. And, if you don't do SEO on your site, it might as well not exist. You'll be limited to the people who know your brand name today.

How does SEO help Google, Claude, ChatGPT, and others?

Google crawls the websites it finds on the internet. It goes from link to link across websites. SEO works by adding elements to our websites that Google looks for. When Google visits an optimized site, it can gather LOTS of information about our business. When they crawl a website that’s not optimized, they don’t get much information. Google needs the information to add to its index and share with searchers when they need info in the future.

AI-based search engines also use SEO to help them navigate your website and understand the information you've included. It's important that you have a structure that's easy to read and understand, that your site loads quickly, and includes information that will help your ideal customer.

Why is SEO important to my website?

SEO is important to your website because when you optimize your website and help Google understand what it’s about, they’re more likely to show it to people searching for the information you have on your site. Conversely, if you haven’t optimized your website, it will be a lot harder for Google to know when to show it to potential customers, and because of that, you won’t get much traffic from them.

Beyond Google, AI-based search engines are looking for answers to specific questions across the web. If your site has the information that your ideal customer is searching for, but it's not optimized or the site loads super slow, is hard to navigate, or has other issues, the AI-based search tools like Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, etc., will be less likely to include your business in the answer they give the searcher.

Website traffic is down, SEO traffic is down, more searches are being answered in the AI overviews or by AI today, and if your site isn't optimized and you don't have the right information on it, you won't be included in those answers. You'll be left with a site that doesn't get much traffic and isn't visible in AI search.

What’s most important to my SEO?

The most critical piece of your traditional SEO is the keyword you choose for your page. You want to choose a keyword that you can rank for (more on that in a minute) that your Ideal Customer is searching for. The most important part of your AI SEO is answering the right questions within your content. You want to make sure you're creating content that your ideal customer is looking for, answering the questions they're asking, and using a keyword that your site has a good chance of ranking for on Google. It can feel like a lot, but the good news is that what we do for traditional SEO works for AI-based search, too. We just need to make sure we're thinking about our ideal customer when creating our content and then optimizing for the different places they might be looking for information.

Why does choosing the right keyword matter?

Choosing the right keyword is critical to your SEO success because if we choose a keyword no one searches, then we'll be visible, but no one will see us because they're not searching with that word. And, if we choose a keyword that's too competitive for our site to rank for, then we won't show up when people search. We might be on page 5 or 10 of the search results, but that's not going to bring visibility to our business because customers aren't going to go digging for us; they're going to work with someone who's at the top of Google and easy to find.

When we optimize a page for Google, we choose a keyword to use across all our optimization elements. I’ll explain what these elements are in a minute. But first, we want to show Google what this page is about in as many ways as possible.

Choosing the right keyword is critical because you need to select one your website can rank for. Otherwise, all of the optimization work you do won’t help because your website still won’t rank high enough to get traffic. This is a critical piece of traditional SEO. You want to focus on choosing keywords your ideal customer uses that you have a good chance of ranking for, because there's no point in creating content no one is searching for, content your ideal customer isn't interested in, or content that your site can't rank for. If you've ever created content that didn't get traffic or content that got traffic but didn't generate leads or sales (and that was the goal for the piece) then you've likley had a keyword mismatch issue. These are very common and something I help students and clients fix all the time. We often don't have to start from scratch; we can clean up the mistakes and start getting traffic to content you already have, which is great.

How does Google decide which pages rank for a keyword?

Google chooses which sites to rank for specific keywords based on an algorithm that includes over 200 different factors. They don't tell us everything, but we know that content, keywords, and site authority (links) are the most important factors.

Google wants to deliver the best possible search results to users so they continue to use its search engine. It determines the best websites to be those that are most authoritative and most closely related to the keyword someone has searched.

I teach my students and clients how to use specific SEO tools to read and understand the search results so they can begin to understand whether or not their site has a good chance of ranking on page one of Google for that keyword.

What makes a website authoritative?

Larger, more established websites are considered more authoritative by Google. New websites or websites for smaller businesses will be viewed as less of an authority on a subject than a bigger or more established one. Over time, your website will grow in authority. The biggest factor in website authority is the links that link to it. As you earn more links from other authoritative sites, your website's authority will grow, and it will be easier for you to rank for more keywords.

The level of authority your website needs will vary based on the competitiveness of your niche. Each niche is different. Some of my students are very visible with a fairly low authority site, while others need to have a higher authority level to be visible for much. It is dependent upon who else is ranking for the keywords you want to rank for. And it's different for every site.

This doesn’t mean that you need to create hundreds of pages of content for your website. It means you must look for keywords you can rank for now and work your way up as your authority grows.

How do you know if you can rank for a keyword?

I teach a LOT about this in my Simple SEO Content course because it’s critical to your overall SEO success. There’s an entire module on how to choose the right keyword. While I can’t get into it in depth here, I can tell you to look at the keyword you’re considering using in your optimization and go to Google and see who’s currently ranking at the top of Page 1 on Google.

Are the websites ranking at the top of Page 1 for that keyword similar to yours? Are they competitors you’re familiar with, or are they national brands you know from the mall or their ads on TV?

If they’re competitors, you know well you are probably on the right track. If they’re national brands, you need to look for a different keyword because you won’t rank for this one, and there’s no point in wasting your time and energy trying. So, let’s find a word you can rank for so you get some traffic!

What about AI search? Do I need to rank on Google to show up in AI?

The great news is that you don't have to rank at the top of Google, or even on page 1, to be included in the AI overviews and answers. This is a great opportunity for small business owners. For AI-based search, you need to make sure you're answering the right questions (the ones your ideal customer is asking) and that the information is easy to find and understand on your website. You don't have to build links to your site as you do for traditional SEO, but you need citations (brand mentions), which are pretty similar. Your site still needs to have great content and be trusted by others, but you don't have to beat out big brands to be included all the time.

Ok! I’ve got a keyword I can rank for; now what?

Congratulations, you’ve gotten through the longest part of your SEO work – the research and refinement process. Now, it’s time to get to work on your SEO. You're going to use that keyword in all of the places Google will look for information on your page. You want to use the same keyword in each spot and only use that keyword on a maximum of two pages on your entire site, so you can have as much visibility as possible. Google will only show your site twice in the search results, so if you use the same keyword on 10 pages, you limit your reach. You want to use different keywords to help expand your reach and potential visibility.

You’re going to use your keyword in 5 places on your page

Title Tag
Meta Description
Copy
Header Tag
Image Filename

Your Title Tag is up to 60 characters, including spaces, and includes your keyword.

Your Meta Description is up to 160 characters, including spaces, and includes your keyword.

Your copy should be at least 300 words, but focus on providing value to your customer, not on the word count or how many times you use your keyword.

Your Header tags should include your keyword. Use them to break up the sections of your copy.

Your Image Filename should include your keyword separated by – not _ for Google.

And then, don't forget to answer the questions your ideal customer is asking related to this topic, so that you have a better chance of being found if they're searching for this information in AI.

Want me to walk you through EXACTLY how to do this, including the keyword research process? Check out Simple SEO Content today! That's what it does. ☺️

That’s it, my friend, that’s how to optimize your website. SEO made simple: a step-by-step guide. If you’re ready to learn more about SEO and get your website found on Google, check out my free and paid training programs. I’ve got lots of resources to help you get your website optimized quickly and easily.