Smarter SEO Strategy for Small Businesses in 2025: Build Your 30-Day SEO Plan Using AI + Free Tools

1. Welcome!: Are you struggling to get your business found online? SEO doesn't have to be confusing or expensive. In this course, I'll show you how to build a smart, strategic SEO plan for your small business. Using tools you already have plus a little help from AI. Hi, I'm Louise. I'm a marketing strategist with over 13 years experience across B to B and B to C. I specialize in helping small business owners and freelancers simplify marketing so they can spend more time doing what they love and less time Googling what even is SEO. In this class, I'll walk you through what SEO means in 2025 and how AI is changing the ways people search and how businesses show up. Importantly, you'll learn how to create a strategy that drives real results. More visibility, more leads, and more growth. I created this class because I can see how overwhelming SEO can feel, especially for small business owners. This is even more so the case now with the rise of AI and the changes that this brings to SEO strategy. But when you break it down into the right steps, it becomes a powerful tool and actually kind of fun. This class is perfect for beginners, whether you're a solopreneur, a side hustler, or a service based business it includes no jargon, just actionable advice that you can implement right away. All you need is a website, a bit of content, even if it's just a homepage or a blog and a willingness to dive right in. I'll show you how to use free tools and beginner friendly AI helpers, such as Chat GPT, Uber suggest, and Google Search Console. In this course, we'll cover the following SEO basics that actually matter. Quick wins and audits to get started. How AI can help you to work smarter. Optimize your content for AI and chat GBT searches, how to measure your success, and how to create a simple 30 day action plan tailored to your goals. By the end, you'll walk away with your own 30 day SEO strategy using my downloadable planning template to help you map out content, keywords, and easy next steps. Ready to take the stress out of SEO. Let's get started. 2. Your Class Project : Welcome to your class project. In this class, you'll be working on a really practical project your own 30 day strategic SEO plan. By the end of this class, you'll have a plan that's tailored to your business, whether you're optimizing a service page, writing blog content or focusing on local visibility. You'll walk away with clear next steps. I created this project because SEO can often feel like a huge task. But when you break it down, it becomes much more manageable. This project helps you to focus on the right things and not just do more. And you'll also get a downloadable template that you can reuse anytime your strategy evolves. How it works. First, carry out an audit of your site to find your quick wins and set your goals. Then use a tool like Chat GPT or Uber suggest to find three to five relevant keywords. You can then choose just one page or blog post to optimize with best practices. Or you can create or improve a blog outline using your keywords. You could then set up and update your Google business profile if local SEO applies to you. And then finally, track your performance with Google Search Console or Google Analytics. You'll find all the tools, templates, and prompts in the project and resources. Then when you're ready, I would love for you to share your project in the project gallery, even if it's not perfect. You can upload a screenshot of your plan, your keywords or a before and after of a page on your site or a blog post. I'd love to see what you're working on and leave some feedback. To get started, just head over to the projects and resources tab and download your 30 day SEO plan template. I can't wait to see your strategy come to life. I'll see you in lesson one. 3. SEO in 2025 - What's Changed?: Welcome to our first lesson. The truth is SEO today looks very different from just a few years ago. But the good news is, if you understand the new rules of search, you can make a few smarter moves with your content. In this first lesson, we're going to cover. How AI is completely reshaping how people search. Why keywords alone aren't enough anymore. It's all about intent. How AI tools can help you without replacing your voice and why video content is becoming crucial in 2025. Let's get started. You've probably noticed that search results now often contain AI generated summaries, like Google's AI overviews and being chat. Instead of showing a list of links, these tools provide a summarized answer. It sounds convenient, but it also means that your content as a business has to work harder to be featured or risks being skipped altogether. Whilst Google still dominates the search market for now, there is a rise in people searching directly in AI tools such as HTPT, which offers a new way for people to find information online. In April 2025, it's reported that Chat GPT search alone hit 1 billion weekly queries. This rise in zero click searches means that users no longer need to visit your site to get what they need. Unless your content offers something shift has sparked a new trend called generative engine optimization or GEO. GEO is a process of optimizing your content to appear in AI generated answers. For example, hat GPT or Gemini and not just the search engine results. This doesn't mean that SEO isn't relevant anymore, but it means that the tactics we use need to evolve. For us to stay ahead and get found in the age of AI. Here's a useful quote from Crystal Carter, head of SEO at Wicks Studio. COs, we do not need to abandon the tactics we've always relied on, but we do need to evolve them. Where in the past, we looked at crawlability, indexability, and stopped at rankability. We now need to add in retrievability. That is taking extra steps to make sure that the core information about our brands is available, accessible, and prioritized for LLMs. For example, in 2025, we need to make sure that AI tools can retrieve the information on our site. Well as it being relevant and well written for humans to read. Retrievbility represents how effectively AI can access, interpret, and prioritize information about your brand when forming responses. We'll go into some of the ways you can make sure your content is visible and accessible to AI later in the course. Behind the scenes, AI is powering algorithms like Google's RankBrain, and Burt. These tools analyze intent and not just words. So creating content that directly answers your audience's questions is more important than ever. So let's say you own a coffee shop, instead of targeting something vague like Best coffee focus on something more specific like, where can I find the best locally roasted coffee near me. Start by creating content that answers real customer questions. You can use free tools like Google's People Also ask and answer the public, which show you exactly what people are searching for in your space. You can then use those insights to guide your blog content, service pages, or even your social media content. This is also important because voice searches are becoming more popular. Therefore, prioritizing question based content, FAQs, and optimizing content for location based searches is crucial. AI isn't just behind the search engines. It's also powering the tools that we use to optimize content. For example, platforms like WIX now offer auto generated blogs and site audits powered by AI. And yes, some people are using AI to mass produce content quickly. However, the problem with this is that generic content gets generic results. According to Forbes, the businesses succeeding with AI are the ones that are using it to speed up content research, discover trends and keyword gaps early, refine and improve existing pages and run technical audits like with square spaces, AI, SEO tools, not the ones that are trying to hand over everything to AI. Let's not forget Google's own advice. However, content is produced, those seeking success in Google Search should be looking to produce original, high quality people first content. This ties into Google's EEATFramework. It rewards content that shows experience, expertise, authority, and trust. So if you're sharing real stories, insights or client tips, that's exactly what search engines want more of. So yes, use AI, but use it strategically. Use it to amplify your ideas and not replace your voice. While AI can assist in content creation, the quality of your input still matters most. If you rely on AI without adding your own insight, perspective, or research, then your content will blend in. Search engines and your audience are looking for your experience and your expertise. It's not about volume, it's about value. Video isn't just nice to have anymore. It's becoming a major SEO advantage. Here are some of the reasons why. Search engines like Google are increasingly prioritizing video results on the first page. Video content can run independently in search through YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram Reels, and boost your website SEO when embedded correctly. AI tools like Google Search, Generative Experience or SGE often pull video clips into their AI overviews. Voice search and visual search are on the rise, and short, clear videos help meet those rich media demands. Is also show that pages with videos are 53 times more likely to rank on the first page of Google compared to text only pages. So what does this mean for small businesses? Well, you don't necessarily need viral videos, but you do need useful videos. For example, short explainer videos, behind the scenes clips, tutorials, product or service demos, or customer stories. Even a 32nd video answering a common FAQ can dramatically increase your visibility. Start creating simple authentic videos around your top questions. Upload them to YouTube or embed them into your blog posts to increase their SEO value. Remember, video helps to humanize your brand, and in a world full of AI generated sameness, that makes you stand out. Have a think about the kinds of questions that your audience is asking. What would be genuinely helpful to them? Use those ideas to guide the page, blog, or content topic you focus on in your 30 day SEO plan. In conclusion, SEO isn't dead. It's just evolving. Next, we'll break down the SEO foundations you actually need to know in 2025. I'll see you there. 4. SEO Basics You Actually Need : Okay, so now that we've covered how SEO is evolving, let's look at what actually matters when it comes to SEO basics in 2025. If you're a small business owner, you don't need to know everything. You just need to know the areas that matter the most for your visibility. And that comes down to the three pillars of SEO, which are still very much relevant today. On page, off page, and technical. So let's have a look at on page SEO first. On page is all about the content on your website. Think blog posts, service pages, and product listings. It's essentially the stuff that your customers can see. It includes things like titles and headings, keyword usage, clear content structure like bullet points and subheadings, internal links, meta descriptions, and blog posts. On page SEO helps search engines to understand what your page is about and helps people to decide if they want to click. For example, if you run a dog rooming business, a strong on page blog post might be. How often should you bathe a French bulldog? You'd include the keyword, naturally, use clear headings and maybe linked to your booking page. Next, we move on to off page SEO, which is all about what others say about you. This is all about authority, so what the rest of the Internet thinks about your site. This includes things like back links, so other websites linking to you, reviews, social shares, and business directory listings. Think of it like digital word of mouth. If people are talking about you, then Google notices. Using the dog grooming business again as an example, let's say a local Pet blog links to your article 0R someone mentions your business in a reedit thread. That will boost your off page SEO. Next, we have a technical SEO. This is the stuff under the hood. Now, you don't need to be a tech expert here, but it does help to be aware of the following. Mobile friendliness. How mobile friendly is your website? If your website is not very mobile friendly, then this will negatively impact SEO. Sit speed, how quickly does your site load? The faster your site loads, the better for SEO. And if your site loads slowly, then this is bad for SEO. Indexing. Make sure that Google can actually find your website and the pages. Alt text for images, make sure that all of your images contain Alt text that describe what the images are. This is important for SEO and also accessibility. For example, if your homepage loads under 2 seconds on a mobile and your site is easy to navigate. That's a huge win for technical SEO. Tools like Google Search Console or Squarespace or WIC SEO checklists can flag these issues quickly. To make it even simpler, think of SEO like a triangle. On page, off page, and technical SEO work together. And as a small business, you don't need to do everything at once. Just start with the pile that feels most doable and grow from there. In the next lesson, I'll share some quick wins and where to start with your SEO strategy. I'll see you. 5. SEO Quick Wins and Where To Start: So now that we've covered the basics of SEO, let's talk about where to actually start. In this lesson, I'll walk you through some ways to easily assess your current SEO status, find opportunities, and start building your 30 day plan. So the first thing to do is start with a quick site check. There are some free tools that you can use right now to get a quick snapshot of how your site is performing. For example, there's Google Search Console, which shows how people are finding your site and highlights any indexing issues. There's Google page speed Insights, where you can check your site speed, especially on a mobile. There's Ubersuggest or HRF free tools where you can get a quick SEO audit and keyword ideas. Also, if you're using a platform like Squarespace or WIX, these also offer AI generated SEO audits, which can be a great starting point. Tools can help you to see where you're already doing okay and where you can make small improvements that add up. You can then list and work on fixing the quick wins first. So firstly, I'm just going to show you some of these tools in action using my own website. I will put a link to all of the tools and an audit checklist in the projects and resources section as part of the SEO workbook. My website is on Squarespace, and I just wanted to show that Squarespace actually have an AI tool now that can help you to do a quick SEO audit, identify areas that need fixing, and then it will fix it for you. And I ran it a couple of weeks ago, and it found that some of my images didn't have lttext and then it fixed it for me very quickly. So that's just something to be aware of. If you have squarespace. If you don't have Squarespace, it's worth checking the back end of your website. So, for example, if you're on a different platform like I think they have a similar tool as well, and just check whether it's something that you can do within your website because it's quite a good starting point. They also have here a checklist as well that has all of the areas that you need to make sure that you address and optimize before you actually put your site live. So that could be a really useful place to start, as well. Just go through the checklist to make sure that you've got everything covered. Tool that I wanted to share with you is Uber suggests. So this is a free SEO audit tool, and it's really useful for small businesses because you basically put in your website, URL, share a few details, and then it will give you a customized plan for improving your SEO. If you ask it to do an audit, which I did, it will do an audit for you for free, and it will recommend things that you need to fix. For my own website, it has a great SEO score on page overall, but it did find some issues. So the issues here are things that I need to address and I need to fix. So things like low word count, a couple of pages are not appearing in the search engines, and there are some pages without AH one header, which is important for SEO. And then it's got the site speed as well. So this is something I really need to have a look at because for mobile, especially the load time is poor. Is not great for SEO. If I was starting my audit now, this is something that I would address because it's a quick win for me. If I improve this, then it could drastically improve my SEO. I also had a look at page speed Insights, which tells you how fast your website loads on mobile and desktop. And it says the same thing for my website on this site as well. So it's good for accessibility, best practices and SEO. But the speed of it is not great and could be improved. It looks like it's because the image that is on here is too large, so I need to compress my images to make the website load faster. I then also did a quick audit using the AH reps website, and overall, it says I've got a good health score, but again, it's got some errors and some warnings and some notices that I could go through to fix. Pages which have links to broken pages. There's some missing old texts. There's titles that are too long. Again, it's picked up on the H one tag missing. So these are really quick wins that I could go through and fix fairly quickly, and then that could help me to boost my SEO performance. So once you've got your quick wins, then the next thing to ask yourself is, what do you want to achieve with your SEO? SEO isn't just about traffic. It's about what you want the traffic to do. It's really important to tie your SEO goals to your business goals. So this is the time to ask yourself. Do you want more bookings, more leads? Do you want more sales? Or do you want to grow your email list? Once you know that, you can start to reverse engineer what to focus on first. For example, if you want more bookings, you could focus on optimizing your service pages. If you want more sales, then work on optimizing your products, your product descriptions, and review strategy. You want more visibility in your local area, then update your Google Business profile and focus on keywords that include the local area. This is where we start thinking in phases. Your 30 day SEO plan isn't about doing everything, but it's about doing things in the right order. Start simple. For example, Week one, audit your current site using the free tools that we've already been through. Week two, do keyword research for one page or blog post. Week three, optimize that page using what you've learned or create some new optimized content. Week four, set up your tracking tools and check your progress. Remember, this plan will look different for everyone, and that's okay. Your project is to create your own 30 day SEO strategy. And in this lesson, we've learnt how to take the first step checking where you are now. Start thinking about your goals, your tools, and what kind of progress would feel meaningful to you over the next month. Remember, you don't need to rank number one overnight. You just need a plan, one that's aligned with your goals and designed to build momentum. The next lesson, we'll bring AI into the mix. I'll show you how to use tools like Chat GPT to speed up the work without sacrificing a strategy. Let's get into it. 6. Using AI to Work Smarter, Not Harder: Now you've started shaping your 30 day SEO plan. Let's talk about how to make the process faster and smarter with a little help from AI. In this lesson, I'll show you how to use tools like hat GPT and other free platforms to support three key SEO tasks. Number one, keyword research. Number two, blog outlines and content planning, and number three, writing SEO friendly titles and meta descriptions. AI won't replace your SEO strategy, but it can definitely help to support it. So let's talk first about keyword research. Keywords are the foundation of your SEO strategy, but finding the right ones can feel like a bit of a mystery at first. So here's a quick and easy process that you can use. Step one, start with hatGPT to generate ideas. For example, let's say you run a dog grooming business in New York. Could ask hat GPT the following. I run a dog grooming business in New York, and you give me ten blog topic ideas or keywords my ideal customers might be searching for. As always with hat GPT, the more context that you can give about your business and your customers, the better and more detailed the response will be. The more advanced hat GPT strategy prompts and how to get the most out of it for marketing. Feel free to check out my other hat GPT and marketing courses here on Skillshare. But here, hat GPT can be used as a brainstorming step. It's quick, creative, and gets the ball rolling. Step two is to validate and expand using these free tools. Once you've got your list of keywords from Chat GPT, you then need to double check which keywords are worth pursuing. Here are some tools you can use. First, we've got Google Search Console. Google Search Console shows you which search terms people are already using to find your site. This can be great for spotting under the radar keywords that you can then optimize. Another great tool is Uber suggest, and there is a free version. So on Uber suggest, you can paste in a keyword to see volume, competition, and also content suggestions. It's super helpful for prioritizing which keywords to go after. First. Another similar free tool is called MOS. So with MOS, you can put any keyword in, and it will give you other keywords suggestions. It will tell you the relevancy, the monthly volume, the search intent, and how difficult it is to rank. So this again, can help you to prioritize which keywords to actually then have Answer the Public. I love this site. I use it quite a lot. Answer the public can help you to generate real questions that people ask around your topic. It's really good for building blog ideas and long tail keywords as well. With Answer the Public, you can register for free, and you get three daily searches. So just as an example here, I have gone onto Answer the Public and search for dog grooming. You've got up here as well, Bing, YouTube, TikTok, Amazon, and also Instagram. But these results are from Google. So you've got the monthly search volume, and then here you've got all of the questions that people are asking on Google. This can be really useful for giving you ideas for blog content, video content, or social media content, for example. Here, you've also got the information from people also asked from Google. So in relation to dog rooming, people are asking, how much should I pay for a groom, and then you've got all the related questions here. So how much do dog roomers charge in the UK? What does a full dog room include, for example. How much do dog oomers charge? How often should a dog be groomed? If you had a dog grooming business, these are all questions that you could create content around and then try and rank for those questions on Google. I think this is really good for a free tool and you can access quite a lot of information for free. Obviously, if you do want to pay for an account, there's a lot more that you can access, although, as a starting point, you can access quite a lot. For free. Of course, another thing you can do is just go directly to Google searching your keyword, it will come up with the people Also ask box here, and this gives you a really good indication of what people are asking in relation to your keyword or topic and gives you an idea of relevant search trends that you can create content around. You can also just go straight to Google, type in your query, keyword or question, then you'll notice that there are a list of ideas here. These are based on what other people searching for. This can again be a really good way of just giving you some ideas of what keywords are relevant and what keywords people are searching for at the moment to give you ideas of what keywords you can target and generate content around yourself. And then you've got Google Trends. Google Trends can be great to see which keywords are rising or seasonal, and it's really good for planning ahead or identifying what's popular right now. So for example, for the search term dog grooming, if we look at the US and I've selected this date range here, you can see that the interest over time has increased, which is good for this specific term. You can obviously choose the country. You can look at the UK, you can look at worldwide or the specific country. You can change the date range here as well, so you can look at the last seven days or you can look at the last 12 months. And then here you've got where the interests are by subregion, and then the related queries, as well. And you can look at what the top queries are. So this, for example, is a top query, grooming near me, and then you can dig down further into others, here's an example workflow you could use. Let's say that Chat GPT suggests a specific keyword. You could then check it in Uber suggest volume and difficulty, use answer the public to explore related questions, look it up on Google Trends to check seasonality and review search console to see if you're already getting traffic from related terms. This process will take minutes but will give you keyword confidence. Once you've got your keyword or topic, you can then use hat GPT to help structure your blog post. For example, you could ask hat GPT, can you create a blog outline for the topic? How often should you bad a French bulldog? Include an intro, four to five subheading and a conclusion. From there, you can add your own voice stories or client examples and link to your own services or other blogs. This is great for creating new content or improving old content that needs a boost. Example, if you already have a blog post, you could use hat GPT to give you actionable ways to optimize that blog post for SEO. In fact, I'd recommend asking Chat GPT to help with optimizing blog content. Every time you write a blog, if you share it with hat GPT and ask That GPT how it could be improved for SEO. Next, we'll talk about SEO titles and meta descriptions. Your page title and metadscriptions are what show up in search results, and they help to decide whether people click. Every page that you want to rank in the search results should have an optimized title and meta description. Hat GPT can help you to write them or optimize ones that you already have. For example, you could ask Chat GPT to write three optimized titles and meta descriptions for a dog grooming service in New York. Include the keyword dog Romer in New York and a clear call to action. You can then tweak the language to match your brand, and of course, you can AB test different options. Go into the titles and meta descriptions in more detail later in the course, but it's worth checking what your titles and meta descriptions are, especially for your important pages, and then using hat GPT to help optimize them for SEO. AI is great for speeding things up, but your content and strategy still needs to come from you. Google's own advice on this matter is that however content is produced, success in search comes from original, high quality people first content. It's really important to add your own experience and perspective. Make sure that your content is genuinely useful and don't rely on AI to do the whole job. Just use it to get started or optimize what you already have. Just to emphasize this point, AI generated content that's low effort or misleading may be penalized or ignored by Google. AI generated content on the other hand, that's useful, accurate, or original can rank well. But the preferred option is AI assisted content with your expertise layered. Now let's go back to your 30 day SEO plan. It's now a great time to choose three to five keywords to target, build or update one blog post, write a title and meta description using the AI prompts. You'll find all the sample prompts from this lesson inside the project and resources tab ready for you to copy, paste and personalize. In summary, AI is a tool, not a shortcut. Use it to speed up research, create outlines, and enhance clarity. But always add your unique experience, voice, and real value. That's what Google and your audience are really looking for. Next up, we're going to explore future proofing your SEO and some ways that you can get found in AI driven search engines. I'll see you. 7. Future Proof Your SEO - Getting Found in AI Driven Search Engines: We dive deeper into your SEO strategy. I wanted to give you a bonus lesson that's going to help future proof your content because SEO isn't just about Google's blue Links anymore. Today, people are searching using tools like Chat GPT, Bing chat and Google AI overviews. And that's changing how businesses get discovered. High rankings in search engines doesn't give guaranteed visibility in AI search. As this quote from Search Engine and highlights, your content isn't just ranking and engaging readers anymore. It's actively teaching AI about your expertise, your relevance, and your role within larger industry conversations. Now, the good news is that you can optimize your content to show up in these new AI driven search results. And it's easier than you might think. A quick comparison. Traditional SEO is about ranking high in Google's list of links. AI SEO or GEO is about being selected or quoted inside an AI generated answer. Both matter, but the way you create your content needs a slight shift. In this lesson, we'll go through some of the ways that you can optimize your content for AI search. AI models prefer easily digestible direct answers. So think FAQ style, how to guides, quick tips, or step by step instructions. So one thing you could do is include a summary at the top of posts, for example, a quick answer or too long didn't read paragraph and then expand below. This offers the best of both worlds. Format your H two and H three headings around common questions your audience, asks and use natural language. For example, if you are writing a blog for your dog rooming business, a bad heading would just be to say dog rooming services. A good heading would be how much does dog grooming cost in New York? This is because AI bots favorite direct question to answer formatting when pulling from pages. For Chat GPT to trust you enough to cite you, your page should show real examples. So think case studies, testimonials, certifications, real examples. It should be updated and credible and it should list a real author with a bio, if possible, on blogposts showing real world credentials. For example, use numbered lists, bullet points, simple tables, AI, loves structure. Always break big ideas into steps or numbered sequences where possible. Assume users may never click to your site. Deliver full value inside your content, and then invite deeper exploration if they want more. For example, at the end of a clear answer, invite them to download a free checklist or took it. Publish multiple posts or pages around a cluster of related topics or content hubs. For example, instead of one blog about SEO tips, you could have clusters like best SEO tools for small businesses, SEO for local businesses in 2025, how to use hat GPT for SEO keyword. Research, AI models recognize depth and breadth when choosing credible sources. Write conversationally like talking to a human because that matches how users ask chat GPT. Avoid overly keyword stuffed or robotic sounding content. AI models heavily favor sources linked to by others. If you can get some back links, mentions, citations, especially from trusted sites. This boosts your authority for AI selection. In short, traditional SEO is still crucial, but AI search is all about directness, authority, helpfulness, clear structure, and user first content. Think less rankings and more being the best, clearest answer on the Internet. So in summary, write direct answers, use natural conversation or language, break big ideas into lists, show your expertise, and build content hubs around related topics. It's not about gaming the system anymore. It's about being genuinely helpful, clear, and real. If you focus on that, you'll stay visible. Whether that's in traditional search results, chat GPT, or whatever comes next. If you're curious about more advanced techniques, then keep an eye out for My Next class where we'll dive deeper into those strategies. In the next lesson, we'll be looking more at on page SEO. I'll see you there. 8. On-Page SEO for the Busy Business Owner: If you've been wondering, what exactly can I do on my website today to improve SEO, then this is the lesson for you. On page SEO is where you have the most control. The great news is you don't need to do anything complex to start seeing results. In this lesson, we're going to walk through the specific things that you can check and improve today on your website or blog. Firstly, what is on page SEO? On page SEO is all about optimizing what's on the page itself. This includes the actual words, structure, and elements that help search engines, people, and AI understand what your content is about. So it includes things like title tags, headings, which are separated into H one, H two, H three, for example, keywords in your copy, meta descriptions, image names, and l texts, internal links, and URL slugs. These things aren't just nice to have. They can help your content to get found, understood, and click. Let's have a look at title tags. What are they and why do they matter? The title tag is what shows up as the clickable Blue Link in Google Search. It should be under 60 characters. Clearly describe what the page is about. Include your main keyword, ideally near the start, includes your brand name, if relevant, and include your location if relevant. A good example of a title tag which is optimized would be something like expert dog grooming in New York. Whereas a bad example would be just home or welcome to our site. The title tag is important because it helps Google to understand the page and helps humans choose to click. Make sure that every page on your website has an optimized title, including your homepage. To edit your page titles, it will depend what website platform you're using. So you might be using Squarespace, Wordpress, or WIX, for example. And then you can usually find the section for SEO on the page settings where you can edit the page title. Next, we have Meta Description. Meta descriptions sit underneath the title in search results. They don't directly affect rankings, but they can affect click through rate. Here are some quick tips. Make sure that your metadscriptions are clear and compelling. Include your keywords, add a short quarter action to encourage people to click through and keep them under 160 characters. Remember, you can also use AI to help you to generate or optimize your metadscriptions. For example, you could ask Chat GPT to three meta descriptions for a dog grooming service in New York, include a quarter action and the keyword. You can then choose the best one, tweak it to sound more like your brand, and you can also test different versions as well. Next, we'll talk about headings, including H one, H two, and H three, and what they do. Headings help to structure your page for both readers and Google. H one is the main title, and you should only have one per page. H twos break your content into logical sections, and H three is add extra detail or FAQs under each. Two. If we continue with the dog grooming example, options for a blog post could be H one, how often should you bathe a French bulldog? H two factors that affect bathing frequency, H three, skin conditions and sensitivities. H two, how to make bath time stress free. Again, you can use hat GPT to help here. An example prompt you could use could be to give me a heading structure for a blog post about French bulldog grooming with one H one and at least three H twos. Search engines, scan headings to understand what your content covers. So make them count. Make sure all pages have one H one tag. Now, depending on what platform you use for your website will depend on how you can access and use headings. I'll use Squarespace. I'll show you an example on my blog of how the headings look in squarespace. In Squarespace, it's really easy to select what headings you want to use. If you are writing some copy, it comes up here with a little drop down and you can select which headings you want to insert from heading one to four. Every page should have a heading one, and this is the heading one for this page, and you can see it's bigger as well. Then here this is a heading two, and we've also got heading three, and then we've got some more heading twos and heading three below. So the takeaway is to make sure that when you're writing content for your site, make sure that you structure it in such a way where you've got a heading one and then at least several heading twos so that it's easy for search engines to understand what your content is about. Next, we're going to be talking about images, including file names and Altex. Images can help with SEO if you name them and describe them properly. So here are a few tips about images and SEO. Always rename files before uploading with copy that helps to describe the image. Write short descriptive old text to explain what the image shows. This not only helps with SEO, but it also helps people that are using screen readers, so it makes your site more accessible. Make sure that images are not too large because large images can affect site speed, which affects SEO. Example of lt text could be something like golden retriever being dried after grooming at a salon in New York. This contains relevant keywords, but it's also very descriptive, rather than just having the image, filename, or generic photo. Remember, you can also ask hat GPT to help with a descriptive and optimized old text. Next, we'll talk about internal linking. Linking between your own pages tells Google how your content is connected and keeps visitors on your site for longer. Example, in a blog post about grooming, you could link to your booking page. On a services page, you could link to related blog posts. For example, on my own blog post, I have linked to previous posts that I've written about a similar topic, and then at the end of the post, I've linked to my digital product and also links to my newsletter and also my Skillshare course as well. A tip is to start with one or two links per page and try to use keywords in the clickable link text. So for example, rather than saying, click here for our services, it would be better to link something like our dog grooming pages because this is much more descriptive. Next, let's talk about blogging and why having a blog helps on page SEO long term. If you're not blogging yet, this is your gentle nudge. A blog is an incredible tool for targeting long tail keywords, answering real customer questions, ranking for seasonal or local search trends, keeping your site fresh and relevant. Even just one post per month optimized for on page SEO can make a big difference over time. Remember, you can use chat GPT or some of the other tools that we've already been through to help to generate ideas that you can use for blog posts. And if you're already blogging, then you can go back through your previous blog posts and use Chat GPT to optimize them or optimize them based on what you've learned in this lesson. The final thing I wanted to cover in this lesson is URL slugs. URL slug is essentially the part of a web address that comes after the main website name. So it tells people and Google what the page is about. Usually edit the slug in the website builder under the page settings. It's really important that the URL reflects the content of the page. Let's bring it all together and look at some quick wins that you could do right now. Choose one page or blog post, add a keyword optimized title tag, write or improve your meta description. Make sure you have one H one and clear Hs. Rename your image files and add descriptive lt text, linked to another relevant page on your site. Make sure that your URL reflects the content on the page. As a bonus, you could refresh an older blog post if you have one using your new structure. If you don't have a now's the time to start one. These small updates build a strong foundation. You don't need to fix everything at once. Just start with one page. The more intentional your on page SEO is, the easier it becomes to build visibility, trust, and clicks over time. In the next lesson, we'll focus on local SEO. I'll see you there. 9. Your Guide to Local SEO: Come back. So far, you've learned how to build your SEO foundation, find the right keywords, and optimize your site. Now, we're exploring local SEO, the part that helps your business show up in your own neighborhood, town or city. What is local SEO? Local SEO is all about helping people find your business based on their location, especially when they're searching on Google Maps, using their phone or talking to voice assistants like Alexa or Siri. Common local searches include things like bet coffee shop near me, nail salon in Often open now, coffee shops with Wi Fi in downtown LA. Google looks at a few key things to decide what to show in local results. Relevance. So does your business match what they're looking for, distance, how close you are to the person searching, and prominence? How visible and trusted is your business online? The first step is to optimize your Google business profile. Your Google Business profile is the foundation of your local visibility. It controls how you show up on Google Search, Google Maps and voice assistants. Here are some ways that you can optimize. First, make sure you've claimed your profile@google.com forward slash BIS. Double check your name, address and phone number for consistency. Add detailed services and business categories, upload quality photos of products, your space or your team, add FAQs, your hours, and updates, especially for seasonal changes, and ask happy customers for reviews and make sure you respond to them. It can also be useful to get listed in local directories. You can also create location specific content, we or optimize content that contains your city, neighborhood, or region naturally. This can help you rank in organic. And strengthen your Google profile. Depending on your business, some example, blog ideas could be where to get organic juice after yoga in Brooklyn, hot bridal hair trends in LA for summer 2025. Another tip is, if you have a business with a physical location, then it's a good idea to create a contact US page with a map and your address. The strategy is to earn local back links without being spammy. Local backlinks are essentially links from other local websites. Please help Google to see that your business is active and trusted within your community. For example, you could be featured on local blogs or news outlets. You could sponsor a local event or cause and ask for a mention. You could write a guest post for a neighborhood site or industry blog or you could partner with a nearby business and then promote each other. More people are searching by voice, especially when they're on the go. Most voice searches are local's the closest nail salon open now. To optimize your content for voice search, use natural conversational phrases on your site. Add a small FAQ section with real questions and answers. Make sure your site is mobile friendly and loads quickly. Remember, you can use AI to make local SEO easier. Example, you could use Chat GPT to draft Google review replies, generate blog or FAQ content, suggest local keywords, help write email requests for reviews or partnerships, create social posts promoting local events or collaborations. Here are some things you could do today. Set up or improve your Google business profile, create a blog post using local keywords, add a local FAQ section to your website, reach out to a local blog or business to start building back links, use Chat GPT to write your first review request or location based post. Local SEO is about showing up where your people are and being the business that they choose to trust, vis book with. Next up, we're going to look at how to measure your success from tracking traffic to understanding what's actually working. I'll see you there. 10. Measuring Your SEO Success: Okay, you've done the work. You've optimized a page, added local keywords, maybe even started a blog. Now, let's answer the big question. How do I know if my SEO is actually working? That's what this lesson is all about. Tracking your progress in a way that's clear, simple, and aligned with your business goals. What does success look like in SEO? It depends on what you want. So before we jump into tools and numbers, take a second to reconnect with your original goal. Do you want more website traffic, more bookings or product sales, more people visiting your physical location, or just more visibility in your niche? There's no one size fits all success metric. It's about what matters most to you. Here are the main metrics that most small businesses should focus on. Organic traffic. So how many people are finding you through search engines? To measure this, you can use Google Analytics. You can go to reports, acquisition, and traffic acquisition and look for organic search. To see how many visitors came from Google Search rankings, which is your position in the Google search results. Where do your keywords show up in search results? You can use Google Search Console for this. You can go to performance and then search results. Here you can see your average position, top queries, and pages with the most click. Click through rate. So how many people saw your link versus clicked on it? In Search Console, you can check click through rate under queries. This tells you if your titles or meta descriptions are doing their job conversions. Are people taking the next step? This could be filling out a form, booking or purchasing. Again, you can use Google Analytics to do this, or you could use your own booking or ecommerce platform. Remember, you don't have to track everything. Focus on what reflects your actual business goals. Here are some free tools that are ideal for small business owners. Google Search Console. This is best for keyword performance and visibility. Google Analytics shows how people interact with your site. Google Business profile insight tells you how many people called, click to directions or viewed your profile. Uber suggests the free version. You can do keyword tracking and traffic estimates and Bing webmaster tools is same as Search Console, but for Bing. It's also important to note here that the changes in search behavior and the rise in AI searches also affects the stats. Two. Traditional SEO KPIs that we've just been through, like rankings, click through rate, and traffic, don't fully capture what's happening anymore. Queries are now hyper personalized, often with little measurable search volume, even when they trigger AI generated responses. Traditional tracking doesn't actually capture how your brand appears in these contexts. Because of the rise of zero click searches, organic traffic is dropping, but demand isn't. As we've already covered, brands are also being now found through AI searches. Therefore, it's important to be aware of this and tweak how we measure performance. And because of the rise of AI searches, this means that branded searches are becoming popular. This is because people are now starting their searches with AI tools and then heading directly to Google to search for the brands that they found along the way. A study by Rand Fishkin highlights that over 44% of Google searches are for branded terms, which confirms that AI is reshaping instead of replacing traditional search habits. So with all this being said, it's important to monitor brand searches, direct traffic and returning visitors, prioritize real business outcomes, for example, leads conversions, track traffic from AI tools like hat GPT, and monitor how your brand appears in AI generated responses across platforms like hat GPT and Gemini. Things are constantly evolving. So it's just important to be aware of the ever changing SEO landscape and adjust your strategies accordingly. Finally, let's talk about how we can use AI to make sense of data. Let's be honest, Analytics dashboards can sometimes be a little overwhelming. This is where AI tools like Chat GPT or Claude can help to simplify things. So let's say you've got some data from Google Analytics or Google Search Console. You could ask Chat GPT. Here's some data from my Google Search Console. Can you help me to understand what's working well and where I should improve? Or you could ask Chat GPT to give me three SEO action steps based on this traffic drop in Google Analytics. AI can also help you to summarize reports into plain English, suggest next steps and turn numbers into actual decisions. This is a great time to check in on your class project. If you updated a page, then remember to check in one or two weeks later in Google Search Console. Look at impressions, clicks, and ranking changes. If you created a blog post, then track visits in Google Analytics, screenshot your progress and celebrate any wins, even small ones. It's important to remember that SCO is a long game, but small improvements start to add up over time. Your SEO doesn't have to be scary or technical. It's just about staying curious and using what you learn to move forward with intention. Up next, we'll wrap everything together with your strategic SEO plan, combining all of the pieces into your personalized action ready 30 day roadmap. I'll see you there. 11. Building Your 30 Day SEO Plan: So now you understand how SEO works, how it's evolving with AI, and how to apply it to your business in a way that feels strategic and not overwhelming. Let's put everything together into a personalized 30 day SEO plan that you can actually stick to. Why a 30 day plan? Because SEO is a long game, but it doesn't have to feel like a mystery. This plan gives you a clear starting point, helps you to prioritize what matters and keeps you moving forward without burning out. Think of it like an SEO start ticket, aligned with your business goals and designed to grow with you. You'll find a downloadable version of this plan in the projects and resources tab, but here's a quick overview. Week one, audit and goal setting. Run a basic site audit. Use Uber suggest, for example, check your Google search console or set it up, identify your business goal. Is it traffic Ed sales, choose one to two keywords that you want to target. Week two, optimize one page. Pick an important page, whether that's the homepage, service page or a blog post, update your title tag, meta description and headings, add internal links and Old text. Use Chat GBT to help with rewrites or prompts if needed. Week three, create a piece of content, write a blog post targeting one of your keywords. Use AI to help structure it, generate headings or FAQs. Include a clear call to action that supports your business goal. Share it on your socials or in an email. Week four. Local and visibility boost. If relevant, optimize or update your Google business profile, add or update your business information across two to three local directories, start collecting some reviews, and track early results in search console or analytics. Remember, you don't need to do everything perfectly. The goal is progress and not perfection. Choose the tactics that make the most sense for your business, and feel free to adapt the timeline to match your resources. Once you've got your completed plan, remember to share it with the class in the project if you feel comfortable, you could also share your blog post, an updated page, or a before and after screenshot. I'd love to see your progress and give feedback. Some tips for long term momentum. Revisit your search console once a month. Keep a content Ideas list and use AI to refresh it. Write one blog post per month using keyword research because SEO thrives on content consistency. Try different content formats like FAQs, how tos, et cetera, repurpose blog content into social media posts or emails. Set a reminder to refresh older content every three to six months. Keep asking what's useful, what's relevant? What's next? Worked, what didn't test and refine as you go along. You don't need a huge team or daily updates. You just need a plan and a rhythm that works for you. I'm excited to see your projects, your results, and what you do next. Let's keep going. 12. Final Thoughts: Well done for making it to the end of this class. Thank you so much for being here and learning with me. Whether this is your first time thinking about SEO or you've dabbled in it before, the fact that you're committed to building a strategy with intention is worth celebrating. Here's a quick recap of what we've learned in this class. SEO really means today in the age of AI, how to understand search intent and bust common myths, the core elements of SEO that actually matter and how to apply them. How to use tools like Chat GPT and Google Search Console to work smarter and not harder, how to create optimized content and make small but mighty updates to your site. What local SEO is and how to get found in your own city or neighborhood. And finally, how to track your progress, stay consistent and keep growing. If there's one thing I hope you take away from the class, it's SEO isn't about gaming the system. It's about showing up helpfully, consistently, and in the right places. If you focus on being useful, clear, and aligned with your audience's needs, the results will follow. It also doesn't have to be technical or complicated. Don't forget to upload your 30 day SEO plan into the project gallery. Even if you're midway through, I'd love to see what you've been working on. Make sure you follow me here on Skillshare for future classes. And if this class has helped you, please consider leaving me a review. It really helps me out and helps other small business owners discover it too. So what's next? If you're feeling ready to go even deeper, I'm working on a follow up class that dives into more advanced and technical SEO tips and techniques. So if that sounds like your next step, then make sure to follow me to stay updated. Thanks again for learning with me. Keep going, and I'll see you in the next one.