Free SEO and Helpful Content

Introduction

When someone types a question into a search engine, they are telling you exactly what they want. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is making your pages easy to find and genuinely useful for those questions. It is free, and it keeps working long after you publish.

The simple explanation

Answer a real question better than the pages that exist, and make it easy for search engines to understand your page.

Search engines try to show helpful, trustworthy, original pages. Tricks to fool them can get your site demoted. Helping people is the long-term strategy.

Step 1: Find real questions

• Type your topic into a search box and read the autocomplete suggestions.
• Read the People also ask boxes and the related searches at the bottom of results.
• Use Google Trends to see which phrasing is more popular.
• Look at what pages already rank. What do they cover? What is missing or out of date?

Write down a list of questions, each of which can be one page.

Step 2: Write a helpful page

For each question:

1. Put the clear answer near the top, then explain it.
2. Use a descriptive title with the main phrase in natural words, and clear headings.
3. Add real examples, steps, images or screenshots, from your own experience.
4. Be accurate, and say who wrote it and when it was updated.
5. Link to your related pages, and to trustworthy sources.
6. Make it fast and readable on a phone.

Never copy another page, and avoid stuffing keywords. Write for people.

Step 3: Help search engines find you

• Make sure your site is on HTTPS and works on mobile.
• Have a sitemap and link pages to each other.
• Use short, readable web addresses.
• Give every page a unique title and a short description.

Step 4: Check with Search Console

Google Search Console is free. After you verify that you own your site, it shows:

• Which pages are indexed (included in search)
• Which searches show your pages, and how often people click
• Problems such as pages that cannot be found or crawled

You can ask it to inspect a URL and request indexing for a new page. Bing has a similar free tool, Bing Webmaster Tools.

Be patient

New sites can take weeks or months to gain visibility. Keep publishing useful pages, update older ones and look at Search Console monthly to learn which searches you are close to winning.

Try it yourself

Pick one question from your audience. Search it, read the top three results, and write a page that answers it more clearly, with an example of your own. Check later in Search Console whether it appears.

Summary

• SEO means being the most helpful result for a real question.
• Find questions with free search features, write original pages, and keep the site technically tidy.
• Use Search Console to see what is indexed and what people search, and be patient.