SEO for Beginners — the essentials, in priority order

How Claude uses this guide

Load this guide when the user is new to SEO: they say they “don’t know SEO”, ask what a term means, or ask “where do I start?”. When working with them:

• Plain language. Explain each term the first time it comes up, in one short sentence (the glossary at the end has the wording). No acronyms without spelling them out.
• Run end to end, then show one action at a time. The run itself never pauses for a check-in (references/autonomy.md): finish the checks, triage and report first. Then give the user the next concrete step. Don’t hand over a 50-item list.
• Explain WHY before HOW. One sentence on what the problem costs them, then the steps to fix it.
• Show only the top 3–5 findings. This limits what you show, not what you run. Run triage first (triage.py) on the complete results and show only the P0/P1 items in plain words. Mention that more items exist, keep them in the report’s appendix and offer them later.
• Questions go last. Ask only for access you couldn’t get (e.g. Search Console) or business decisions, batched at the end in plain words, each with your recommendation and where to click.
• Say where to click. When a step happens in Google Search Console or another tool, give the exact menu path, e.g. Search Console → Indexing → Pages.
• Celebrate quick wins. When something gets fixed, say so and say what it unlocks.
• Be honest about time. SEO takes months. Never promise rankings or traffic.
• Warn about scams. Treat these as red flags: “guaranteed #1 on Google”, “1,000 backlinks for $50”, “instant indexing”, “secret algorithm”. Explain why each one is a red flag.
• Use analogies sparingly, only where one makes an idea click.
• Research once, reuse it. Keyword and search research is saved in a seo-research/ folder in their project (references/research-store.md). Say so in one sentence the first time, so they know later tasks (blog posts, page fixes) build on it instead of starting over.
• Change their site only per autonomy level (references/autonomy.md). At the default level, Claude reports each fix and says which level would make it (level 2 opens a pull request; level 3 merges it). Messages to real people (emails, review requests), Business Profile and Merchant Center edits, CDN and DNS settings, Search Console actions other than sitemap submission, and the rest of autonomy.md’s always-gated list always need their OK first: Claude lists each one at the end of the run and carries out only the ones they approve.

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Is SEO worth it? How long does it take?

• What SEO is. SEO (search engine optimisation) helps search engines find, understand and trust your pages, so they show them to people searching for what you offer.
• It is slow. Fixing technical problems can show results within weeks. New content and reputation usually take 3–12 months to pay off, and competitive topics can take longer. Anyone promising days is guessing or lying.
• It compounds. Paid ads stop the day you stop paying. A page that ranks keeps bringing visitors.
• Nobody controls Google. You can only make your site the best answer and remove obstacles. Google explicitly says nobody can pay for a better ranking.
• Free tools cover most needs. Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools and this plugin’s scripts are enough for most small sites. Paid tools such as Semrush and Ahrefs mostly add competitor data and search volumes. They are useful later and not needed to start.

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Pillar 1 — Technical foundation (can Google reach and read your site?)

What it is. Making sure search engines can reach your pages (crawling), store them (indexing) and read them correctly (rendering), quickly and on a phone. If this fails, nothing else matters: great content on a page Google can’t see brings zero visitors.

What it consists of

• Crawling. Google’s robot (“Googlebot”) is allowed in and isn’t blocked by robots.txt (a small file listing what robots may visit) or by a security service such as Cloudflare.
• Indexing. Pages return status 200, which means “OK”. Pages you want found don’t carry a noindex tag, which tells Google “don’t list this page”.
• Rendering. The important text and links are in the page’s HTML, not only drawn later by JavaScript.
• Speed (Core Web Vitals). Google’s three speed and stability measures:
  • LCP (main content appears): ≤ 2.5 s.
  • INP (page reacts to taps): ≤ 200 ms.
  • CLS (layout doesn’t jump around): ≤ 0.1.
• Mobile. The site works well on phones. Google indexes the mobile version of your site.
• HTTPS. The padlock is in the address bar, and the http:// address forwards to https://.
• Structure and internal links. Every important page can be reached by clicking links from your homepage, ideally within 3 clicks.
• Sitemap. A file (sitemap.xml) lists your real pages for Google. It is submitted in Search Console and named in robots.txt.
• No broken pages. No links point to “404 – not found” pages, and old URLs forward (redirect) to their new home.
• One address per page. Each page uses a “canonical” tag, which says “this is the main address of this page”, to avoid duplicates.

Why it matters. Google only ranks what it can crawl and index. One wrong line in robots.txt, or a forgotten noindex left over from the development site, can remove a whole website from Google.

How to do it yourself (free)

1. Set up Google Search Console at search.google.com/search-console. Add your site, preferably as a “Domain” property, and verify it as the tool instructs.
2. Submit your sitemap. In Search Console go to Indexing → Sitemaps and enter sitemap.xml, or the address your website system gives you.
3. Check what’s indexed. Go to Indexing → Pages. “Not indexed” lists the reasons. Ask Claude to explain any reason you don’t understand.
4. Check speed. Go to Experience → Core Web Vitals, or test a page at pagespeed.web.dev.
5. Check one important page. Paste its address into the search bar at the top of Search Console (URL Inspection). It shows whether Google can index it.
6. Run the plugin checks. Ask Claude to run the site checks: robots.txt, sitemap and a small crawl.

Common mistakes

• Leaving “Discourage search engines” ticked in WordPress, or a noindex copied over from a staging site.
• Blocking the whole site in robots.txt (Disallow: /).
• A security wall such as a Cloudflare challenge that blocks search or AI robots.
• Huge uncompressed images that make the page slow.
• Changing URLs without redirects, which loses the rankings the old pages had.
• Menus built so the links only appear after clicking with JavaScript. Robots don’t click.

Which seo-suite skill to ask for

• “Run a quick SEO audit of my site” → seo-audit
• “Why isn’t my page on Google?” / “Is my site indexed?” → seo-technical
• “Is my site fast enough?” → seo-technical (it uses psi.py)
• “I’m moving to a new domain/website” → seo-migration

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Pillar 2 — Content & copywriting (does your page answer what people search for?)

What it is. Writing pages that match what people actually type into Google (“search intent”), answer it better than anyone else, and make the reader trust you enough to act (buy, call, sign up).

What it consists of

• Search intent. Know what the searcher wants. There are four types:
  • Learn something (informational).
  • Compare options (commercial).
  • Buy or book (transactional).
  • Find a specific site (navigational).
• Keyword research. The words real people use. They are often not the words you use internally.
• One clear topic per page. Two pages shouldn’t compete for the same search (“cannibalisation”).
• A clear title and description. The <title> (the blue link in Google) and the meta description (the grey text under it) say exactly what the page offers.
• Answer first. The main answer sits near the top, then the details. Use headings, short paragraphs, lists and tables.
• E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust). Show who wrote the page and why they know, cite sources, and publish real contact details. Trust matters most.
• Originality. First-hand experience, your own photos, your own data. Avoid rewording other sites.
• Freshness. Update facts, prices and dates when they really change. Changing only the date is treated as a trick.
• A conversion path. Every page has a clear next step (button, form, phone number).
• Copyright, meaning content you’re allowed to use: see below.

Copyright & originality: what you must know

• Your text must be yours. Copying or “spinning” (automatically rewording) other sites’ text is scraping, which Google’s spam policies forbid. It can also break copyright law.
• Duplicate text inside your own site, such as the same paragraph on 50 city pages, makes those pages weak. Each page needs unique value.
• Manufacturer descriptions. Shops that copy the manufacturer’s product text look like every other shop. Add your own details, photos and FAQs.
• Images. Only use images you took, bought a licence for, or that have a free licence that allows your use (e.g. a Creative Commons licence that permits commercial use; check the conditions). “Found it on Google Images” is not a licence.
• DMCA / copyright removal. If someone copies your content, you can ask Google to remove the copy through its legal removal request (Google’s “Legal removals” process). Content removed this way can also hurt the copier.
• AI-written text is allowed by Google if it is genuinely helpful and checked by a human. Rules:
  • Fact-check everything.
  • Add your own experience.
  • Never mass-produce hundreds of pages (“scaled content abuse” is against Google’s rules).

Why it matters. Technical SEO gets you seen. Content is what gets you chosen, by Google and by the person reading.

How to do it yourself (free)

1. Ask Claude for keyword ideas: “find keyword ideas for [your service] in [your country]”. It uses Google/Bing autocomplete. These show what people type but not how many people type it.
2. Search the keyword yourself and look at the top 5 results. Are they guides, product pages or lists? Make the same type of page, only better.
3. Write the answer first, then the details. Read it aloud: would a customer understand it?
4. Write a title under about 60 characters with the main topic first and your brand last, e.g. “Wedding Photographer in Tbilisi — Packages & Prices | YourName”.
5. Add who you are. An author name, a short bio, real photos, a contact page.
6. After 4–8 weeks, open Search Console → Performance to see which searches show your page.

Common mistakes

• Writing for “Google” instead of a person, e.g. repeating the keyword 30 times (“keyword stuffing”).
• Aiming for a word count. Google has no preferred length.
• One giant page about everything, or ten thin pages about the same thing.
• Publishing 100 AI pages in a week.
• Using images from the internet without a licence.

Which seo-suite skill to ask for

• “Find keywords for my business” → seo-keywords
• “Improve this page for Google” → seo-onpage
• “Review my blog / which pages should I update or delete?” → seo-content
• “Write a content plan” → seo-strategy + seo-content
• “Write blog posts from my keywords” → seo-blog-builder
• “Check my AI-written or translated blog posts” → seo-blog-review

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Pillar 3 — Backlinks & authority (do other sites vouch for you?)

What it is. A backlink is a link from another website to yours. Google treats good links as recommendations: a link from a respected local newspaper says “this business is real and worth visiting”.

What it consists of

• Quality over quantity. One link from a relevant, real, respected site is worth more than hundreds from junk sites.
• Relevance. Links from sites in your industry or city.
• Natural anchor text. The clickable words of the link should read naturally (your brand name, the page topic), not the same exact keyword everywhere.
• Mentions. Your brand named in articles, directories and reviews, ideally with a link.

Ways to earn links (allowed)

1. Be worth linking to. Original data, a useful free tool, a definitive guide, great photos.
2. Digital PR. Send a genuinely newsworthy story or survey result to journalists and bloggers.
3. Partnerships. Suppliers, partners, clients, schools or events you sponsor often list you.
4. Local links. Chamber of commerce, local business directories, local news, community sites.
5. Unlinked mentions. Find articles that mention you without a link and politely ask them to add one.
6. Broken-link reclamation. If other sites link to your old pages that now show “404”, redirect those old addresses to the right new page. You win those links back for free.
7. Your own profiles. Google Business Profile, social profiles, industry associations.

Forbidden (can get you penalised)

• Buying links that pass ranking value, including “guest post packages” and “1,000 links for $50”.
• PBNs (private blog networks): fake sites built only to link to you.
• Link exchanges at scale (“I link you, you link me”).
• Automated link-building tools and comment or forum spam.
• Sponsored or paid links are fine only if marked rel="sponsored" (or nofollow).

Disavowing (telling Google to ignore bad links): almost never needed. Google already ignores most spam. Only consider it if Search Console shows a manual action for unnatural links, or you knowingly bought links in the past.

Why it matters. When many pages answer a question equally well, reputation helps decide who ranks higher. It is a big factor in local “near me” results too.

How to do it yourself (free)

1. Open Search Console → Links to see who already links to you.
2. List 10 partners, suppliers or associations that could list you. Claude writes a polite email to each and shows you every one, with who it goes to. It sends only the ones you approve, from your connected email.
3. Search your brand name in quotes. Note any mentions without a link.
4. Ask Claude to find your broken pages that have links, and redirect them.

Common mistakes

• Paying for link packages.
• Expecting links to fix a slow or thin site. They won’t.
• Spammy outreach to hundreds of sites.
• Panicking about “toxic links” because a tool shows a scary score.

Which seo-suite skill to ask for

• “How do I get backlinks?” / “Check my links” → seo-links
• “Who are my competitors in Google and why do they rank?” → seo-competitors

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4. On-page basics (one page at a time)

What it consists of

• One clear <h1> heading.
• A descriptive title and meta description.
• A readable URL (/wedding-photography-prices, not /page?id=123).
• Image “alt text”: a short description of each image for blind users and for Google.
• Links to related pages on your site.
• Structured data where it fits. This is hidden code that labels things like your business, products or articles for Google (“schema”).

Do it: ask “check this page” → seo-onpage. It runs page_audit.py and gives before/after suggestions. For structured data, ask → seo-schema.

Common mistakes

• Missing or duplicate titles.
• Images without alt text.
• Adding FAQ or HowTo structured data hoping for stars or dropdowns in Google. Google no longer shows these.

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5. Local SEO (if customers come to you, or you go to them)

What it consists of

• A Google Business Profile (the box on Google Maps):
  • Your real business name only (no keywords stuffed in).
  • An exact address (no PO boxes, no virtual offices).
  • Correct hours.
  • The most specific category.
  • Photos.
• Reviews. Ask every customer for a review the same way, with a direct review link, and reply to every review. Never ask only the happy ones (“review gating”), offer anything in return, or buy reviews — all break Google’s rules.
• Consistent details. The same name, address and phone number everywhere online.
• Local pages. A page per real location or service area, each with genuinely local content.

Google ranks local results by relevance, distance and prominence. You can’t pay for a better local ranking.

Do it: ask “help with my Google Maps listing” → seo-local.

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6. AI search (Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity)

What it is. AI tools now answer questions directly and cite websites as sources.

What helps

• Normal good SEO is the foundation. Google says AI Overviews need no special code or files. A page just needs to be indexed and allowed to show a snippet.
• Answer questions clearly near the top of the page, with facts, numbers and sources.
• Be indexed in Bing too. ChatGPT search leans heavily on Bing. Set up Bing Webmaster Tools (bing.com/webmasters); you can import your site from Search Console.
• Don’t block the “search” robots of AI tools in robots.txt if you want to be cited (OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot). You can still block the “training” robots (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended).
• llms.txt. Google says it doesn’t use this file. It’s optional, not a magic switch.

Do it: ask “can AI tools find and cite my site?” → seo-ai-search.

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7. Measuring progress (free)

• Google Search Console shows searches, clicks, positions, indexing and speed. Check Performance monthly and compare the last 3 months with the 3 months before.
• Google Analytics 4 (GA4) shows what visitors do after they arrive (calls, sales, sign-ups).
• Bing Webmaster Tools is the same idea for Bing, which powers Copilot and is reported to supply ChatGPT search.
• Track a few numbers only:
  • Clicks from Google.
  • Conversions (enquiries or sales).
  • Number of indexed pages.
  • Core Web Vitals status.

Do it: export Performance → Search results (top right Export) and ask “analyse my Search Console data” → seo-analytics. It finds “almost ranking” searches and pages with low click rates.

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8. A 90-day starter plan

Days 1–7: foundation

1. Set up Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Submit the sitemap.
2. Ask Claude: “run a quick SEO audit of my site”. Fix only the top 3 problems.
3. Set up or claim your Google Business Profile, if you’re a local business.

Days 8–30: fix and focus

1. Fix indexing errors from Indexing → Pages.
2. Pick your 5–10 most important pages (services and products). Improve their titles, headings and first paragraph (seo-onpage).
3. Do keyword research for your main service (seo-keywords). Choose 3 topics to write about. The research is saved in seo-research/, so the next steps reuse it.

Days 31–60: content

1. Publish or rewrite the 3 best pages for those topics, with first-hand experience, photos and a clear next step. For blog posts, seo-blog-builder writes them from the saved research, checks them and, once you or your reviewer sign each one off, publishes it at the level you set and tells search engines.
2. Add an About page, author bios and real contact details (trust).
3. Start asking every recent customer for a review, all the same way, with a direct link (not only the happy ones).

Days 61–90: reputation and review

1. Contact 10 partners or associations for listings or links (Claude writes each email and sends the ones you approve).
2. Redirect any old broken URLs that other sites link to.
3. Compare Search Console’s last 28 days with the start. Ask “what should I do next?” → seo-strategy.

Expect small movements by day 90, not a breakthrough. Keep going.

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Glossary

• Algorithm update: Google changing how it ranks pages. Rankings can move without you changing anything.
• Alt text: a short text description of an image, read by screen readers and search engines.
• Anchor text: the clickable words of a link.
• Backlink: a link from another website to yours.
• Bing Webmaster Tools: Bing’s free version of Search Console.
• Bot / crawler: a program that visits web pages automatically (e.g. Googlebot).
• Cannibalisation: two of your own pages competing for the same search.
• Canonical: a tag saying “this is the main address of this page”.
• CLS: Cumulative Layout Shift, how much the page jumps while loading (good ≤ 0.1).
• Core Web Vitals: Google’s three user-experience speed measures (LCP, INP, CLS).
• Crawling: search engine robots visiting your pages.
• CTR: click-through rate, the share of people who saw your result and clicked it.
• Disavow: telling Google to ignore certain links. Rarely needed.
• DMCA / legal removal: a request to remove copied content.
• E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust. Signals that real, credible people stand behind the content.
• GA4: Google Analytics 4, which measures what visitors do on your site.
• Google Business Profile: your business listing on Google Search and Maps.
• H1 / headings: the main title on the page (H1) and the section titles (H2, H3…).
• HTTPS: a secure connection (the padlock in the address bar).
• Impressions: how many times your page appeared in search results.
• Indexing: Google storing your page so it can show it in results.
• INP: Interaction to Next Paint, how fast the page reacts to taps and clicks (good ≤ 200 ms).
• Internal link: a link from one page of your site to another.
• JavaScript rendering: pages whose content is built by code in the browser. Some robots can’t see it.
• Keyword: the words people type into a search engine.
• LCP: Largest Contentful Paint, how fast the main content appears (good ≤ 2.5 s).
• Manual action: a penalty applied by a Google employee. Shown in Search Console → Security & Manual actions.
• Meta description: the short summary text that can appear under your link in Google.
• Mobile-first indexing: Google uses the mobile version of your site to rank it.
• Nofollow / sponsored: link labels meaning “don’t count this as a recommendation” or “this is paid”.
• Noindex: a tag telling Google not to list a page.
• Organic traffic: visitors from unpaid search results.
• PBN: private blog network, fake sites made to create links. Forbidden.
• Position / ranking: where your page appears in results (1 = top).
• Redirect (301): automatically forwarding an old address to a new one, permanently.
• Research store: the seo-research/ folder where Claude saves keyword and search research, so later tasks reuse it.
• robots.txt: a file telling robots which parts of a site they may visit.
• Schema / structured data: hidden code that labels page content (business, product, article) for search engines.
• Scraping: copying other sites’ content. Forbidden as an SEO tactic.
• Search Console: Google’s free tool showing how your site performs in Google.
• Search intent: what the searcher actually wants (learn, compare, buy, find a site).
• SERP: search engine results page, the page of results Google shows.
• Sitemap: a file listing your pages for search engines.
• Snippet: the text Google shows under your link.
• Status code: the server’s answer. 200 = OK, 301 = moved, 404 = not found, 500 = server error.
• Thin content: pages with little real value.
• Title tag: the page title shown as the blue link in Google.
• URL: the address of a page.