SEO questions answered
49 questions on what actually helps a website rank.
Honest, plain-English answers to the questions we're asked most about E-E-A-T, on-page SEO, schema markup, technical SEO, local SEO and AI search.
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E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust
What does E-E-A-T stand for and why does it matter?
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust. It comes from Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines and describes the signals used to judge whether content, and the business behind it, can be relied on. It is not one single ranking factor, but a framework that shows up through reviews, links, content quality and how clearly a site explains who is behind it.
How can a small local business demonstrate experience?
Real photos of completed work, before and after examples, genuine case studies and first-hand detail written by someone who has actually done the job all show experience. Generic stock content that could belong to any business does the opposite.
How do you show expertise on a website?
Clear author information, relevant qualifications or certifications where they apply, and content that uses accurate, correctly used industry terminology rather than vague generalisations all help demonstrate expertise.
What builds authoritativeness for a local business online?
Being mentioned or linked to by other reputable local sites, appearing in relevant directories, any genuine press coverage, and keeping your business name, address and phone number consistent across the web all contribute to authoritativeness.
How does trust get established for a website?
Genuine, verifiable reviews, clearly displayed contact details, a secure site running on HTTPS, a proper privacy policy, and real company registration details, such as a Companies House listing, all help establish trust with both visitors and search engines.
Does E-E-A-T apply to every website or just health and finance sites?
It applies most heavily to what Google calls Your Money or Your Life topics, such as health, legal and financial advice, but the underlying signals, genuine expertise, real reviews and transparent business information, benefit every type of website.
Can a new business build E-E-A-T quickly?
Not overnight. It builds through consistent, genuine activity: real reviews arriving over time, accurate and complete business information, and case studies that reflect actual completed work rather than claims that cannot be backed up.
On-Page SEO
What is on-page SEO?
On-page SEO covers everything you control directly on an individual page: the content itself, the title and headings, internal links, images and how the page is structured, as opposed to off-page factors like external links from other sites.
What should go in a title tag?
A title tag should clearly describe the page topic, usually include the main keyword the page targets, and often the business name or location. Keeping it under around 60 characters helps it display fully in search results.
How important are meta descriptions for ranking?
Meta descriptions do not directly influence rankings, but a clear, relevant one improves the click-through rate from the search results page, which matters just as much in practice.
How should headings such as H1 and H2 be used?
Each page should have one clear H1 that describes what the page is about, with H2s breaking the content into logical sections underneath it. Headings should follow a sensible order rather than skipping levels or being used purely for styling.
Does keyword density still matter for SEO?
Older approaches that focused on repeating a keyword a set number of times are outdated. What matters now is covering a topic thoroughly using natural language, including the terms a real customer would use.
How important are internal links between pages?
Internal links help visitors find related content and help search engines understand how pages on a site relate to each other and which ones are most important, spreading relevance across the site rather than leaving pages isolated.
What makes a good local landing page, such as a page for a specific town?
A good local page contains content genuinely specific to that town rather than a generic page with the place name swapped in. Real local detail, an embedded map, and information relevant to that particular area all make it more useful and more likely to rank.
How long should a page's content be?
There is no fixed word count that guarantees good rankings. A page should be as long as it needs to be to properly answer the visitor's question. Thin content that says very little, or duplicate content repeated across many pages, tends to work against a site rather than for it.
Schema Markup and Structured Data
What is schema markup?
Schema markup is structured data, usually written as JSON-LD, added to a page to help search engines and other tools understand exactly what the content means, such as identifying a business, a service, a review or a set of questions and answers.
What is LocalBusiness schema?
LocalBusiness schema marks up details such as a business name, address, phone number, opening hours and geographic coordinates. It helps search engines match a business accurately to local searches and map results.
What is FAQPage schema, and does it still show rich results in Google?
FAQPage schema marks up a set of questions and answers so search engines can understand the structure clearly. Google narrowed which sites are eligible to show FAQ rich snippets directly in search results, largely limiting them to established government and health sites, but the schema itself still helps search engines and AI tools understand and use the content correctly, even without a guaranteed rich result.
What is Review schema and should a business use it?
Review schema marks up genuine customer ratings and reviews so search engines can display them accurately. It should only ever be used to mark up real, verifiable reviews. Using it to represent reviews that do not genuinely exist breaks search engine guidelines and risks a manual penalty.
What is Service schema?
Service schema describes a specific service a business offers, including who provides it and the area it is offered in. It is particularly useful for service-based local businesses that want to be clear about exactly what they do and where.
Do you need a developer to add schema markup?
Not necessarily. JSON-LD schema can be added directly into a page's HTML without changing anything visible to visitors, though it still needs to be implemented carefully and kept accurate as the page content changes.
How do you check that schema markup has been implemented correctly?
Google's Rich Results Test and the Schema Markup Validator both let you check a live page or a snippet of code and confirm the structured data is valid and being read correctly.
Technical SEO
What is technical SEO?
Technical SEO covers the behind the scenes factors that affect how well a site works and how easily it can be crawled and indexed, including site speed, mobile-friendliness, security, sitemaps and clean site structure.
Why does page speed matter for SEO?
A slow site frustrates visitors and increases the chance they leave before it finishes loading. Page speed is also a recognised ranking factor through Google's Core Web Vitals, so it affects both user experience and visibility.
What are Core Web Vitals?
Core Web Vitals are a set of Google metrics measuring real-world user experience: how quickly the main content loads, how quickly the page responds to interaction, and how much the layout shifts around while loading.
Does mobile-friendliness affect rankings?
Yes. Google primarily uses the mobile version of a site for indexing and ranking, and the majority of local searches happen on a mobile device, so a site that does not work well on a phone is at a real disadvantage.
What is a sitemap and why does it matter?
An XML sitemap lists the important pages on a site in one place, helping search engines discover and crawl content efficiently, particularly useful on larger sites with many pages, such as one covering multiple towns.
What is robots.txt used for?
The robots.txt file tells search engine crawlers which parts of a site they are allowed to access and which they should avoid, helping control how a site is crawled without needing to remove content entirely.
Does HTTPS affect SEO?
Yes. HTTPS is a recognised, if lightweight, ranking signal, and it is also an expectation from visitors, who are increasingly wary of sites that are not shown as secure in the browser.
What are canonical tags for?
A canonical tag tells search engines which version of a page is the primary one when similar or duplicate content could otherwise exist at more than one web address, helping avoid confusion or diluted rankings.
Local SEO
What is local SEO?
Local SEO is the practice of optimising a business's online presence so it appears in searches with local intent, such as a specific town name or a near me search, rather than only competing nationally.
Why do individual town pages help local SEO?
Town pages match how people actually search, using the name of the specific place they are in. They give search engines dedicated, genuinely relevant content for each area rather than asking one generic page to rank everywhere at once.
How many town pages should a business have?
Enough to meaningfully cover a realistic service area, with each page containing genuinely unique content. Creating large numbers of thin, near-identical pages purely to target place names tends to work against a site rather than for it.
Does NAP consistency, meaning name, address and phone number, matter?
Yes. Keeping these details consistent across a website, directories and listings such as Google Business Profile helps build trust signals and avoids confusing search engines or customers about which details are correct.
What role do reviews play in local search?
Reviews are a significant factor in local pack rankings and a major influence on whether a customer chooses one business over another. A steady flow of genuine reviews over time tends to matter more than a single burst followed by silence.
What is the map pack or local pack in Google search results?
The map pack is the group of around three local business results shown with a map at the top of search results for local-intent searches, sitting above the standard organic listings.
Does how a business describes its services and areas served matter for local SEO?
Yes. Accurately describing services and the specific areas covered, both in page content and in structured data such as schema markup, helps search engines match a business to the right local searches.
How does local SEO differ from general SEO?
General SEO focuses on ranking for a topic regardless of location. Local SEO adds a geographic layer: local citations, map pack visibility, and near me or place name intent, on top of the same underlying content and technical foundations.
AI Search and Answer Engines
What is AI search and how is it different from traditional search?
Tools such as Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity generate a direct, synthesised answer to a question rather than simply returning a list of links. They still draw on crawled, indexed web content to build that answer.
How can a website be optimised for AI search tools?
Clear, well-structured, factual content, sensible use of headings, accurate schema markup, and information that is kept genuinely up to date all make it easier for these tools to extract and correctly represent what a business actually offers.
Does traditional SEO still matter if AI search is growing?
Yes. Most AI search tools still rely substantially on the same underlying crawled and indexed content that traditional search engines use, so the fundamentals of good technical SEO and genuine, well-structured content remain relevant.
Can schema markup help with visibility in AI search tools?
Yes. Structured data helps machines, including AI systems, understand what a page is actually saying with more certainty than unstructured text alone, which can help a business be represented accurately when an AI tool summarises search results.
Do AI Overviews replace the need for a website?
No. AI Overviews and similar tools still link back to and draw from source websites, and the actual booking, enquiry or purchase still typically happens on the business's own site, by phone, or through a contact form.
Should content be written differently for AI tools compared with human readers?
Not fundamentally. Clarity, accuracy and good structure that help a human reader understand a page also tend to help an AI system parse it correctly. Concrete, specific detail is generally easier for both to use than vague marketing language.
Website Design, Build and Conversion
What makes a website design decision good for SEO rather than just appearance?
A good design decision balances how a site looks with practical factors: fast loading times, clear structure, accessible markup, mobile responsiveness, and content that is genuinely useful to the visitor rather than purely decorative.
Why does site structure and navigation matter beyond just usability?
Clear navigation and a logical page structure help visitors find what they need, and the same clear structure helps search engines find and understand the important pages on a site.
Should a business redesign an old website purely for SEO reasons?
Genuine problems such as a poor mobile experience, slow loading times or thin content are worth fixing. A redesign should not be carried out purely to stuff in keywords. The goal is combining a good visitor experience with sound technical foundations.
How does ongoing content, such as blog posts, support SEO over time?
Regularly published, genuinely useful content signals an active, relevant site, creates more opportunities to rank for a wider range of related searches, and gives more chances to link back to key service and location pages.
What is the single most important thing a local business can do for its website's SEO?
There is no single trick that replaces the basics. Building a site around genuinely accurate content for the specific towns and services a business actually offers, kept technically sound and backed by real reviews, tends to compound in value over time.
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