How do you get your business found on Google? It’s a big question for small business owners, and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a big part of the answer.
Search has changed. Google now includes AI-generated answers, while tools like ChatGPT are helping people discover businesses in new ways.
Even so, the fundamentals remain the same. Most simple SEO tips still apply when it comes to AI answers.
Our 123 Reg essential SEO checklist for 2027 covers seven practical steps to help your business get found, wherever customers search.
Key takeaways
- 1. Create helpful content. Answer the questions customers are asking.
- 2. Use the right keywords. Words customers search with, not industry jargon.
- 3. Get on-page SEO right. Especially meta titles, descriptions, and H1/H2 headings.
- 4. Improve the user experience. Keep your site fast, mobile-friendly and simple to use.
- 5. Get found locally. Create a Google Business Profile and collect good reviews.
- 6. Earn quality backlinks. Try to win links from trusted relevant websites.
- 7. Optimise for AI. Think FAQ-style headings, TL;DR sections, and topic clusters.
Your SEO checklist, ready to go
1. Create helpful content
Smart SEO starts with being genuinely helpful. Think about the questions people ask before they buy or get in touch, then make sure your website answers them clearly.
A bakery might publish a guide to making the perfect sourdough, while an estate agent could share tips for buying your first home. Indeed, a web host like 123 Reg might share expert advice on choosing the right domain name!
Content like this gives people a reason to visit and helps search engines understand what your pages are about.
A few things to keep in mind:
☐ Write for people first
Use clear, natural language rather than squeezing keywords into every sentence.
☐ Answer real questions
FAQs, how-to guides and blog posts are all great ways to address what your customers want to know.
☐ Give every page a purpose
Each page should cover one clear topic or service, so your own pages aren’t competing for the same search terms.
☐ Keep it fresh
Quality matters more than word count, so include what visitors need and leave out the rest. If a service changes, update the page.
2. Use the right keywords
Keywords are the words and phrases people type into search engines. Finding the right ones helps you create content that matches what your customers are really looking for. Start by putting yourself in their shoes. Someone might search for a broad term like “accountant”, or something more specific like “small business accountant in Bristol”.
These more specific phrases are often called long-tail keywords. They get fewer searches, but there’s usually less competition, and the people searching tend to know exactly what they want, which makes them far more likely to get in touch.
Here are a few easy ways to find them:
☐ Use Google’s suggestions
Start typing a search related to your business and see which suggestions and related questions appear.
☐ Think about search intent
Someone searching “how to fix a leaking tap” wants something different from someone searching “emergency plumber near me”, so match your content to what they need.
☐ Include your location
If you serve a particular area, mention your town, city or region where it fits naturally.
☐ Try a keyword tool
Free tools like Google Keyword Planner can show you related terms and roughly how often they’re searched.
Once you have a list, group similar terms together and give each main topic its own page. A separate page for each service is usually more helpful than one page that tries to cover everything. And use your keywords naturally. Repeating them for the sake of it won’t help.
You can access and use Google’s free research tool via the Google Keyword Planner dashboard inside an active Google Ads account.
For more, check out: How to Use Google Trends for Your Online Business
3. Get your on-page SEO right
Once you know what people are searching for, make sure each page clearly says what it’s about. Titles, descriptions and headings help visitors find their way, and they give search engines useful context too.
Focus on these key areas:
☐ Page titles
Give every important page a unique, descriptive title that includes your main keyword where it fits naturally and is inviting enough to click.
☐ Meta descriptions
These short summaries can appear beneath your title in search results. They aren’t a direct ranking factor, but a clear, accurate description gives people a reason to choose your page. Google may rewrite it if it doesn’t match the page, so keep it honest and relevant.
☐ Headings
Use one main heading (H1) per page, followed by H2 and H3 subheadings to organise your content. It makes pages easier to scan for people and search engines alike.
☐ URLs and image alt text
Keep web addresses short and readable (/web-design/ beats /page123/), and add descriptive alt text to meaningful images so screen reader users know what they show.
Try to make every page distinct. Reusing the same title or description across lots of pages makes it harder for anyone to tell them apart.
See also: A Beginner’s Guide to Title Tags and Meta Descriptions that Get Clicks
4. Improve the user experience
Getting people to your website is only half the job. Once they arrive, they need to find what they’re looking for, understand what you offer and feel confident taking the next step. A smooth experience keeps visitors around and makes them more likely to become customers.
Here’s where to focus:
☐ Keep navigation simple
Use clear sections and descriptive menu labels so nobody has to hunt for your services, prices or contact details.
☐ Make it mobile-friendly
Your site should work beautifully on phones and tablets, with text, images, buttons and menus that adapt to the screen.
☐ Speed things up
Slow pages send visitors packing. Compress large images and remove plugins you don’t need. Google’s PageSpeed Insights can check your Core Web Vitals, which are its measures of loading speed, responsiveness and visual stability.
☐ Link your pages together
Internal links help visitors discover more of your content and help search engines see how it all connects. A bathroom plumbing page could link to your guide on fixing a leaking tap, for example.
Does my domain name impact SEO?
Stuffing keywords into your domain name won’t give you an automatic ranking boost.
What matters more is choosing a name that’s memorable, relevant and unmistakably yours, because that’s what people will remember, type in and share. Think of your it as the foundation of your brand rather than an SEO shortcut.
Still looking for the perfect domain name? Use our domain search to check availability and find the name that’s right for your business.
5. Get found in local Google search
If you serve customers in a particular area, local SEO helps you show up when people nearby go looking. The best place to start is your Google Business Profile. It’s the free listing that puts you on Google Maps and in local search results — and helps you collect (hopefully) great reviews.
To get the most from your profile:
☐ Complete your details
Add your business name, address, phone number, website and opening hours, and make sure they match what’s on your website.
☐ Choose the right categories and describe your services
Pick the main category that fits you best, add others where relevant, and spell out what you offer.
☐ Add genuine photos
Show your premises, products, team or finished work so customers know what to expect.
☐ Encourage reviews
Ask happy customers to leave honest feedback, and take the time to reply to every review, good or not so good.
Your website should also make clear where you operate. If you cover several towns, consider a dedicated page for each main area, as long as there’s genuinely useful information to put on it. Local SEO isn’t about adding your town’s name to every page. It’s about giving Google and customers accurate information on who you are, what you do and where you do it.
For more, check out: Google Business Profile — Get Found Locally, on Maps and in Search
6. Earn quality backlinks to your website
A backlink is simply a link from another website to yours. Search engines can use these links as signals of how relevant and trustworthy your site is. But quality beats quantity every time: one relevant link from a respected industry site can be worth more than dozens from unrelated or low-quality ones. Here’s how a small business can earn them:
☐ Create content worth sharing
Useful guides, original insights or helpful resources give other sites a reason to reference you.
☐ Get listed in reputable directories
Look for trusted local and industry listings, keep your details accurate, and steer clear of directories that exist purely to sell links.
☐ Build local relationships
Suppliers, partner businesses, community groups and industry associations can all be great sources of relevant links.
☐ Try digital PR and guest articles
Share news or expert tips with local journalists and publications, or write a genuinely useful guest article. If they mention you, they may link back.
Avoid buying links in bulk or joining schemes designed to manipulate rankings. They go against Google’s spam policies and could put your site at risk of penalties. A handful of relevant, trustworthy backlinks will serve you far better in the long run than chasing big numbers.
7. Optimise your content for AI search
Search is changing. Alongside traditional results, more people are finding answers through AI-powered experiences like Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, as well as tools like ChatGPT. These tools summarise information, answer questions and recommend sources, so it’s worth thinking about how your content can be understood and used by them.
Here’s how to prepare:
☐ Answer questions directly, and put the key point first
Use headings that reflect your customers’ questions, then give a clear, concise answer straight away, with detail and examples to follow.
☐ Structure your content clearly
Descriptive headings, short paragraphs, lists, tables and brief summaries make pages easier for everyone to follow. Where appropriate, add structured data (schema markup) to help search engines understand your content.
☐ Organise related content
Build groups of pages around your main topics and link them together. A web design company, for example, could publish connected guides on website planning, hosting, domain names and security.
☐ Keep your site crawlable
Check that important pages aren’t accidentally blocked from crawling or indexing, review your robots.txt file and indexing settings, and keep your XML sitemap up to date.
There’s no guaranteed formula for appearing in AI-generated answers, and you don’t need to abandon traditional SEO to keep up. Publish accurate, useful information, make it easy to understand and keep your website accessible. The same things that help people find and trust your content help search engines and AI tools make sense of it too.
See also: How to Show in AI Search Answers (8 Top Tips for Business Owners) and AI Search Audit — How to Track Your Business in AI Answers & Overviews
Wrap up
SEO takes a little extra time, but it’s really important, and the basics aren’t rocket science. You don’t need to do it all at once. Start with useful content, keep making small improvements and follow these seven steps to build a strong foundation for reaching more customers and growing your business online.
Your SEO checklist, ready to go
