Super Easy SEO Guide for Solopreneurs
A guide for solo biz owners who have businesses to run, a million things to do, and don't want to become an SEO person.
Learning SEO when you don’t have time
Somewhere between your third Google search for "how to get my website to show up" and your seventh open tab about domain authority and keyword research, something happens.
You close the laptop and go make a snack.
Honestly though, good call. Most SEO content out there is written for people who are already a little too deep into this stuff, which makes it spectacularly useless when you're just trying to get your candle shop (or your coaching practice, or your tarot reading business) to show up when someone types what you do into Google.
So here's what this is instead: the four things that actually matter when you're a small biz owner who needs her site to work, and a very firm list of things you don't need to touch yet.
What SEO is, without all the big words
SEO stands for search engine optimization. That sounds enormous. What it actually means is: making your website easier for Google to understand, so Google can recommend you to the right people at the right time.
BUT not just Google. Many people forget that there are other search engines, like YouTube, Pinterest and now… AI while technically isn’t a search engine does fall into the optimization camp.
But let’s keep it simple:
Google is, at its core, just trying to give good answers. When someone asks it a question, it scans the whole internet and picks what it thinks is the most helpful, most relevant result. SEO is the work of making sure you are that result.
That's the whole game. Everything else is just tactics inside that bigger goal.
Like what you’re reading, and want more?
Small biz owners have more SEO power than they think
Here's something the big SEO blogs don't bother telling you: giant companies are actually worse at some parts of SEO than you are. They can't be specific. They can't have a personality. They can't write a blog post that sounds like a real human being sitting across from you at a coffee shop because they have legal teams that break out in hives.
You can.
Google has gotten very good at recognizing when content is helpful versus when it's just a pile of keywords dressed up as an article. Your ability to write specifically, honestly, and for a narrow audience is an advantage. Use it.
The Four Things that Move the Needle
There are roughly 800 things someone could optimize on a website. About four of them matter when you're just starting out. Here they are.
1. Set up your Google Business Profile
If you serve local customers at all, or have any kind of physical location, this is the single most important thing on this list. A Google Business Profile is the little card that shows up on the right side of the screen when someone searches for you by name, or searches for what you do near them. It shows your hours, your photos, your reviews, your website link, and a map pin.
If you don't have one of these, stop reading and go set it up first. Come back after.
Even if your business is fully online, it's worth having. It adds credibility, shows up in local map results, and gives customers a place to leave reviews that Google pays attention to as well as LLMs (AI search).
2. Make every page clear about one thing
Every page on your website should answer a very simple question: "What is this page about, and who is it for?"
Your homepage is for people who just stumbled onto you and need to know in about three seconds whether they're in the right place. Your services page is for people who are ready to see what you offer. Your about page is for people who are deciding whether they trust you enough to buy.
The most common mistake small biz owners make is being vague. "I help people live fully and authentically" tells Google basically nothing, and really doesn’t convert well either. "I help burned-out women in their 40s set up sustainable routines so they can do more, with less" tells Google exactly who to send your way and helps the people who land there immediately identify.
Being specific feels scary because it seems like you're narrowing your audience. You are, but that's the point. Google isn't going to recommend you to everyone. It's going to recommend you to someone. The more clearly you describe that someone, the better Google gets at finding them and the more likely they are to book or buy.
Page Titles
Two tiny places do most of that heavy lifting: the page title (the line that shows up as the blue link in Google) and the big heading at the top of the page. If those two are clear, specific, include relevant keywords to the page, and are human‑sounding, you’ve already done more SEO than most big companies.
3. Use the words your customers do
This one is sneaky, and it trips up almost everyone.
Most business owners describe their services using professional language, or insider-only lingo. Their customers search using the words they'd use to describe their problem to a friend.
A therapist might describe what she does as "somatic trauma processing through EMDR." Their ideal client might not know what any of that is, but still need it. They’re is searching for something like "how to overcome social anxiety.
Neither description is wrong. But only one of them is what gets typed into the search bar when someone is finally ready to ask for help.
Before you use a word or phrase on your website, ask yourself honestly: is this how my customer would describe their problem? Or is it how I describe my solution? Write for the former.
4. Write content that answers real questions
This is the part where I lose some people. But hear me out.
You don't need to blog every day. This isn’t instagram with its punishments for not maintaining a certain level of activity. What you do need are a few pieces of content that answers questions your ideal customer is out there searching for.
Think about the question you get asked most often before someone hires you. Write a post that answers it completely and honestly. Don’t add in teasers or “I’ll give you the answer if we book a call first”. Just provide as much detail as you can, laid out clearly, for free.
This sounds backwards, but trust me, it isn't. Google rewards genuine helpfulness. And the person who reads your complete, generous answer and thinks " they really knows what they’re doing" is already most of the way to becoming your customer before they’ve even clicked to your contact page.
Tiny Tweaks that make a big difference
Make sure your homepage, and each page has that clear SEO title (the one on your browser tab or labeled specifically for SEO in your CMS. Don’t use words like “Home” or “About”, be specific
Add links throughout your content. If you write a blog post that mentions another relevant post you wrote, link to it. If you mention your services, link to your service page. The more links you have the more you show Google what you value.
Get setup with a free Google Search Console account as soon as possible so you can see what people are searching for.
Where possible, get links from other service providers, or media mentions. These give your site more authority
SEO tips you should ignore, for now
Don’t buy rank tracking tools and obsess over every keyword and track their position
Don’t spend money “buying” links for more authority
Don’t chase super broad competitive terms like “Life Coach” or “Brand Designer” - make them more specific to your audience
Don’t worry about posting every day, or even every week. Post quality content frequently but it doesn’t have to be a set schedule.
Don’t worry about all the tech details like “schema” - if you understand, and your CMS has these capabilities - great, if not, ignore
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