Basic SEO for businesses: where to start optimizing your website

Where to start: heading structure

In these five minutes I want you to walk away with a way to tell whether your website is properly optimized to bring in clients.

Let's start with heading structure: the titles that organize a page's content. Structuring them well matters, but the one that carries the most weight is the H1, the main title.

That's where you need to put your business's keyword. If you're an immigration lawyer, the H1 should say "immigration lawyer". And if you work in Carabanchel, "immigration lawyer in Carabanchel". You can add your brand name too if you want.

City or neighborhood: the logic of the niche

There's a strategic decision here. You can put Madrid or you can put Carabanchel, and it's not the same thing: Madrid covers more ground, Carabanchel takes you into a niche.

And you can narrow it further. "Immigration lawyer for Venezuelans" is already a micro-niche — but that's exactly why you can be very competitive with it, even targeting all of Madrid with just that.

On length: the more information you put, the better. At the end of the day, as users what you want is all the information laid out in front of you. That's exactly what people expect to find. No filler, straight to the point.

Google My Business: title, categories and services

On your Google My Business listing, the most important thing is the title. The formula we use: brand, a dash, and the keyword. You can reinforce it with geolocation.

Don't overdo it with keywords, that can get you penalized. The main one and that's it.

Set the category right. I've come across businesses that are a print shop and have "bar" set as their category. There are lots of categories you can fill in, and a ton of fields to add information: fill them all in. The more information, the easier you make it for Google to recommend you.

There's also a services section. If you fill it in completely, when someone searches for one of those services you'll have a better chance of showing up.

Link building: why links generate authority

Link building means getting other websites to point to yours. Those links generate authority for you.

It's like the mayor of Madrid going to a restaurant, eating really well, and saying so in public. That generates authority and a lot of people will want to go. The same thing happens when a lot of websites point to you.

Wherever you can: if you collaborate with someone, link to each other. Links can be bought. If someone interviews you, always ask for the link back to your website.

Mentions without a link: what's changed with AI

With the arrival of AI, mentions have become just as relevant as links, not only links. You don't need a link: it's enough for your name to appear somewhere.

Here you can make use of business directories — Páginas Amarillas, Doctoralia and many others — and register on all of them.

And this is important: always use the same name everywhere, so there's no room for doubt. Same phone number, same contact email and same address.

FAQs: from keyword to spoken question

FAQs have become extremely relevant, and the reason is that how people search has changed. We no longer search so much by keyword — "immigration lawyer Madrid" — but instead ask spoken questions: "I need to do this paperwork, how would I go about it?"

You can add that kind of question to your content. In the end it works well, and it doesn't get in the way either, since these are usually placed inside collapsible sections.

You can even build a whole FAQ section and pour all the content you can into it, so AI models cite you.

The author page: why they should trust you

With everything going on with AI, it's become essential to have an "about us" page that clearly shows who you are.

Put all your links there: where you studied, who you've worked with, who you've collaborated with, interviews you've given. It's your way of proving why they should trust you.

If you're a larger company with different specialists, the ideal setup is one page per specialist, with each topic-specific piece of content signed by the corresponding specialist. That supports the whole website.

Behind the AI, you still need someone

And the last idea: even with a lot of AI involved, there has to be someone behind it reviewing the content. In law, in marketing, and in every industry.