SEO optimisation: how to optimise your website for Google and AI search.

Most websites that fail in search are not bad websites. Something small usually stands between Google and the page: a stray noindex tag, a slow template, ten pages competing for the same query. Or the site answers everything in general and nothing in particular.

SEO optimisation fixes that, in a specific order. This guide explains what it covers, how technical SEO works, a ten-step checklist you can run yourself, what it costs and when it makes sense to bring in help. The examples come from our own work as an SEO agency in Amsterdam, and the rules come from Google’s documentation rather than SEO folklore.

What is SEO optimisation?

SEO optimisation is everything you do to a website so search engines can find it, understand it and show it to the people looking for it. The phrase is slightly redundant, since the O in SEO already stands for optimisation (or optimization, in American spelling). People search for it this way, so we use it too.

Google’s SEO Starter Guide defines SEO as helping search engines understand your content, and helping users find your site and decide whether to visit it. The second half matters as much as the first. A ranking is only worth something if the right person clicks and stays.

Website optimisation for SEO also sits next to two related disciplines. A digital strategy decides who you want to reach and which searches matter. Conversion work makes sure visitors who arrive actually get in touch. Optimisation without a strategy is efficient work in a random direction.

The six areas of SEO optimisation

SEO optimisation covers six areas. Technical SEO, content and authority are the classic pillars. On-page SEO, local search and AI visibility build on top of them.

Technical SEO gets its own section below. First, the other five in brief.

On-page SEO

On-page SEO makes the subject of each page unmistakable. Google describes a good title as unique to the page, clear, concise and an accurate description of its contents. Around it you need headings that show the structure, a meta description that earns the click, descriptive alt text and internal links whose anchor text says where they lead. Our guide to a href SEO covers the link side in detail.

Content

Content carries the most weight. Google writes that creating content people find compelling and useful will likely influence your presence in search more than any other suggestion in its Starter Guide. Useful means the answer comes first, the follow-up questions are covered and the page contains knowledge a competitor does not have.

Authority

Google finds most new pages through links from pages it already knows, and links from other sites act as a recommendation. One mention in a respected trade publication says more about you than dozens of links from directories nobody reads. Buying links to rank is link spam under Google’s spam policies, so earn them instead.

Local SEO

If you serve customers in a region, your Google Business Profile is the basis for visibility in Google Maps and local results. Complete it, ask customers for reviews and keep your name, address and phone number identical everywhere. Google also names the Business Profile as a way for your services to appear in AI responses.

Visibility in AI answers

AI Overviews and AI Mode rely on the same core ranking and quality systems as regular results, Google writes in its guide to generative AI features in Search. Good SEO is therefore the entry ticket. What helps on top of it, such as an original perspective and a brand people discuss, is covered in our articles on GEO optimisation and SEO vs GEO.

Technical SEO: what search engines need first

Technical SEO makes sure search engines can discover, fetch, render and index your pages. It is the least visible part of SEO optimisation and often the most decisive. A page that is not in the index cannot rank anywhere, however good the writing.

We saw this with Vianen KVS, a kitchen ventilation specialist in Woerden whose organic traffic had collapsed. The cause was not in the copy at all: “The site had been set to noindex, SEO tooling was switched off and no working sitemap had reached Google.” On top of that came a broken heading structure, a slow page build and unoptimised images. We restored indexing first, then cleared the technical issues step by step.

Crawling and indexing

Search Google for site:yourdomain.com and check whether your important pages appear. Google Search Console shows, page by page, whether a URL is indexed and why not. The usual suspects are an accidental noindex tag, a canonical pointing somewhere else or a sitemap that does not work.

One misunderstanding refuses to die: using robots.txt to keep pages out of Google. Robots.txt controls which URLs a crawler may visit, not what ends up in the index. A blocked URL can still appear in results, just without a description. To keep a page out of Google, use noindex or put it behind a password.

Speed and Core Web Vitals

Google measures loading experience with the Core Web Vitals, and its ranking systems use them. A page passes with a Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, an Interaction to Next Paint of 200 milliseconds or less and a Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less, measured at the 75th percentile of page loads (web.dev).

Keep it in proportion, though. Google says it still shows the most relevant content even when page experience is weaker, and that chasing a perfect score purely for SEO may not be the best use of your time. Fix what visitors feel: heavy images, layout that jumps, too much JavaScript. In PageSpeed Insights, look at the field data from real visitors before the lab score.

Mobile-first indexing

Google uses the mobile version of your site for indexing and ranking, and only the content shown on the mobile site is used for indexing. So do not trim text, headings or images on mobile. And do not hide primary content behind a tap or swipe, because Google will not load content that needs a user interaction. Google recommends responsive design as the easiest pattern to build and maintain.

URLs, duplicates and canonicals

Give each page a readable URL and group related pages in folders. Make every piece of content available at one URL, and redirect old addresses to new ones. Duplicate content does not trigger a penalty, Google says, but it is inefficient: crawlers spend time on URLs you do not care about.

Structured data

Structured data (schema.org markup) tells search engines explicitly what a page is: an article, an organisation, a product. Valid markup makes a page eligible for rich results such as review stars and carousels. Google states that it is not required for its AI features, but it remains worth having as part of your wider SEO.

JavaScript and rendering

Google can render JavaScript, but rendering is a separate step after crawling. Google still calls server-side rendering or pre-rendering a great idea, because it makes a site faster for users and crawlers and not all bots can run JavaScript. That last point matters more now that AI crawlers read the web too. If you use a headless CMS, check with the URL Inspection tool that the HTML Google sees contains the full content. We build our sites in Astro, which ships pages as static HTML. What that covers out of the box is in our help article Make your Astro site rank well.

How to optimise your website for SEO: a 10-step checklist

Website optimisation for SEO is a cycle rather than a project: measure, prioritise, fix, measure again. These ten steps follow that cycle, and most of them need nothing more than free Google tools. For keyword and backlink data, a tool like Ahrefs fills the gaps.

1. Record a baseline. Connect Google Search Console and note clicks, impressions and the pages that already bring traffic. Without a baseline you cannot tell later what your work achieved.
2. Check indexing. In Search Console, review which pages are not indexed and why. Fix accidental noindex tags, wrong canonicals and error pages before anything else.
3. Test on a phone. Open your main pages on mobile. Is all the content there, do the menu and forms work, can you read the text without zooming?
4. Measure speed. Run your five most important pages through PageSpeed Insights. The biggest win is often images that are too heavy or in the wrong format.
5. Confirm HTTPS. Every page should load securely. The HTTPS report in Search Console shows where it does not.
6. Give each query one page. List your most important searches and assign one page to each. Two pages chasing the same intent get in each other’s way.
7. Rewrite titles and meta descriptions. Put the subject first, make each title unique and promise only what the page delivers. Start with pages that get many impressions and few clicks.
8. Improve what almost ranks. Pages sitting around positions 8 to 20 often need a sharper answer, better structure or a few internal links. That is usually where the quickest gains are.
9. Update your Google Business Profile. Correct category, opening hours, photos and recent reviews, with the same business details as your website.
10. Ask the AI. Put your customers’ questions to ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Mode and check whether what they say about your brand is right. Search Console also has a report on how your pages perform in Google’s AI features.

Repeat the cycle after every significant change to the site, and otherwise once a quarter.

What you can safely skip

What you leave alone matters as much as what you do. Google’s Starter Guide lists several things not to focus on:

• the meta keywords tag, which Google does not use;
• keywords in your domain name, which have hardly any effect on ranking;
• a target word count, because there is no magic minimum or maximum;
• the number and order of headings, which does not matter to Google (logical order still helps screen readers);
• E-E-A-T as a ranking factor, which Google says it is not.

For Google’s AI features you also do not need an llms.txt file or content chopped into small chunks.

What does SEO optimisation cost?

SEO optimisation costs what the scope requires. At Viralistic, SEO starts at a few hundred euros per month for a focused programme and grows with scope. Appearing in organic results costs nothing in itself: Google never accepts money to include or rank sites, and advertising with Google has no effect on your organic presence (Google).

What moves the price:

Sometimes the problem is the platform itself, and optimising around it is mopping the floor with the tap running. Then a new website is the structural fix. Our webdesign projects start around EUR 4,000, and larger CMS-driven platforms can reach EUR 20,000 or more. How a programme is put together is on our SEO page.

Be wary of cheap packages that come with guarantees. Google states plainly that no one can guarantee a number one ranking.

When should you hire help with SEO optimisation?

You can do a lot yourself. Google writes that if you run a small local business, you can probably do much of the work on your own. Hiring help pays off when the stakes rise, or when the work outgrows your time and knowledge.

According to Google, a great time to hire is when you are planning a redesign or a new site, and the earlier the better. Then the site is search-friendly from the ground up instead of patched afterwards. That is why we treat webdesign and SEO as one job.

If you do hire, ask the questions Google itself suggests:

• Can you show examples of previous work?
• Do you follow the Google Search Essentials?
• What results do you expect, in what timeframe, and how do you measure them?
• Will you share every change you make to my site, and the reasoning behind it?
• Is your advice on AI visibility aligned with Google’s official guidance?

A good partner also asks you questions: what makes your business different, who your competitors are and how customers find you today. More on choosing well is in our guide to hiring an SEO specialist. If you run a premium brand, read SEO for luxury brands as well.

How we help

Viralistic is an SEO agency in Amsterdam for established businesses and premium brands. We optimise from your positioning outwards. First we decide who you want to reach, then we work on the technical foundation, the content and your visibility in AI answers. You work with one strategic lead instead of a stack of freelancers, so the technology, the writing and the brand stay in step.

For Potaé, a fast-casual brand serving stuffed baked potatoes from Osdorpplein in Amsterdam, an SEO scan mapped the searches it was missing and the technical fixes that came first. “Organic traffic has since grown from a few hundred to 1.5K visits a month, with 37 keywords in the top 3” (Ahrefs, October 2026).

When the problem runs deeper than optimisation, we design a new site in Figma and build it in Astro, with technical SEO from the first line. See webdesign. After launch, managed hosting and maintenance in Amsterdam keeps it live, fast and secure.

A focused SEO programme starts at a few hundred euros per month. Read how it works in our SEO approach, or get in touch.

Frequently asked questions

What are the four pillars of SEO?

SEO is usually split into four pillars: technical SEO, on-page SEO, content and off-page SEO (authority). Technical SEO lets search engines crawl and index your pages. On-page SEO and content make each page the best answer to a specific query. Off-page SEO is the trust other sites give you through links, mentions and reviews. Local SEO and AI visibility build on all four.

Can I do SEO optimisation myself?

Yes, much of it. With Google Search Console and PageSpeed Insights you can check indexing and speed, and you can improve titles, internal links and your Google Business Profile yourself. Google says small local businesses can probably do much of the work alone. Bring in help for a redesign, a migration, technical problems your CMS cannot solve or a steady flow of new content.

Can ChatGPT do SEO?

It can help, but it cannot do the job on its own. ChatGPT is useful for drafting outlines, grouping keywords or checking structure. Google allows AI-assisted content as long as it meets its Search Essentials and spam policies, and it warns against mass-producing pages mainly to manipulate rankings. The parts that rank are the ones AI cannot supply: your own experience, data and point of view.

Is SEO still worth it in 2026, with AI answers in search?

Yes. Google’s AI features draw their sources from Google’s index and rely on the same ranking and quality systems as regular search. A site that ranks well therefore has the best chance of being cited in an AI answer as well. Google also says you can ignore tricks such as llms.txt files or splitting content into chunks for its AI features.

How long does SEO optimisation take to work?

It depends on what changes. Google says some changes take effect within hours and others take several months, and suggests waiting a few weeks before judging whether your work had an effect. A fixed indexing problem often shows quickly. Earning authority on competitive queries takes months of consistent work.

How much does SEO optimisation cost per month?

It depends on the technical condition of your site, its size, the amount of content, the competition and the number of languages or markets. At Viralistic, SEO starts at a few hundred euros per month for a focused programme and grows with scope. Appearing in Google’s organic results is free in itself: Google does not accept payment for rankings.