Understanding your businesses is the most important element of a successful SEO campaign.

After 20 years working in digital marketing, I’ve learnt that some of the most important SEO work happens before you even open an SEO tool.

It happens when you sit down with a business owner, talk to their salespeople, understand their customers and work out what actually makes the business money.

Because getting more traffic to a website is great. But getting the right people to your website, and turning them into customers? That’s what really matters.

At TwoTwoSix Digital, our approach to SEO comes down to three things: Understand the business. Do the tech. Smash the content.

It sounds simple, but there’s a fair bit that goes into each stage. Here’s how we approach it.

Step 1: Understand the Business (Before Touching the Website)

One of the biggest mistakes I see in SEO is jumping straight into keyword research without understanding the business behind the website.

We prefer to start by talking to the people who know the business best: the owner, marketing team, key salespeople and, where possible, the people delivering the products or services.

Who are your customers? We want to understand their demographics, locations, interests, needs and buying behaviours.

What are you selling? Which products and services matter most? Which categories generate the most revenue, and which have the greatest potential for growth?

Who are your competitors? What are they doing well, and how aggressively are they investing in SEO and digital marketing?

What does success look like? More enquiries, more online sales, higher-quality leads or growth in particular services?

This information helps us make better decisions about where to invest our time and your marketing budget. There’s little point chasing a high-volume keyword if the traffic doesn’t translate into profitable customers.

Good SEO starts with good business strategy.

Step 2: Do the Tech (Get the Foundations Right)

Now we get into the technical stuff. Technical SEO isn’t always the most exciting part of digital marketing, but it’s incredibly important.

A website needs to be accessible, crawlable, fast, well-structured and easy for search engines to understand. With AI-powered search becoming increasingly important, clear website structure and accessible content matter more than ever.

Technical website audit

We review the website’s health, crawlability, indexation, performance, mobile usability, structured data and potential technical issues.

Fixing the SEO 101s

Broken links, redirect issues, duplicate content, incorrect canonical tags, missing metadata and indexing problems all get reviewed and prioritised.

Analytics and tracking

We make sure Google Analytics, Google Search Console and relevant conversion tracking are configured properly. Because if we’re going to improve performance, we need to measure what actually matters.

Website architecture and navigation

We review XML sitemaps, menus, footer navigation, pagination and internal linking to help visitors and search engines discover important content.

We also consider how AI search tools can access and interpret the website. That includes clear content structure and appropriate structured data, rather than assuming a special AI sitemap will magically improve rankings.

The goal is simple: build a technically sound website that supports everything else we’re about to do.

Step 3: Smash the Content (This Is Where It Gets Interesting)

Once we understand the business and have the technical foundations in place, we can really get moving. This is where research, strategy and content come together.

Keyword Research and Mapping

We research how potential customers search for the products, services and information the business provides. But we don’t just build a massive list of keywords and call it a strategy.

We group keywords and search queries into relevant themes, consider search intent and map those themes to appropriate pages on the website. If there’s no suitable page, we identify an opportunity to create one. We prioritise keywords based on business value, not just search volume.

Optimising Existing Website Content

We review and improve page titles, meta descriptions, main and supporting headings, product and service descriptions, FAQs, internal links and relevant structured data.

The objective isn’t to stuff keywords into every available space. It’s to create useful, relevant content that answers real customer questions and helps people make informed buying decisions.

Image and Video Optimisation

Images and videos are often overlooked in SEO. We review descriptive filenames, alt text, captions, video titles, transcripts, loading performance and relevant metadata to improve accessibility, discoverability and the overall user experience.

Building a Content Strategy

We develop a list of articles and resources that support the products, services and search themes we’re targeting: answers to customer questions, product comparisons, buying guides, industry insights, service explainers, location-specific information and customer stories.

We then build a realistic publishing schedule. The aim isn’t to publish content for the sake of publishing content. It’s to create resources that genuinely help potential customers and strengthen the website’s authority across important topics.

Increasingly, this also means thinking about how people use ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI tools to research businesses and make purchasing decisions. We want our clients to be discoverable wherever their customers are looking.

Step 4: Build Authority and Trust

Even the best website content needs credibility. That’s where backlinks, citations, local SEO and brand consistency come into play.

Backlinks and Website Authority

We review the website’s existing backlink profile, identify relevant opportunities and develop a plan to earn quality links through industry publications, relevant directories, partnerships, digital PR and genuinely useful content.

We’re interested in quality, not simply chasing thousands of links. We also review suspicious backlinks, although not every spammy-looking link needs to be removed or disavowed. Google already ignores many low-quality links, and disavowal is generally reserved for specific situations involving problematic link-building practices.

Local SEO

For businesses targeting customers in particular areas, local SEO can be incredibly valuable. We review and optimise Google Business Profiles, including business categories, services, products, photos, business information and relevant updates.

We also assess local competitors, review opportunities and location-based search visibility. Where appropriate, we create genuinely useful location-specific service pages to connect businesses with customers in target suburbs, cities and regions.

Brand Consistency

Your website isn’t the only place people discover your business. We review social media profiles, business descriptions, contact information and links to ensure the brand is represented consistently across relevant platforms.

Step 5: Measure, Learn and Keep Improving

SEO isn’t a one-off job. Once the foundations, content and authority-building activities are underway, we monitor performance and refine the strategy.

We look at organic traffic, keyword visibility, local search performance, enquiries, conversions and, wherever possible, revenue. We also review visibility in relevant AI-powered search experiences, particularly where those appearances can influence enquiries or sales.

Because ranking number one for a keyword that generates no business isn’t necessarily a win. Our job is to connect SEO activity with actual business outcomes.

SEO Should Make Sense to the Business Owner

I’ve always believed that business owners should understand what they’re paying for when it comes to digital marketing. Yes, SEO can be technical. Yes, algorithms change. And yes, achieving meaningful results takes time and ongoing work. But the strategy should never be a mystery.

At TwoTwoSix Digital, we work closely with our clients to understand their business, explain what we’re doing and show how the work supports their goals.

We’re not interested in producing reports full of impressive-looking numbers that don’t mean anything to the people running the business. We’re interested in helping businesses grow.

Understand the business. Do the tech. Smash the content. Then measure what matters, keep learning and continue improving.

If you’re looking for an SEO partner who wants to understand your business as much as your website, we’d love to have a chat.

Dave Pocock | Director, TwoTwoSix Digital | www.twotwosixdigital.com.au