Get customers · Lesson 4.3
10 AI SEO Strategies to Try, From Simple to Advanced
Most advice on AI SEO is a long list with no sense of order. Here are ten tactics, ranked from the ones you can do in an hour to the ones that need more care. You do not need all ten. The last section helps you pick two and start.
I have not attached made up results to any of them. Each tactic includes a small example of what it looks like and how you would know it is working. The full method sits behind Lesson 4.3.
Pick two tactics, do them well, check them in a month. Ten half done tactics teach you nothing.
1. Write down the questions buyers ask
Collect ten real questions from calls, emails and messages. Example: "Can I pay in instalments?" "How long does it take?" This list drives every other tactic. If you only do one thing, do this.
2. Use Google suggestions as a free question source
Type the start of a question and read the suggested endings. Look through the related questions shown on the results page. These are phrasings real people use. You will find wording you would never have chosen.
3. Ask an AI chat app what a buyer would want to know
Describe your business and your buyer, then ask for the questions a careful buyer would ask before choosing. Treat the output as a prompt for ideas. Cross out anything that is not relevant to your actual buyers.
4. Answer in the first two sentences
For each question page, put the short answer right under the heading, then expand. Example: heading "How long does a website take to build?" first line "Most small business sites take [your real range], depending on how fast you send content." Fill the brackets with your own true range. A direct opening is easy for a reader to scan, and it gives Google clean page text to build a snippet from.
5. Use the buyer's own words in headings
If customers say "tidy up" and you write "optimise," match them. Headings written as questions help. Check by reading the heading aloud: would a person say that?
6. Add your name, place and offer in plain text
Put who you are, where you work and what you do on the page, not just in an image or a logo. Text is what both readers and search systems can read most reliably. A short "About" paragraph, repeated consistently across your site and profiles, helps.
7. Add the basic tags
Give every page a descriptive, concise title (no vague "Home"), a description, logical headings and image descriptions (alt text, which Google says it uses to understand images). Most website builders have fields for these. If a field is empty, fill it in. This is a one hour job for a small site.
8. Add structured data
Structured data is a labelled block of facts that tells search tools what a page contains, for example your business details or a set of questions and answers. Many builders offer it as a setting. If yours does not, ask AI to produce the block in JSON-LD, the format Google recommends, then test it with Google's Rich Results Test before you publish. Google does not show FAQ rich results for most sites, so do not expect question markup to change how your page looks.
9. Get mentioned on other trusted sites
Being mentioned elsewhere is good for business whatever any search system does, so treat it as ordinary reputation building and not a ranking trick. Realistic steps: a complete profile on the directories in your trade, a local business listing, a guest piece for a partner, and asking happy customers for a review. Do not buy or sell links to influence rankings: Google's spam policies list link spam as a violation.
10. Check monthly and improve the weakest page
Each month, ask your ten questions in Google and a couple of AI chat apps, note who is named, and check Search Console. Then pick the weakest page and improve it. Nothing else on this list beats a habit of looking.
How to choose your first two
Use this table to decide.
| Tactic | Effort | Good first move if |
|---|---|---|
| 1 and 4 | Low | You have a site but vague pages |
| 2 and 3 | Low | You do not know what to write about |
| 5 and 6 | Low | Your text is full of jargon |
| 7 and 8 | Medium | Your pages read fine but are not showing up |
| 9 | High | Your pages are good and you still get no mentions |
| 10 | Low, repeating | Always |
For most small businesses, tactics 1 and 4 together are the best start: know the questions, answer them directly.
What not to do
- Do not publish dozens of thin pages written by AI. Google's spam policy on scaled content abuse covers many pages made mainly to manipulate rankings, including with AI.
- Do not hide text or stuff keywords. Google's spam policies list both.
- Do not claim awards, numbers or customers you cannot show.
A four week plan using these tactics
Here is one way to sequence the tactics if you are starting from nothing. It is a suggestion, not a tested schedule.
- Week one: tactics 1 to 3. Build your list of ten questions and choose the five closest to a sale.
- Week two: tactics 4 and 5. Rewrite the page for your top question so it opens with the answer and uses the buyer's words.
- Week three: tactics 6 and 7. Add your name, place and offer in plain text and fill in the tags on every page you touched.
- Week four: tactics 8 and 10. Add structured data if your builder allows it, then run your first monthly check and write down the baseline.
Tactic 9, getting mentioned elsewhere, runs in the background. Spend twenty minutes a month on it, such as completing one directory profile or sending one review request.
How to tell a tactic is working
Each tactic should leave a trace you can see. After tactic 4, the top of your page should read as a standalone answer. After tactic 7, every page you edited should have a filled title and description in the page source. After tactic 10, you should have a dated row in a sheet. If you cannot point to the trace, you have not finished the tactic. Outcomes such as clicks or mentions take longer and cannot be promised, so judge your effort by the traces first and the outcomes later.
Questions people ask
Questions people ask
Which tactic matters most?
Answering real questions clearly. The rest supports that.
Do these work for AI chat apps too?
Google says its AI features use the same SEO best practices and need no special optimization. Other apps set their own rules, and no one controls what an AI app says. Treat it as raising your chances, not guaranteeing a mention.
Can I do this alone?
Yes. Most of it is writing and checking, and needs no code.
Next step
Choose two tactics, put them on your calendar this week, and set a reminder for a month's time to check. The full set of steps is in Lesson 4.3, and the AI SEO framework gives you a repeatable weekly routine.