THATBlog

If you want more people to find your business online, you need to understand the basic principles of SEO. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) helps your website show up when people search for things like “best coffee shop near me” or “affordable web design.”

At THAT Agency, we’ve spent over 20 years helping businesses turn their websites into lead-generating machines. We’ve seen what works and what doesn’t when it comes to SEO, and we regularly break these lessons down across resources like our guide on SEO principles for campaign success and our deeper look at building an effective SEO content strategy.

Whether you're new to digital marketing or looking to clean up your strategy, this guide will walk you through the core SEO principles that every marketer, business owner, or decision-maker should know.

Why SEO Still Matters in 2026

SEO isn’t going away. If anything, it’s more important now than ever before. With billions of searches happening every day, SEO is how your business gets found, by real people, at the exact moment they’re looking for answers, solutions, or services like yours. Many of the changes shaping modern search are covered in our breakdown of SEO trends in 2026 and how AI is influencing visibility.

Here’s why SEO remains one of the smartest marketing investments you can make:

• Over 8.5 billion Google searches happen every day
• 53% of all website traffic comes from organic search
• SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, compared to just 1.7% for outbound leads like cold calling, a difference we explain further in inbound leads vs outbound leads

Unlike paid ads, SEO doesn’t stop working when your budget runs out. It builds long-term visibility, drives consistent traffic, and strengthens your overall digital footprint.

What’s changed in 2026? Search engines are smarter. They now understand natural language, user behavior, and intent better than ever. And with AI tools like Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) shaping how results are shown, high-quality, well-structured content has a better chance to appear in answer boxes, summaries, and AI snapshots.

That means if your content is clear, fast-loading, and genuinely helpful, you’ll show up where users, and machines, are looking. If you want to understand these shifts better, our guides on zero-click searches, voice search optimization, and LLM optimization for AI search are essential reading.

The 5 Basic Principles of SEO

These basic principles of SEO aren’t trendy. They’re timeless. Master these and you’ll create a strong foundation for long-term growth, whether you’re optimizing a blog, product page, or your full website.

1. Relevance: Give People What They’re Actually Searching For

Search engines want to match users with the best possible result. That means your content needs to be highly relevant, not just to keywords, but to the real intent behind them.

For example:

• A search for “emergency plumber near me” needs a local service page, not a plumbing blog. Our industry-specific guides like SEO for plumbers and SEO for electricians show how intent varies by trade.
• A search for “how to file for trademark protection” should lead to a step-by-step guide, not a homepage, similar to how we approach law firm internet marketing and our law firm marketing checklist.

To improve relevance:

• Use tools like Google Search Console, Semrush, or AnswerThePublic to find real user queries
• Align each page with one clear purpose (don’t try to target too many keywords at once)
• Map your content to the buyer journey: awareness, consideration, or decision
• Study competitors using competitive content analysis

Why it matters: Google is constantly testing which results users click on, how long they stay, and whether they return. Relevance keeps them on your site and sends positive signals that improve rankings.

2. Crawlability: Make It Easy for Google to Find and Understand Your Site

Crawlability is how well search engines can access, scan, and index your website. If your pages can’t be crawled, they won’t rank, no matter how good the content is.

Crawlability checklist:

• Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console
• Fix broken links and redirect old URLs properly
• Use clean internal links (avoid dead ends or loops)
• Don’t block pages with robots.txt or noindex tags by mistake

According to Ahrefs, 90.63% of all pages get no traffic from Google. Many of them are invisible because they’re not crawlable or indexed. Internal linking plays a major role here, especially when paired with smart content clusters like those we outline in the B2B content marketing guide.

Structure your site like a pyramid, home at the top, main sections below, and supporting content underneath. Use internal links to connect everything naturally.

3. Quality Content: Be Helpful, Not Just Wordy

Content is the heart of SEO. But Google doesn’t reward long content, it rewards useful content. Quality means giving readers clear, actionable answers in a format they can easily understand.

Strong SEO content includes:

• A focused headline that reflects the topic
• Subheadings to break up sections
• Bullet points for fast reading
• Real examples, stats, or FAQs
• A call to action or next step

The average top-ranking page on Google has 1,447–1,584 words (Backlinko), but length alone doesn’t guarantee results. Relevance, originality, and clarity matter more. This approach applies whether you are writing about creative marketing campaign ideas, branding for interior designers, or Google Ads for car dealerships.

Avoid:

• Fluff and filler
• Duplicate or AI-spun content
• Overuse of keywords that sound unnatural

Pro tip: If you’re writing for real people first and optimizing second, you’re already ahead of most competitors.

4. Authority: Build Trust with Links That Matter

Google uses backlinks (links from other websites to yours) as a way to measure trust. The more high-quality sites that link to you, the more authority your site gains. Authority also supports brand recognition, which we break down further in what brand recognition really means.

Ways to build authority:

• Create useful guides or research worth linking to
• Pitch articles or insights to trade publications or blogs
• Get listed in local directories and trusted business sites
• Collaborate with partners to share audiences and content

Pages in the top 3 Google results have 3.8x more backlinks than those in positions 4–10 (Ahrefs). 

Not all links are equal:

• One backlink from a respected site in your industry is worth more than 100 low-quality directory links
• Avoid buying links, it violates Google’s guidelines and can hurt rankings

5. User Experience: Don’t Make Visitors Work to Stay

If your website is slow, confusing, or hard to use, people leave, and Google notices.

User experience (UX) is now a ranking factor, especially with the rollout of Core Web Vitals. These metrics measure real user performance: page speed, visual stability, and interactivity.

Focus on:

• Page speed: aim for 3 seconds or less
• Mobile optimization: over 60% of searches come from mobile
• Simple site structure: users should find what they need in 2 clicks
• Clean design: avoid clutter, autoplay videos, or pop-ups that block content

Supporting SEO Principles That Take You Further

Once you’ve mastered the basics, it’s time to level up. These extra SEO principles help boost visibility, improve engagement, and give you a competitive edge, especially in more crowded industries.

1. Internal Linking: Guide Users and Strengthen SEO

Internal linking is about connecting pages on your own site. It helps visitors explore more content and gives search engines a clearer picture of how everything fits together. Our guide on schema markup for SEO explains how structured data improves visibility in rich results and AI-driven summaries.

Why it matters:

• It improves site navigation and keeps users on your site longer
• It passes page authority (or “link juice”) to help key pages rank higher
• It helps Google understand which pages are most important

How to do it well:

• Link blog posts to relevant service or product pages
• Use descriptive anchor text like “SEO strategy tips,” not “click here”
• Avoid orphan pages, every page should link to (and from) at least one other

Pro tip: Add internal links naturally where it helps the reader. Don’t overdo it just to check a box.

2. Schema Markup: Speak Google’s Language

Schema markup (also called structured data) helps search engines understand your content beyond just reading text. It adds context to things like reviews, articles, FAQs, and events.

Ever seen these in search results?

• Star ratings
• FAQs under a listing
• Event times or product availability

That’s schema in action.

Top schema types to consider:

• FAQ schema to display common questions in search results
• Article schema for blog content
• LocalBusiness schema to improve local visibility

Helpful tools: You don’t need to code from scratch. Plugins like RankMath, Yoast, or generators from Schema.org make it easier to apply schema to your pages.

Why it helps: Rich results make your listing stand out. More visibility means higher click-through rates, even if you’re not in the top spot.

3. Local SEO: Show Up in the Right Places

If your business serves a city or specific region, local SEO is essential. Ranking well in your service area helps you reach customers who are nearby and ready to buy.

Key steps for strong local SEO:

• Set up and fully optimize your Google Business Profile
• Use local keywords naturally (e.g., “Palm Beach marketing agency”)
• Create location-specific landing pages with unique content
• Get listed in online directories like Yelp, BBB, and industry-specific sites

46% of all Google searches are looking for local information (HubSpot). If you’re not optimized locally, you’re invisible to nearly half of searchers.

Make sure your Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) are consistent across all platforms. Inconsistencies can hurt your local rankings.

How long does SEO take to work? You might notice small improvements in 1 to 3 months, but steady results usually take around 6 months. SEO is a long game, not a quick fix.

Do I need a blog for SEO? Not always, but it helps a lot. Blogs give you more opportunities to answer customer questions, rank for new keywords, and show your expertise.

Is SEO better than paid ads? They’re better together. SEO builds long-term trust and organic traffic, while paid ads give quick visibility. Most successful brands use both to balance cost and performance.

Can I do SEO without a developer? Yes, for content, keywords, links, and local SEO. But a developer helps with things like page speed, mobile fixes, schema, and site structure. You can go far without one, but they’ll take you further.

Do I need to update my content regularly? Yes. Search engines prioritize fresh, accurate content. Regular updates show Google that your site is active and relevant, especially for topics that change over time.

Build Your SEO Foundation the Right Way

Understanding the basic principles of SEO helps you build a strategy that actually works. You don’t need to know every Google update, but you should know what search engines (and people) care about.

Start with:

• Relevant content that matches what people are searching for
• A website that’s fast, easy to use, and easy to find
• A plan to earn trust through content and links
• A process to review and improve over time

At THAT Agency, we help businesses turn SEO into a predictable growth channel, not a guessing game. Our strategies are built to attract qualified traffic, convert intent, and support long-term revenue goals.

Explore our SEO services to see how a structured, data-driven approach can support your next phase of growth.