How to Make Your Website SEO-Friendly

In my last blog post, I went over the basics of what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is and why it’s important. In short, SEO is about helping your website appear in search engine results without paying for ads. It's free, but it takes time and effort to do it well.
This post is all about how to actually improve your website's SEO, based on what I’ve learned in my Web Business Creation class.

Step 1: Do a Website SEO Audit
Start by seeing how your website is doing right now. There are free tools that will give you a report card and suggestions for improvement. Two easy ones to try:

• websitegrader.com
• grademywebsite.com

These tools look at things like how fast your site loads, whether it’s mobile-friendly, and whether your keywords are in the right places.

Step 2: Choose Strong Keywords
Keywords are the words people type into Google when they’re looking for something. Think about what your target customer would search for—not technical or “insider” terms, but real words they would actually type.
Each page should focus on one or two keyword phrases. For example, if you’re selling bowls, maybe one page could target “handmade ceramic bowls,” and another could focus on “rustic pottery dinnerware.”

Step 3: Optimize Your Pages (On-Page SEO)
Once you have your keywords, you’ll need to place them naturally in:

• The page title
• The URL
• The first paragraph of text
• The image alt tags
• Headings 
• The meta description

Your goal is to make it clear what the page is about—without stuffing the page full of keywords. It should still read naturally.

Step 4: Build Backlinks (Off-Page SEO)
Backlinks are when other websites link to your website. Google sees this as a sign that your content is valuable. Getting backlinks is harder to do, but here are a couple of ideas:

• Guest Blogging – Write a blog post for someone else’s website and link back to yours.
• Collaboration – Work with other small businesses or artists and link to each other’s websites.

Backlinks carry a lot of weight in Google’s ranking system, so even just a few quality ones can make a big difference.

Using Weebly?
Here’s How to Apply SEO on Your SiteIf you're building your website on Weebly (like I am), the good news is that it's beginner-friendly when it comes to SEO—but there are a few places you’ll need to go to update everything properly.
Here’s how to apply some of the SEO basics directly in Weebly:

Page Titles & Meta Descriptions

• Go to Pages > click the page you want to edit > click the SEO Settings
• Add your Page Title (this shows in Google results)
• Add a Meta Description (brief summary that encourages people to click)

Custom URLs

• In that same SEO Settings area, you can also create a Custom URL. Use your keywords and keep it short (like /ceramic-bowls instead of something random or too long).

Image Alt Text

• When you upload an image, click on it and choose Advanced.
• Add a simple Alt Text using your keywords (e.g., “handmade ceramic plate”)

Header Tags

• Use Text Elements on the page and style them with the H1, H2, H3 tags. Make sure each page has one clear H1 heading with your main keyword.

Blog SEO

• For blog posts, Weebly also lets you set an individual Post Title, Meta Description, and Permalink—all under Post Options at the bottom of your left side menue when editing the post.

These small steps inside Weebly make a big difference when it comes to helping Google understand and rank your site.

Bonus: Want to See How Google Sees Your Website?
Here’s a trick I learned: type "site:[yourwebsite.com]" (the quotation marks are key) into Google (replace with your own domain). This shows you which of your pages are included in Google’s index.

Hopefully this gives you a solid roadmap to improving your SEO—even if you’re just getting started like I am.