Before a customer knows you, they usually type something into Google: "custom furniture Baku", "car insurance price", "English course for kids". The first results for these searches often decide who gets the order. SEO is the systematic work of appearing in those results.
In 2026 the picture has shifted: AI Overviews sit above the results, and assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini answer questions directly. But the core logic is the same — the search system tries to find the most helpful, trustworthy answer. SEO makes your website that answer.
In this guide we explain what SEO is, how a search engine finds and ranks a website, the four pillars of SEO and a realistic plan for the first 90 days, with examples from the Azerbaijani market.
Short answer: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) means shaping a website's technical health, content and authority so that search systems like Google understand it correctly and show it in unpaid (organic) results for relevant queries.
What is SEO: a simple definition
SEO is the set of activities that help you appear in the unpaid part of search results. Unlike paid search (SEM, Google Ads), you do not pay per click — instead you invest time, content and technical work.
SEO vs SEM
Our old blog covered these two separately, and the question still comes up often. A short comparison:
| Criterion | SEO (organic) | SEM / Google Ads (paid) |
|---|---|---|
| Payment model | No payment per click | Payment per click or result |
| Speed | Usually months | As soon as the campaign is approved |
| Durability | Traffic stays for a while if work pauses | Visibility stops when the budget ends |
| Best for | Long-term informational and commercial queries | Quick results, tests, seasonal campaigns |
In practice the best results come when both work together: Google Ads quickly shows which keywords sell, and SEO builds long-term unpaid visibility for those queries. See how we run the paid side on our Google Ads service page.
The goal of SEO is not traffic
Traffic is a means. The goal is an action that has value for you: a call, a form, a sale, a sign-up. That is why conversions should be the first metric in an SEO report, with visits second.
How search engines find and rank a website
Google's own documentation describes the process in three stages. For details see Google's SEO Starter Guide.
- Crawling: Googlebot discovers new and updated pages through links and sitemaps.
- Indexing: the page's text, images and structure are analysed and added to the index.
- Serving: when a user searches, the system picks and ranks the most relevant, helpful pages from the index.
This sequence has an important consequence: if a page is not crawled and indexed, the quality of its content does not matter. That is why SEO always starts with a technical check.
What affects ranking
Google uses hundreds of signals and does not publish their exact weights. Its documentation, however, highlights these main directions:
- Relevance: does the page answer the intent behind the query.
- Quality and helpfulness: is the content written for people, with original experience or information.
- Trust (E-E-A-T): signals of experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.
- Page experience: mobile-friendliness, speed, HTTPS, no intrusive pop-ups.
- Context: the user's location, language and device.
You can read Google's view on content quality in its guide to creating helpful content.
The four pillars of SEO
Our old article listed SEO as "10 functional practices". In 2026 it is more practical to group them under four pillars, each with its own owner and checklist.
1. Keyword and intent research
Keyword research means understanding which words customers use and what intent sits behind each query. There are four main intent types: informational ("what is SEO"), navigational ("insure.az login"), commercial ("best SEO agency") and transactional ("buy car insurance online").
Azerbaijani has a specific trait: the same intent arrives in different spellings. "reqemsal marketinq", "rəqəmsal marketinq" and "digital marketing" may be three spellings by the same person. The query list in Search Console is the most reliable way to see these variants.
2. On-page SEO
On-page SEO is work done on the page itself: the title, meta description, H1–H3 structure, text quality, image alt text and internal links. We cover it in detail in our on-page SEO and meta tags guide.
3. Technical SEO
Technical SEO makes sure the site is crawled, indexed and loads fast: robots.txt, sitemap, canonical, hreflang, Core Web Vitals, structured data. The checklist is in our technical SEO article and the speed metrics in our Core Web Vitals guide.
4. Off-page SEO and authority
Off-page SEO is authority built outside your site: links from other trustworthy websites (backlinks), brand mentions, reviews and your Google Business Profile. We explain a safe link strategy in our backlink guide.
If one of the four pillars is weak, the others lose effect too. Great content that is not indexed is invisible; a technically perfect site will not rank without helpful content.
How SEO increases sales
SEO's impact on a business is not measured by "traffic went up". It comes through several routes.
The right audience
A visitor from search has already expressed their problem. Someone typing "office air conditioner installation Baku" is actively looking for a solution, unlike someone who saw your ad by chance.
Product and service pages
When BOFU pages — services, products, pricing — appear for transactional queries, SEO becomes a direct sales channel. Clear pricing information, real photos, delivery terms and a quick contact form help both ranking and conversion.
Blog posts and guides
TOFU and MOFU content — "what is", "how to", comparisons — introduces the brand before the customer decides. This content is also the basis for appearing as a source in AI answers; see our AEO/GEO guide.
Local SEO
For businesses with a physical address, a Google Business Profile with the right category, opening hours, genuine reviews and consistent name-address-phone (NAP) data everywhere is the basis of map visibility.
Keyword research: practical steps
Keyword research is the most often botched stage of SEO: picking the highest-volume word and "sticking" it on the whole site. A better approach is to give each page one main intent and group keywords around it.
1. Start with the data you have
If the site has been live for a while, the Performance report in Search Console is the most valuable source: which queries get impressions but few clicks, which page appears for unexpected queries. These are often the fastest wins, because Google already associates the page with the topic.
2. Expand your seed keywords
Start with 5–10 "seed" words that describe your products and services and expand them with Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs or Semrush. Google's own autocomplete and the "People also ask" box show real questions. The questions your sales and customer service teams hear most should go on the list too.
3. Group by intent
Look at the search results for each keyword: if Google shows blog posts, the intent is informational; if it shows category and product pages, it is commercial. Keywords that return the same results should usually be combined on one page.
4. Build a keyword map
| Page | Main query | Additional queries | Intent |
|---|---|---|---|
| /en/services/seo | seo service | seo agency, website optimisation | Commercial |
| /en/blog/what-is-seo | what is seo | how seo works, search engine optimisation | Informational |
| /en/blog/technical-seo-azerbaijani-search | technical seo | technical seo checklist | Informational / commercial |
The map prevents cannibalisation: when you plan a new post, you check the table first, and if a page for that intent already exists, you strengthen it instead of writing a new one.
Local SEO: Google Business Profile
For a business with a physical address or service area, map results often bring more calls than classic results. Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and prominence (popularity) — see Google Business Profile help.
- Category: choose the primary category that most precisely matches what you do; add secondary categories only for real services.
- NAP consistency: name, address and phone should match on your site, profile and directories.
- Opening hours and holidays: outdated hours mean lost customers and negative reviews.
- Photos and updates: real photos of the place, team and products; profile posts for offers.
- Reviews: ask happy customers for reviews and reply to every review — including negative ones. Fake reviews violate Google's policies.
Adding keywords to the business name (e.g. "Brand — cheapest repairs in Baku") breaks the guidelines and can get the profile suspended. The name should be the real business name.
SEO and AI search: what has changed
Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT search and Perplexity give users a ready answer and cite a few sites as sources. This may mean fewer clicks on some informational queries, but it also creates new visibility for brands that appear as sources.
The good news is that the core work does not change. Google says no special extra optimisation is needed to appear in AI features — indexable, helpful and trustworthy content is the basis for both classic and AI results. What changes is the structure of content: a direct answer to the question, clear H2/H3s, tables and lists, sourced facts.
We explain how we build this and how we measure AI traffic separately in GA4 in our AEO/GEO guide. For the content production process, see our content marketing strategy article.
An SEO plan for the first 90 days
The most common SEO problem is the lack of a plan: a month of writing, then a technical issue appears, then everything stops. The plan below is a realistic starting point for small and medium websites.
| Period | Main work | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Days 1–30 | Connect Search Console and GA4, technical audit, fix indexing issues, keyword map | It is clear which page answers which query |
| Days 31–60 | On-page optimisation of key service/product pages, internal links, Core Web Vitals fixes | BOFU pages are ready |
| Days 61–90 | Content plan (TOFU/MOFU), first guides, Google Business Profile, first link activities | Content flow and measurement are in place |
After 90 days the same cycle repeats monthly: query and page reports in Search Console, refreshing weak pages, new content, and measuring results at the conversion level. We collected the metrics in our marketing KPI article.
Competition and realistic expectations
Competition depends on the niche, and you can roughly assess it yourself: look at the top 10 results for your main queries. If they are dominated by large sites that have been building content and links for years — marketplaces, banks, big chains — competition is high. If you see small and medium sites, or old and weak pages, competition is low-to-medium and results can show sooner. The "keyword difficulty" metric in Ahrefs and Semrush also gives direction, but it is the tool's own calculation.
How to measure results
| Question | Report |
|---|---|
| Is Google indexing the site? | Search Console — Pages |
| Which queries do we appear for? | Search Console — Performance (queries, pages) |
| Does organic traffic bring conversions? | GA4 — key events for the "Organic Search" channel |
| Is brand awareness growing? | Search Console — impressions for queries containing the brand name |
| Are pages fast and stable? | Search Console — Core Web Vitals |
Track branded and non-branded queries separately. Branded queries ("company name + price") usually come to you anyway; the real impact of SEO shows in growth on non-branded queries. The full list of metrics is in our marketing KPI article.
No one can guarantee "first place in a month". Google does not sell rankings — they can only be earned through good work.
The most common SEO mistakes
- Keyword stuffing: artificially repeating a phrase. It goes against Google's spam policies.
- Several pages for one query: posts on the same topic compete with each other (cannibalisation).
- Paid link packages: "hundreds of backlinks for a low price" offers go against Google's link scheme policy and create risk.
- English-only content: no AZ version for an Azerbaijani-speaking audience.
- Work without measurement: SEO without Search Console and conversion tracking.
- Forgetting redirects during a site move: old URLs return 404 and their accumulated value is lost.
The last point was relevant for us too: when we moved from our old WordPress site, we 301-redirected every old address to the matching new page. This article is the updated version of one of those old posts.
Our SEO guides
This article is the general SEO guide. We cover each area in a separate article:
Frequently asked questions
What is SEO?
SEO (search engine optimisation) is the work of improving a website's technical health, content and authority so it appears more often, and for more relevant queries, in the unpaid results of search engines like Google.
How long does SEO take to show results?
It depends on the site's age, competition and the amount of work. Technical fixes sometimes show within weeks; competitive queries usually take months. Be careful with offers that promise an exact timeline.
SEO or Google Ads — which should I choose?
Google Ads if you need quick results and testing; SEO if you need long-term unpaid visibility. For most businesses the best approach is both: ad data makes keyword choices for SEO easier.
Can I do SEO myself?
You can do the basics yourself — connect Search Console, write titles and meta descriptions, create helpful content. For technical audits, large sites and competitive niches, an experienced specialist saves time and mistakes.
Is SEO still relevant now that AI has changed search?
Yes. AI Overviews and ChatGPT search rely heavily on the search index and the same quality signals when choosing sources. Good SEO is also the foundation for appearing in AI answers.
Which tools should I start with?
Google Search Console (free) and GA4 are the minimum. Tools like Ahrefs or Semrush help with keyword and link analysis, and crawlers like Screaming Frog with technical audits.
Conclusion
SEO is not a one-off project but a continuous process: a technical foundation, intent-matched content, trust signals and measurement. When these four work together, organic traffic becomes one of the most cost-effective channels over time.
The simplest first step is to connect Search Console and see which queries you already appear for. If you want to learn it systematically, we also run an SEO course.
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