Expert Guide

Updated 2025

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

A Strategic Guide to Drive Sustainable Organic Growth

Master the art and science of SEO. From technical foundations to AI-ready content, discover how to build durable organic visibility that compounds over time.

Written by

Mihir Harchekar

Reading time

10 min read

Last updated

Oct 9, 2025

Concept

What Is SEO?

SEO is the strategic process of increasing a brand’s visibility across all major organic discovery channels; from Google Search to YouTube Shorts, App Stores (iOS and Android), Marketplaces like Amazon, and AI Platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.

Modern SEO ensures your brand appears wherever users search; whether they’re looking for answers, products, or solutions. The primary goal? To capture high-intent users, drive measurable actions, and build compounding brand equity over time.

Real Impact

Why is SEO Important for Growth Marketing?

The digital landscape is noisier than ever. Customers trust brands they find – not just the ones that chase them.

Cost-Effective Acquisition

SEO is a high-leverage growth channel; compounding over time to deliver strong ROI and lower CAC compared to paid media.

ROI Doesn’t Expire

Well-executed content and backlinks drive ongoing traffic, leads, and visibility (with zero ongoing media spend)

Full-Funnel Reach

Reach users at every stage:
Educate during awareness, influence during evaluation, and convert during decision-making.

Cross-Platform Discovery

Search has moved beyond Google. Platforms like Perplexity, ChatGPT, and other AI assistants are now key touch-points for discovery.

Framework

The 4 Core Pillars of SEO

A comprehensive framework for building sustainable organic visibility.

Technical SEO

The structural foundation of discoverability.

Crawlability & Indexability

Ensures search engines can access and list your site pages by using signals from robots.txt, sitemaps, meta tags etc.

Core Web Vitals (CWV)

Measures how fast, responsive, and stable your pages are for real users.

Mobile-First & Accessibility

Makes sure your site works flawlessly on mobile devices and is usable by everyone, including those with disabilities.

Structured Data & Rich Snippets

Adds code that helps search engines understand your content and display enhanced results (Stars, Prices, etc.)

Internationalisation (Hreflang)

Helps serve the right language or regional version of your site to the right users, while avoiding duplicate content issues.

Page Experience Signals

Focuses on site security (HTTPS), clean design, and avoiding annoying elements like pop-ups that hurt user trust and engagement.

Content SEO

Content is not just king, it's a global currency.

Pillar Pages & Topic Clusters

Structure content like a hub – one core page + supporting pages. Builds authority and improves internal linking for SEO.

Product-Led Blogs & Buying Guides

Solve user pain points and tie in your product as the solution (Design for bottom-funnel action)

Visual Explainers & Infographics

Quick-scan formats that work great for SEO, sharing, and backlinks. Especially effective in crowded or technical niches.

Expert Commentary & First-Party Insights

Real voices. Real data. This is what separates you from AI-generated noise. Great for trust and brand building.

Q&A & How-To Content

Built to show up in “People Also Ask,” featured snippets, and AI answers. It’s not just what you say; it’s how cleanly it’s structured for search.

Content Refresh & Optimisation Cycles

Updating old blogs, reworking underperforming pages, and aligning with new search trends keeps your content compounding & not decaying.

On-Page SEO

Precision tuning for every page to signal relevance and context.

Meta-Title & Descriptions

These act as your ad copy in search; write them to drive clicks, not just match keywords.

Header Tags & Keyword Placement

Place primary keywords where Google and users look first (Title, H1, H2s, First 100 Words); this helps build relevance and boost rankings.

URL Structure & Canonicalization

Keep URLs tidy, keyword-rich, and avoid duplication issues with proper canonical tagging.

Internal Linking

Link pages with intent to guide users, pass SEO value, and strengthen site architecture.

Image Optimisation

Helps with load speed, accessibility, and gives search engines more context on visuals.

Above-the-Fold Optimisation

First screen should load fast, explain value instantly, and trigger action.

Off Page SEO

Authority, trust, and signals of external validation.

Digital PR Campaigns

Earn links by inserting your brand into relevant conversations with timely, expert-driven stories (thought leadership, newsjacking)

Linkable Assets

Create high-value content others want to cite — tools, data hubs, original insights.

Guest Publishing

Share expertise on trusted industry sites to build links and brand credibility.

Brand Mentions & Unlinked Attribution

Track where you’re mentioned online and turn those into earned backlinks.

Partner Ecosystem Linking

Leverage vendors, clients, and co-marketing relationships to build natural backlinks.

Content Collaborations & Roundups

Co-create content with influencers or include them in expert roundups, they’ll often link back or amplify it.

Clarity

Simplifying the SEO Jargons for Everyone

With the rise of AI, generative search, and voice-based discovery, the SEO space is flooded with new acronyms.

Term

Full Form

What It Really Means

Strategic Lens

SEO

Search Engine Optimisation

The foundational method of increasing organic visibility on platforms like Google, YouTube, Bing, and more

Strategic Lens

Term	Full Form	What It Really Means	Focus Areas
SEO	Search Engine Optimisation	The foundational method of increasing organic visibility on platforms like Google, YouTube, Bing, and more.	Still the core – durable, compounding, high-intent traffic.
GEO	Generative Engine Optimisation	Optimising for AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, etc.	Focus on citations, first-party expertise, structured content, brand mentions.
AEO	Answer Engine Optimisation	Structuring content to be featured in PAA, voice assistants, and zero-click formats.	Prioritise schema, concise answers, featured snippet strategies.
LLMO	Large Language Model Optimisation	Making your content LLM-digestible and ‘citable’.	Create expert-backed, unambiguous, high-trust content with consistent branding.
AIO	Artificial Intelligence Optimisation	Broad term for preparing content and structure for AI interpretation.	Covers schema, FAQs, brand voice, trust layers, and verified sources.

Agencies love shiny labels. Marketers love trend cycles. But here’s the truth:

The core of SEO hasn’t changed — it’s still about being discoverable, relevant, authoritative, and fast. What’s changing are the surface layers i.e the platforms, formats, and algorithms.

These acronyms aren’t wrong. But they’re not replacements. They’re tactical extensions & ways to align traditional SEO with evolving user behaviour.

Methodology

How to Develop a Winning SEO Strategy?

Maximise Search Visibility

Ensure your site is structured for discovery across Google, YouTube, Maps, and AI tools with technical SEO, AEO, CWV, and entity clarity all baked in.

Create Performance Assets

Build content that aligns with search intent, performs across platforms, and compounds over time; from product pages to blog ecosystems.

Optimise for Conversions

Apply CRO principles to all entry points; from messaging to layout to CTAs. Design experiences that guide users toward action across funnel stages.

Build Scalable Authority

Grow your domain authority via backlinks, digital PR, reviews, and brand mentions. Every signal should be aligned with your entity, niche, and expertise.

Decide with Data

Connect GA4, GSC, Looker dashboards, and heatmaps into a unified feedback loop revealing what’s working, what’s not, and where the growth lies.

Adapt to Search & Customer Behaviour

Constantly test, refresh, and optimise based on how users behave and how search platforms evolve.

Measurement

Success Metrics to Evaluate SEO Performance

Search Surface Coverage

Tracks visibility across multiple surfaces – Google, YouTube, and AI assistant platforms. Expand traditional SEO tracking into the modern multi-surface discovery landscape.

Assisted Conversions

Tracks conversions that begin with organic search but complete via other channels. Reflects how SEO pages contribute to the conversion journey.

Channel Efficiency

Assesses the percentage contribution of organic search to total leads or revenue, compared to other channels. Helps quantify SEO’s role in bottom-line impact.

Market Share (Share of Voice)

Evaluate how your brand ranks across high-intent keywords, categories, compared to competitors. Indicates competitive positioning and category dominance.

Final Thoughts

The Mindset Shift SEO Requires

SEO isn’t a checkbox — it’s a long-term growth engine with compounding returns when done right. The brands winning today are the ones treating SEO as a core capability, not a one-off project or outsourced afterthought.

Whether you’re a Founder, CMO, or Growth Marketer, your SEO efforts should map directly to business outcomes: increasing qualified traffic, strengthening brand visibility, generating pipeline, and building long-term customer trust.

SEO is not just about rankings; it’s about showing up at the right moment, for the right audience, with a message that converts.

Ready to Scale Organic Growth?

Let’s audit your current SEO foundation and build a strategy that compounds over time.