SEO basics in 1 hour

Most “SEO experts” charge $1,500/month to do work you can do in 1 hour. Here’s the minimum.

15 min: Install RankMath SEO (free)

WordPress: Plugins → Add New → “Rank Math SEO” → Install + Activate. Skip the setup wizard for now (or click through with defaults). This unlocks per-page SEO fields.

15 min: Title + meta for every page

Per page:

• SEO Title (60 chars max): include the keyword you want to rank for + your brand name
• Meta description (155 chars max): a compelling 1-2 sentence summary that makes someone click
• URL slug: short, keyword-rich, no stop words. /startup-launch not /the-best-startup-launch-services-for-you

Don’t skip pages. Every published page needs these three things.

10 min: Schema markup

RankMath does this automatically once you tell it your business type. Go to RankMath → Titles & Meta → Local SEO → enter business info. It outputs Organization + LocalBusiness schema.

For blog posts, RankMath adds Article schema automatically. For service pages, manually set the Schema type to “Service.”

5 min: Sitemap

RankMath auto-generates a sitemap at /sitemap_index.xml. Submit it to:

• Google Search Console
• Bing Webmaster Tools (import from GSC, 1-click)

10 min: Internal linking

Open each main page. Add 2-3 links to other pages on your site using descriptive anchor text. “Learn how it works” → /how-it-works. Not “click here.”

Internal links help search engines understand your site structure + spread page authority.

5 min: Open Graph + Twitter cards

RankMath sets these automatically based on your meta description. Upload a default OG image (1200×630) in RankMath → Titles & Meta → Social Meta.

What you can skip (for now)

• Backlink building (slow, expensive, do later)
• Core Web Vitals optimization (LiteSpeed Cache handles 80% of it for free)
• Hreflang tags (only if you do multilingual)
• AMP (Google doesn’t prioritize it anymore)

Total time: ~1 hour. You’ll outrank 80% of competitors who skip the basics.