SEO Fundamentals

The technical foundation that AI Readiness builds upon. Before worrying about AI systems, your website needs solid technical health — if search engines can't crawl your site properly, AI systems will struggle too.

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Core SEO Elements

These are the essential technical elements every business website needs. Each one contributes to how search engines and AI systems understand your content.

Title Tags

The Most Important On-Page Element

Appears in browser tabs, search results, and is one of the first things both search engines and AI systems read. Keep under 60 characters, include your keyword and business name, and make each page unique.

Meta Descriptions

Your Page Summary

A concise summary of what each page offers. AI systems frequently reference them to understand page content. Keep between 120–160 characters with a clear call-to-action.

Heading Structure

H1–H6 Hierarchy

Headings create a logical outline of your page content. Use exactly one H1 per page, H2 for major sections, H3 for sub-sections. Never skip heading levels.

HTTPS Security

Secure Connection

HTTPS encrypts the connection between your website and visitors. Google uses it as a ranking signal, and AI systems may deprioritise insecure sites. Look for the padlock icon in your browser.

Mobile-Friendliness

Responsive Design

More than half of web traffic comes from mobile. Google uses mobile-first indexing — it primarily uses the mobile version of your site for ranking. Text must be readable without zooming.

Page Speed

Core Web Vitals

Slow pages frustrate users and hurt rankings. Optimise images with WebP format, minimise CSS and JavaScript, use browser caching. Aim for PageSpeed scores above 90.

Internal Linking

Internal links connect your pages and help search engines discover your site structure. They also help AI systems map relationships between your content.

Link related pages to each other naturally within content
Use descriptive anchor text (not "click here")
Ensure every important page is linked from at least one other page
Fix any broken internal links

Structured Data (Schema Markup)

Schema markup is where SEO and AI Readiness directly overlap. Structured data provides explicit, machine-readable information about your business, services, products and content.

This is so important that we have a dedicated guide:

Schema Markup Explained →

How to Check Your SEO

Free Audit

Interon's AI Readiness Audit checks title tags, meta descriptions, heading structure and more — instantly.

View Page Source

Right-click → View Page Source. Search for <title> and <meta> tags to see your metadata.

PageSpeed Insights

Google's PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev) measures loading performance on mobile and desktop.

Mobile Test

Open your website on your phone. Does the layout adjust? Is text readable without zooming?

SEO and AI Readiness: The Connection

Good SEO is necessary but not sufficient for AI Readiness. SEO ensures your site is technically sound and discoverable. AI Readiness goes further by ensuring the content itself is structured in a way that AI systems can extract, understand and cite.

SEO gets you found. AI Readiness gets you recommended. GEO gets you cited in AI-generated answers. You need all three.

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