Most small-business SEO advice is either a 40-point checklist or a promise to “get you to #1.” Neither helps a founder who needs customers from Google, and now from AI answers that quote websites.

This is the version we use when we build custom web design and WordPress sites for founders in Europe, the UK, the US and Canada. The studio is in Malaysia. The work is remote. The site still has to be readable by a search engine in London or Toronto.

Start with one job per page

Pick the query you can honestly win. A consultant does not need to rank for “web design.” They need to rank for the service plus the people they serve: “fractional CFO for SaaS,” “brand photographer for restaurants,” “WordPress maintenance for membership sites.”

Write the page as the best short answer to that query. One H1 that matches the promise. Subheads that match the questions people ask on a sales call. Then the proof: who it is for, how it works, what it costs in ranges if you can, and a clear next step.

Keywords are questions, not stuffing

Use a keyword tool to see volume. Then listen to the words in briefs and WhatsApp threads. If five clients say “I need a site that does not look like ChatGPT built it,” that phrase belongs on the page, not ten synonyms of “innovative solutions.”

Put the primary phrase in the title tag, the H1, the first paragraph, and one subhead. Mention close variants where they sound like a human. That is enough. Repeating a city you do not serve, or a keyword you cannot deliver, will not help.

On-page work that is actually on the page

Title and meta. Say who it is for and what they get. Skip “Home | Brand.”
Headings. One H1. H2s that a crawler (or an AI overview) can lift as answers.
Images. Compressed files, descriptive alt text, no 4MB hero PNGs.
Internal links. From the blog to the service page that can take the money. From the service page to two relevant projects.
Canonical URL. One address for each page. Redirect the old WordPress permalinks instead of leaving both live.

Technical SEO is not a later phase

If the site is slow, blocked, or missing a sitemap, content will not save it. We treat this as part of the build: robots that allow crawling when you are ready, a working sitemap.xml, HTTPS, mobile layout, and schema for the business, the services, and the FAQs you already answer in sales.

That is also what we mean by AI-ready. Search engines and assistants can only cite a site they can parse. A generated template with five H1s and empty sections is hard to cite. A custom page with a straight answer is not.

You will not out-publish a media company

Four useful articles that match buyer questions beat a weekly AI blog nobody asked for. Keep the slugs you already rank for. Rewrite the thin posts. Point them at the service you sell.

If you want the same approach on your own site (custom WordPress or modern code, remote from Malaysia), start a brief.