I knew nothing about SEO before starting this blog. I mean, I knew it stood for Search Engine Optimization. But the actual mechanics of how to get Google to show my posts to people? No idea.
So I did what I always do — I asked Claude. And what followed was basically an SEO crash course, delivered one question at a time.
Me: “What is SEO and why should I care?”
Claude explained it simply: SEO is the difference between writing a blog post that 10 people read and writing a blog post that 10,000 people read. The content can be identical — the difference is whether Google decides to show it to people searching for related topics.
For a blog that wants to make money from ads, SEO is not optional. Ad revenue is directly proportional to traffic, and the vast majority of blog traffic comes from Google search. Social media spikes are nice but temporary. Search traffic is steady and compounding.
The Basics Claude Taught Me
I am going to share the key things I learned, in the order Claude explained them. This is not an exhaustive SEO guide — it is what a developer needs to know to not screw up their blog’s search visibility.
1. URL Structure Matters
The first thing Claude did during setup was change the permalink structure from the default (which looks like ?p=123) to /post-name/. So instead of reapbountifully.com/?p=17, my first post lives at reapbountifully.com/how-i-built-a-wordpress-blog-in-30-minutes-using-ai-step-by-step/.
Why? Because Google reads URLs. A URL with keywords in it tells Google what the page is about before it even looks at the content. It also looks more trustworthy to humans clicking on search results.
2. Titles and Headings Are Not Just for Readers
Google uses your H1 (post title) and H2 headings to understand the structure and topic of your content. Claude told me to make sure every post has one clear H1 and uses H2s for major sections — which is just good writing practice anyway.
The post title should include the main keyword naturally. Not stuffed in awkwardly, but present. For example, “How I Built a WordPress Blog in 30 Minutes Using AI” naturally contains keywords people might search for: “WordPress blog,” “build blog,” “using AI.”
3. Meta Descriptions Exist
I did not even know what a meta description was until Claude installed Yoast SEO. It is the little snippet that appears under your title in Google search results. If you do not write one, Google will just grab a random chunk of text from your post — which usually looks terrible.
Yoast lets you write a custom meta description for each post. Claude told me to keep it under 155 characters and include the main keyword. Think of it as a tiny ad for your post.
4. Images Need Alt Text
Every image on your blog should have alt text — a short description of what the image shows. Google cannot see images (yet), so it reads the alt text to understand them. Claude has been adding descriptive alt text to every image it uploads, which I did not even notice until it pointed it out.
5. Internal Linking Is Free SEO
When one blog post links to another blog post on the same site, it helps Google understand the relationship between your content and distributes “authority” across your pages. Claude has been doing this naturally — the platform comparison post links to the setup post, the tools post links to the platform comparison, and so on.
I asked Claude if this was intentional. It said yes — every post should link to at least 1-2 other posts on the blog when relevant.
6. Site Speed Matters More Than You Think
Google uses page load speed as a ranking factor. A slow site gets penalized in search results. This is why Claude installed WP Super Cache — it serves pre-generated HTML files instead of running PHP on every page view, which makes the site significantly faster.
Claude also chose Nginx over Apache for the web server specifically because it is faster and uses less memory. These technical choices that I would not have thought about are actually SEO decisions in disguise.
7. Sitemaps Tell Google What to Crawl
A sitemap is an XML file that lists all the pages on your site. It is basically a map you hand to Google saying “here is everything I have, please index all of it.” Yoast SEO generates this automatically, and Claude submitted it to Google Search Console during the initial setup.
What I Am NOT Doing (And Why)
Claude also told me what not to bother with as a new blog:
- Keyword research tools — Paid tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush are great, but overkill for a blog with 10 posts. I will consider them once I have real traffic to analyze.
- Backlink building — Some bloggers spend hours trying to get other sites to link to them. Claude said to focus on writing good content first and let backlinks happen naturally.
- Schema markup — Yoast handles the basics automatically. Manual schema optimization is for later.
- Obsessing over keyword density — Claude said to write naturally and include relevant terms without forcing them. Google is smart enough to understand context now.
The Developer Advantage
Here is something Claude pointed out that I had not considered: as a developer, I have a natural SEO advantage. I understand how websites work technically, I can read HTML and understand what meta tags do, and I am comfortable with server configuration. Most bloggers have to learn all of that from scratch or pay someone.
Plus, having AI handle the implementation means I get best practices by default. Claude knows SEO rules and applies them automatically when writing posts and configuring the site. I do not have to remember to add alt text or meta descriptions — it just happens.
How This Post Was Made
I said: “Write an SEO basics post, but make it for developers who have never done SEO before. Keep it practical.” Claude suggested structuring it as the things it taught me during setup, which I thought was a natural way to frame it — it mirrors how I actually learned this stuff.
One revision to add the “What I Am NOT Doing” section, because I think beginners waste too much time on advanced SEO tactics when the basics are what actually matter.
This post was written with Claude AI. I provided the direction, topic, and key points in Korean — Claude turned it into the article you just read.