Building Your SEO Sundae: Start with the Must-Haves

Have you ever been to a self-serve frozen yogurt or ice cream shop? The kind where you can pick your flavor of ice cream and then scoop on any number of toppings and any amount the container can hold? Walking in you grab an empty cup, fill it with your favorite froyo, and then head over to the best part – the toppings bar. Here you get to add anything like sprinkles, Oreos, gummy bears (but don’t), fruit, and of course, peanut butter cups (my favorite). You can build your cup of ice cream to be anything you want.

In some ways, search engine optimization (SEO) is a little bit like those self-serve ice cream shops. There are a number of different “toppings” to add to your SEO strategy. Everything from backlinks, blog posts, image alt tags, internal linking – the list of SEO toppings goes on and on. You can mix and match the toppings and customize your SEO strategy to fit the taste buds of your SEO and business goals.

While there are similarities in the options, there is also a twist: SEO isn’t really as carefree as building a dish of ice cream. To be honest, it’s also nothing like those ice cream shops. When it comes to good SEO, there are always a few things that aren’t optional. Regardless of your business type or SEO strategy, there are always a few must-have ingredients that you can’t skip. These are the foundational pillars of SEO – the peanut butter cups, if you will.

The Peanut Butter Cup Basics of SEO

These Peanut Butter Cup SEO activities are non-negotiables, can’t live without toppings. Without these, your SEO hopes and dreams will fall apart regardless of the ice cream or other toppings you’ve added.

1. Quality Content

This is the ice cream that started it all. You can’t have an ice cream sundae without the ice cream or froyo, it would just be a dish of candy (though a dish of candy wouldn’t be horrible). You can’t have good SEO without having great quality content. This means the content has to be helpful, well-written, relevant, insightful, and carefully crafted with your target audience in mind. Everything from blog articles to landing pages all need to provide great value to your audience.

2. Keyword Focus

Keywords and key phrases help search engines know what your website and business is and when to show it in search results for users. If you’re not conducting thorough keyword research for your website and industry and then using those keywords strategically in your content, you’re simply guessing and hoping users find your site and business. Keywords are kind of like the signage on the ice cream shop. Without the keywords (or signage), no one will know if it’s an ice cream shop or dental office.

3. Website Security

This is a big one, and often overlooked – especially for new businesses and websites. Search engines only want to send searchers to secure, trustworthy websites. If your website is lacking security essentials and doesn’t have an SSL certificate (the padlock in the address bar) or is left overly vulnerable to attacks, your website is probably going to show up further down in the rankings. When you go to the ice cream shop and you walk out on a warm summer day and work to keep the ice cream from melting – that is your website security. 

4. Mobile Optimization and Speed

The need for mobile optimization and speed on your website can’t be talked about enough. Your website must look great and function flawlessly whether the user is on a phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop. The website also must load fast. If the site takes more than 3 or 4 seconds (at absolute max) to load, visitors will bounce and search engines will take note. Imagine walking into your favorite self-serve ice place but the first couple of ice cream machines you try are clogged or not working – your odds of return are slim.

SEO Toppings That Are Next Level

Once you have the foundational essentials of your SEO ice cream sundae, then – and only then – is it time to add the other fun toppings on. While these are all important to a great SEO campaign, they aren’t quite foundational, but can for sure increase your SEO results.

• Internal linking to connect relevant pages
• Image optimization (descriptions, alt text, compressed files)
• Local SEO and business directory listings
• Backlink building from trusted websites
• Blog updates to keep content fresh
• Structured data and schema markup for rich search results
• Social signals and content sharing
• Video content integration

Not every SEO campaign will need each of these, and some might be more delicious to you SEO ice cream than others. You might even start with just a small amount of one to see what it is like or if it proves useful. When you’re at the toppings bar for the ice cream you might see a topping you’re not familiar with. Just put a small amount and see how it goes. I warn you – don’t load up on the gummy bears – big mistake. 

When Toppings Can’t Save Bad Ice Cream

Here’s the cold truth: no amount of the single greatest toppings will save a bad ice cream. I made this mistake of trying pumpkin pie flavored ice cream once – no amount of Recee’s Peanut Butter Cups would make that ice cream good. If your website’s content is low quality, limited in quantity, your keywords aren’t correct, your site loads slow, or is not secure – then no backlink or blog post is going to boost it in SEO rankings.

That’s why SEO should always start with good ice cream and peanut butter cups – the essentials.

The Final SEO Scoop

SEO is the ice cream swirl of strategy and creativity. It might feel like walking into a self-serve ice cream shop and building a sundae with all the toppings at your fingertips, but there’s more to it than that. SEO has to start with the essentials – quality content, keywords, site security, mobile responsiveness. Once those are in place, you can start adding in the other toppings to make your SEO ice cream perfect. And, of course, never skimp on the peanut butter cups.

At Full Scope Creative, we know that SEO isn’t always easy to understand — and it certainly isn’t one-size-fits-all. As a full-service marketing agency, we take the time to help our clients choose the right mix of services, keywords, and strategies that align with their goals. Whether you’re starting from scratch or refining an existing SEO plan, we’re here to make sure your website gets the attention it deserves — sprinkles optional.