SEO best practices

General principles

Read our style guide and voice and tone guide. SEO should help the right people find useful content, not turn our writing into a pile of keywords.

1. Start with search intent

Don’t obsess over exact-match keywords. Ask: what is the searcher really trying to accomplish? Someone searching “email spoofing vs phishing” might need more than definitions. They may be trying to work out whether a message is malicious and what to do about it.

Answer that need. Cover the main topic, include useful follow-up questions, and help the reader take the next step.

Here’s what that might look like for “Email spoofing vs phishing”:

Quick answer first: Spoofing means pretending to be a different sender. Phishing means trying to trick someone into sharing information or taking a harmful action. A phishing email can use spoofing, but it can also come from a compromised account.
Context next: Show an example of each, explain what to check, and why a familiar sender name isn’t enough to trust a message.
Related questions:
- Can an email pass authentication and still be malicious?
- What should I check in the sender details and message headers?
- What should I do if someone has already clicked a link?
Next steps: Link to relevant guidance, such as investigating an incident and choosing a remediation action.

2. Make it easy to digest

When answering a question, lead with the answer, then expand with supporting details. Readers shouldn’t have to scroll through an introduction to find it.

Keep the structure simple and easy to scan:

Use clear headings (H1, H2, H3) so readers can follow the explanation. Use one H1 for the page’s main topic.
Write short paragraphs and use bullets or numbered steps for lists.
Use plain language and explain technical terms when the reader needs it.
Make navigation easy with anchor links or a table of contents for long articles.
Use useful visuals – screenshots, diagrams, and tables should make something easier to understand.
Summarize when it helps with a short answer or key takeaways. Don’t add another box that just repeats the introduction.

3. Headlines matter

A headline should give someone a reason to read and make it clear what the page is about. “How to investigate phishing in Microsoft 365” says more than “Rethinking the future of email security”.

Be bold, creative, and opinionated, but keep the topic clear. A clever title won’t help if the reader can’t tell whether it answers their question. And a promise the article doesn’t deliver on is just clickbait.

Quick rule of thumb: If it sounds like every other search result, sharpen it. If it sounds clever but hides what the article’s about, clarify it.

4. Demonstrate expertise and authority

The internet is full of generic articles. Give someone a reason to read ours: teach them something, explain a difficult point, or share something we’ve learned from building and using the product.

Show that we know what we’re talking about:

Back claims with evidence. Link to relevant research, primary sources, and technical documentation. Include the date and scope when using statistics.
Include first-hand experience. Explain how an investigation works, what a detection signal tells you, or why we made a particular product decision. Ask someone on the team who knows the subject if you need help.
Add something of our own. A worked example, a tested approach, or a lesson from a mistake is more useful than repeating the same definitions everyone else has published.
Protect customer information. Remove sensitive details from screenshots and examples. Use made-up examples when necessary and label them as examples.

AI can help with research and outlines. We write the content ourselves, as explained in our no AI slop rule.

5. Be conversational

Our tone is friendly, focused, and human. Think about how you’d explain the topic to a smart colleague. Stay on topic, be direct, and answer the question.

Use the questions our readers actually ask as headings when it makes sense.

Bad Q&A example

Heading: Strategies for comprehensive email threat mitigation

Body copy: Companies should leverage a holistic approach to secure communications, enabling teams to unlock actionable threat intelligence.

Good Q&A example

Heading: How do I investigate a suspicious email?

Body copy: Start with the sender details and authentication results, then check the message, links, and attachments. A familiar name or a passed authentication check doesn’t prove the message is safe. In SucuriLabs, the triage workspace brings the evidence together so you can review the verdict and choose an available remediation action.

6. Don’t put all our eggs in one keyword basket

People use different words to ask the same question. Start with a clear topic, then look at related queries and questions that belong in the same article.

For a guide about investigating phishing, related searches might include:

How to investigate a phishing email
How to check suspicious email headers
How to identify email spoofing
Phishing investigation in Microsoft 365
What to do with a reported phishing email

These are examples, not measured search volumes. Use Search Console and AlsoAsked to understand the queries reaching our pages and the related questions people ask.

Cover the questions that help the reader. Don’t squeeze every variation into the copy or turn one article into five unrelated topics.

7. Write for our ICP

We write for security and IT teams at companies using Microsoft 365. They need to investigate email threats and decide what to do about them, often with a small team and several tools already in place.

“How to investigate phishing in Microsoft 365 with a small IT team” gives us a clearer reader and problem than “The ultimate guide to cybersecurity”.

When writing, ask:

Who exactly is this for? A security engineer reviewing an incident, or an IT manager handling phishing reports alongside everything else?
What setup are they working with? Microsoft 365, existing email security, manual checks, or a small team? Include that context where it matters.
What’s next? After identifying a suspicious message, do they need to check the sender, review attachments, or understand their response options? Answer the useful follow-up questions or link to the right guide.

8. Keep articles up to date

Publishing a good article isn’t the end of the work. Product settings change, screenshots get old, and a useful guide can become misleading if nobody checks it again.

Prioritize pages people read, pages affected by product changes, and pages where the advice is no longer accurate. Improve the explanation, test the steps, check the sources, and replace outdated screenshots. Don’t just change the date to make an article look fresh.

Use an “Updated on” date when it helps readers understand when the information was last reviewed. Follow our date format and only change it after a real review or update.

If a page isn’t getting search traffic, check whether it answers the right question and adds anything useful. Improving it can be more worthwhile than publishing another page on the same topic.

9. Internal linking isn’t optional

Internal links help readers find the next useful explanation and help search engines discover how our pages relate to each other.

Link where it makes sense. When you mention a topic we explain elsewhere, link to it where the reader would benefit. For example, link an explanation of blocking malicious messages to our prevention modes.
Use descriptive link text. “Microsoft 365 setup” tells the reader more than “click here”. Use words that accurately describe the destination.
Link relevant pages only. Don’t add a link just to meet a quota. Give the reader a reason to follow it.
Don’t overdo it. There’s no fixed number of links a good article needs. Include the ones that help, without linking every other sentence.
Maintain your links. Check them before publishing and when updating a page. If a URL changes, fix the links pointing to it.

10. Make content useful in AI search

Readers also use tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google’s AI search features to find answers. Clear, accurate content is still the starting point. Make the answer easy to find, understand, and check:

Say the thing plainly. Explain what the product does and use consistent terms. Don’t repeat keywords just to sound relevant.
Keep sections focused. Answer one question well before moving to the next. Include enough context that the answer makes sense on its own.
Lead with the answer. Then explain the reasoning, examples, and limitations.
Make claims checkable. Link to sources, identify first-hand experience, and show who wrote the article. Looking authoritative isn’t a substitute for knowing what you’re talking about.
Stay correct. Keep product facts aligned with our docs. State dates, versions, and settings when they affect the answer.
Use Q&A when it fits. Write headings that match real questions, without turning every article into a listicle.

Google’s guidance on AI search features uses the same SEO fundamentals as regular search. There’s no special formatting trick that guarantees a citation.

11. Steelman competitors

Many companies “straw man” their competitors. They claim competitors are worse than they are, focus on differences that don’t matter, and exaggerate how much better their own product is. We don’t do this.

Be honest about what competitors can do. Assume they’re reading and will dunk on you for being dishonest. SucuriLabs may not have every feature a competitor has today, and that’s okay. Our reputation and readers’ trust matter more than a “marketing win”.

Compare the things our audience actually needs: investigation, response, Microsoft 365 support, setup, and pricing. Check current documentation and explain where another product might be a better fit.

Competitors change, and we can make mistakes. When we find one, fix it. Accept corrections from competitors when they make the article more accurate.

Additional tips

Titles and descriptions help someone decide whether a page is worth opening. Make them specific and honest about what they’ll find.

Quick metadata checklist:

Use a clear title that includes the main topic naturally.
Aim for roughly 60 characters for titles and 160 for descriptions as starting points, not fixed search-engine limits.
Give each page its own title and description.
Preview them in a SERP simulator to estimate how they’ll display. Actual search results can differ.
Use dates and numbers when they’re relevant and supported by the article.

Useful SEO tools

We use Google Search Console, AlsoAsked, and the Mangools SERP Simulator.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console shows how our pages appear in Google Search. Use it to:

See which queries lead to impressions and clicks for a page
Compare impressions, clicks, click-through rate, and average position over time
Find pages that are being shown but aren’t getting clicks
Check indexing and investigate pages that aren’t appearing in search

It doesn’t show every query. Use the available data to find useful questions and problems to investigate, rather than treating it as a complete record.

Mangools Google SERP Simulator

A tool to preview titles and descriptions before publishing. Use it to check whether the main point comes through, whether important words might be cut off, and how the result reads alongside other pages.

It’s a preview, not a promise of exactly what Google will display.

AlsoAsked

AlsoAsked shows related “People Also Ask” questions for a search term. Use it to find follow-up questions worth answering and understand how people connect one topic to another.

Choose the questions that fit our reader and article. You don’t need to copy every question or match its wording exactly.