Guide Search visibility
SEO for a new website: what to do first
By Studio Swing
Do the search thinking before the design, not after the launch. First, find out what your customers type and decide which page of your site answers each question. Then build every page so it says plainly what it is about. At launch, make sure nothing tells Google to stay away, and that Google has a way to find the site. After launch, check what Google has indexed, and give the work time. A new site has no history in search, so the early weeks are about being found and read, not about rankings. Nobody can promise a position, and Google says plainly that there are "no secrets here that'll automatically rank your site first."
On this page
- 01A landscape firm with a finished design and no plan for search
- 02Stage 1: Before design, find the questions and give each a page
- 03Stage 2: While building, say clearly what each page is
- 04Stage 3: Launch day, make sure nothing keeps Google out
- 05Stage 4: The first weeks, check what Google has, then wait
- 06What not to spend time on
- 07What this will not do
- 08A checklist you can use without us
- 09Where to go next
- 10Sources
A landscape firm with a finished design and no plan for search
- Stage 1: Before design, find the questions and give each a page
- Stage 2: While building, say clearly what each page is
- Stage 3: Launch day, make sure nothing keeps Google out
- Stage 4: The first weeks, check what Google has, then wait
Say you run a small landscape design firm and you are about to launch your first website. The design is done. It has a full-width photo of a garden, a short line about your approach, and a menu with Home, About, Services and Contact.
Your customers search for things like "courtyard garden design for a small terrace" and "garden designer who does planting plans". Your Services page covers all of it in three paragraphs. The words your customers use, such as "courtyard" and "planting plan", appear nowhere on the site. You call the work "outdoor living spaces".
Nothing is broken, and it still will not be found, because no page answers any specific question. Adding keywords at the end does not fix it. The pages have to exist, one per important question, and the structure has to be decided before the site is designed. That is the order of work below.
Stage 1: Before design, find the questions and give each a page
Find the words customers use. Google's starter guide says users who know a topic well may use different words from newcomers. Its example is people who search "charcuterie" while others search "cheese board." Anticipating that difference, it says, can have positive effects. It also says not to worry about every variation, because Google's language matching systems can relate a page to many queries even without the exact terms. You are listening for the real questions and the common words, not collecting every phrase. Our guide to what SEO does for a business website explains this listening in more detail.
Give each important question one clear page. In the landscape firm's case, a page about courtyard and small-space gardens, a page about planting plans, and a page about the design process would each answer a different search. If two pages answer the same question, they compete with each other. If an important question has no page, you are absent from that search. The map from question to page is the most useful document in a new site's SEO. Whether every city or phrase needs its own page is a separate question, answered in do you need a separate page for every city or keyword.
Decide what each page must do. A page that attracts the right search and has no next step wastes the visit. Decide in advance whether the page leads to an enquiry, a booking, a purchase or another page.
If you are replacing an old site rather than launching a first one, you have an extra job: every old page needs a decision and every moved address needs a redirect. That is covered in our guide to redesigning a website without losing search traffic.
Stage 2: While building, say clearly what each page is
These are the things Google's guidance asks of every page. None needs special skill, but all of them need to be decided on purpose.
A title that describes the page. Google says a good title "is unique to the page, clear and concise, and accurately describes the contents of the page." Its title guidance warns against vague titles such as "Home" and against repeating the same words. Include the business name and, where it helps, the location.
A short description for the page. Google says a good meta description "is short, unique to one particular page, and includes the most relevant points of the page." Google may use the page's own text instead, so the opening lines matter too.
An address people can read. Google suggests including useful words in the URL, such as /pets/cats.html, and notes that a URL made of random identifiers is less helpful. Choose addresses before launch. Changing them later means redirects.
Original, useful content. Google's starter guide says content people find compelling and useful "will likely influence your website's presence in search results more than any of the other suggestions in this guide." Its attributes are plain: easy to read and well organized, unique, up to date, and helpful, reliable and people-first. A page that only repeats what other sites say gives Google no reason to prefer it. Our guide on why a website is not showing up on Google shows what happens when pages are thin.
Links between your own pages. Google says the vast majority of new pages it finds each day are found through links. Every important page should be reachable from your menu or from another page, using link text that tells the reader and Google what the page contains. "See our planting plan service" says more than "click here".
Images with meaning. Place sharp images near text that relates to them, and write descriptive alt text, a short description of what the image shows and how it relates to the page. Alt text also serves people using screen readers.
A site that works on phones. Google uses the mobile version of a site's content for indexing and ranking. It recommends responsive design, which serves the same page on every device and changes how it looks with the screen size. Make sure the phone version holds the same content as the desktop one.
A good page experience, without chasing a perfect score. Google's page experience guidance asks whether pages have good Core Web Vitals, are served securely over HTTPS, display well on mobile, and avoid intrusive interstitials. It adds that good Core Web Vitals results do not guarantee top rankings, and that trying for a perfect score purely for SEO "may not be the best use of your time." Do it because visitors benefit.
Stage 3: Launch day, make sure nothing keeps Google out
Most launch-day SEO damage is not subtle. It comes from settings that were right during the build and wrong afterward. Google's technical requirements ask for three things: Googlebot is not blocked, the page returns a success status, and the page has indexable content. For a new site that translates into specific checks.
Remove any noindex instruction. Google says that when it finds the tag, it will "drop that page entirely" from results. A site built on a hidden staging copy can carry it onto the live version.
Check robots.txt. A rule left over from the build can block whole sections. Google notes that a robots.txt block also stops it from seeing a noindex tag, so the two settings must be considered together.
Remove logins and password protection from pages that should be public.
Check that important pages return a success status and that no page redirects to an error.
Provide a way to find the pages. Google says a sitemap helps when "your site is new and has few external links to it." Many site builders create one automatically.
Register the site with Search Console and verify ownership. Google's page on establishing your business with Google calls this the first step.
If you run a local business with a physical location, Google also suggests claiming your Business Profile so your address, contact details, business type and photos can show in Google Maps and Search. The same guidance also mentions optional logo and breadcrumb structured data, which a developer can add.
This is the search-specific slice of launch. Our website launch checklist covers the whole day, including forms, tracking and performance.
Stage 4: The first weeks, check what Google has, then wait
Google says "you usually don't need to do anything except publish your site on the web," and that most sites in its results are found and added automatically as it crawls. Even so, a brand new site with few links to it can take time to be found, and a little help speeds that up.
1. Search for your own site. Google's starter guide suggests searching site: followed by your domain to see whether pages appear. If they do, you are in the index. If not, check the technical requirements above.
2. Request indexing of your homepage. Search Console's help says that for a new website, the best first step is to request indexing of the homepage, which should start Google crawling the site.
3. Submit your sitemap in Search Console, if one exists.
4. Open the Page indexing report after a week or so. It shows which pages are indexed and gives a reason for each page that is not. Not every URL on a site is expected to be indexed, but every important page should be.
5. Ask people to link to you where it is natural: your suppliers, partners, local directories, and your own social profiles. Google says links from other sites happen "naturally over time" and that you can encourage discovery by promoting the site.
How long all of this takes is a separate question, answered in how long SEO takes to work. If a page is not appearing and you cannot tell why, our guide to why a website is not showing up on Google takes you through the causes in order. To read your first reports, see Google Analytics and Search Console, explained simply.
What not to spend time on
Google's starter guide lists topics it says you should not focus on. For a new website, they are common sources of wasted effort.
Meta keywords. Google Search does not use the keywords meta tag.
Repeating phrases. Excessive repetition is "tiring for users" and keyword stuffing is against Google's spam policies.
Keywords in the domain name. Pick the name that is best for your business. Keywords in the domain or URL path "have hardly any effect" beyond appearing in breadcrumbs.
The domain ending. The ending, such as .com or .org, matters only when you are targeting a specific country's users, and even then it is usually a low-impact signal.
Word count. There is "no magical word count target, minimum or maximum."
The number or order of headings. Google says there is no ideal number of headings, although headings in order help screen readers.
Paying someone to submit you to Google. Google says it costs nothing to appear in its organic results.
What this will not do
Doing all of it will not guarantee a page-one position, or any position. It will not make a weak offer convincing, and it will not replace what other people say about your business elsewhere. It sets up a site that search engines can find and understand, and that answers real questions. What happens after that depends on competition and time.
A checklist you can use without us
Checklist
- Write down the ten questions customers ask most. Mark which page will answer each. Fill any gaps before design.
- Check that no two pages answer the same question.
- Give each page a unique title, a short description and a readable address, decided before launch.
- Link every important page from your menu or another page, using descriptive link text.
- Make sure the site works on a phone, with the same content as on desktop.
- On launch day, check noindex, robots.txt, logins and status codes. Confirm a sitemap exists.
- Verify the site in Search Console, request indexing of the homepage, and submit the sitemap.
- A week or two later, open the Page indexing report and read the reason for each important page that is not indexed.
- If you serve a local area, claim your Business Profile.
- Wait a few weeks before judging results, and change one thing at a time.
Where to go next
If you want to see how we plan search into a site before design starts, our SEO and content strategy service explains what you receive. We assign each important customer search to exactly one page before design begins, and we check before launch that important pages can be crawled and indexed.
Next, read the website launch checklist. When you want to talk about your own site, you can discuss your project with us. No technical brief is needed to start. More guides are in the Learn library.
Sources
Google Search Central, SEO Starter Guide: https:/
Google Search Central, Google Search technical requirements: https:/
Google Search Central, Block Search indexing with noindex: https:/
Google Search Central, Introduction to robots.txt: https:/
Google Search Central, Learn about sitemaps: https:/
Google Search Central, Influencing your title links in search results: https:/
Google Search Central, Mobile site and mobile-first indexing best practices: https:/
Google Search Central, Understanding page experience in Google Search results: https:/
Google Search Central, Establish your business details with Google: https:/
Google Search Central, Do you need an SEO?: https:/
Search Console Help, Page indexing report: https:/
Search Console Help, About Search Console: https:/