SEO Starter Guide (Google Search Central)
Google's own introduction to how its search works and what site owners can do to be found: crawlable pages, useful titles and descriptions, helpful content and good links. It is short, free and free of the myths that fill most SEO advice.
Guide
Web Development
About two hours
Beginner
Free
What it covers
The SEO Starter Guide from Google Search Central explains, in plain language, how Google finds, crawls and indexes pages, and what you can control: making sure pages can be discovered, organising your site with clear URLs, writing titles and meta descriptions that describe the page, adding helpful content that answers what people search for, using images well, and earning links. It also lists things that do not matter as much as people think.
Why it matters for an indie product
Search is one of the few growth channels that keeps working after launch day. People searching "invoice template for freelancers" or "how to track habits offline" are telling you their problem in their own words. A page that genuinely answers that search can bring customers every month for years. For a small product without an ad budget, that compounding matters.
What to take from it
- Write for people, not algorithms. Google repeatedly says it rewards helpful, original content. Thin pages built only for keywords tend to fail.
- Make each page about one thing. A clear title, a descriptive URL and a heading that matches what someone would search.
- Help Google find your pages. A sitemap, internal links and no accidental "noindex".
- Be patient. New sites can take months to rank. Start content early, before you need the traffic.
Prerequisites and time
No prior knowledge is needed. The guide takes about two hours to read carefully. After that, set up Google Search Console for your domain so you can see which searches already show your pages.
Common questions
Do I need an SEO tool? Not to start. Search Console, Google Trends and a free keyword tool are enough for a new product.
Should I use AI to write lots of pages? Mass-produced pages with little value can fall foul of Google's spam policies. Use AI to help, but publish pages that genuinely help a reader.
How long before it works? Often months. Treat it as a long-term channel alongside faster ones like communities and email.
Source: developers.google.com/search, checked 2026-09.
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