Showing up on Google: the basics for a new site
Nobody can promise where a site will appear in search results, and I do not. What I can explain are the SEO basics for a new website: the things that have to be in place for a search engine to understand it at all.
How does a search engine see my site?
It sends a program to read your pages, follow the links between them and store what it finds. It then tries to match those pages to what people type. So two things have to be true before anything else: the pages can be reached and read, and each one makes clear what it is about. Most of the basics are simply ways of making those two things easy.
What should each page be about?
One thing. A page for one service, one product, one question. When a page covers a single topic, its title, its headings and its text all point the same way, and a search engine has no trouble deciding what to file it under. A page that covers everything you do is clear about nothing. This is also better for visitors, who arrive looking for one answer.
What are titles and descriptions?
Every page has a title and a short description that are written for search results rather than for the page itself. The title is the line people click; the description is the text beneath it. Write them by hand for each important page, in plain words, saying what the page offers. Leaving them empty or repeating the same one on every page throws away the simplest thing you control.
What is a sitemap, and do I need one?
A sitemap is a file that lists the pages of your site so a search engine can find them without guessing. Most site systems can generate one automatically. You can then submit it through Google Search Console, a tool from Google for site owners that also shows whether your pages have been read and whether it found problems. Setting this up at launch is a small job that removes a lot of uncertainty.
What counts as real content?
Text that answers what your customers actually ask, written by someone who knows the business. Descriptions of your own services in your own words. Photos of your own work, with file names and descriptions that say what they show. What does not count is text copied from other sites, pages padded with repeated phrases, or many near-identical pages. Search engines are built to prefer what is useful to a reader.
How long before I see anything?
Longer than most people expect, and nobody can give you a date. A new site has no history, and it takes time for its pages to be read, stored and tested against searches. Your own name usually appears first; broader terms take longer and depend on how many others are competing for them. Keep adding useful pages, keep the basics in order and judge progress over months, not days.
How I handle it
My part of this is the structure: the pages, and what each one is about, are settled at the design stage in Figma, and you approve them before the build. I do not promise rankings, and I would be careful with anyone who does. After handover you have the dashboard and can edit the text and publish new posts yourself, which is where steady progress comes from. Tell me what your site is about and who you hope will find it.
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