Checklist

The SEO basics checklist: what Google itself recommends

Check that Google has found your site

Google says most sites in its results are found and added automatically as it crawls the web, mainly by following links from pages it already knows. To see whether your site is in the index, search Google for site: followed by your domain.

A sitemap can help, but Google's SEO Starter Guide says it isn't required, and that you should first focus on making sure people know about your site.

Give every page its own title

Google's guidance on title links asks for a title on every page that is descriptive and concise. Avoid vague titles like "Home", repeated boilerplate text and keyword stuffing.

There's no fixed length limit, but Google truncates long titles to fit the screen.

Write a description for your key pages

Google mostly builds the snippet under a result from the page itself, and sometimes uses the meta description when it describes the page better. Google's snippet guidance asks for a unique description for each page, and says that if you can't do every page, start with the home page and your most popular pages.

Make sure it works on a phone

Google uses the mobile version of a site's content for indexing and ranking, which it calls mobile-first indexing. It recommends responsive design, and says the mobile version should carry the same content, headings, titles and descriptions as the desktop one.

Check the speed

Google's Core Web Vitals measure loading, responsiveness and visual stability. The targets are a Largest Contentful Paint within 2.5 seconds, an Interaction to Next Paint of 200 milliseconds or less, and a Cumulative Layout Shift of 0.1 or less, measured at the 75th percentile of page loads. web.dev explains each metric.

Set up Search Console

Google Search Console is a free service that shows how often your site appears in Google, which searches show it and how often people click. It also alerts you to indexing and other problems. You don't need it to appear in Google, but it shows you how Google sees your site.

Complete your Business Profile if you serve a local area

Google's tips to improve your local ranking start with verifying your Business Profile and keeping your details complete and accurate: address, hours and category. Google says local results are based mainly on relevance, distance and prominence, and that you can't pay for a better local ranking.

Skip the myths

Google's SEO Starter Guide lists things it says not to focus on. Google Search doesn't use the keywords meta tag. There's no magic word count. Keywords in a domain name have hardly any effect on ranking. Keyword stuffing is against Google's spam policies. And E-E-A-T is not a ranking factor.

A note on this guide

This is general information, not legal or professional advice. Rules change, so please check the official sources we link to before you make a decision.