SEO fundamentals for small online businesses
Here is the rewritten blog post:
SEO Fundamentals for Small Online Businesses
When you built your website, you likely created it with your users in mind, trying to make it easy for them to find and explore your content. One of those users is a search engine, which helps people discover your content. SEO—short for search engine optimization—is about helping search engines understand your content, and helping users find your site and make a decision about whether they should visit your site through a search engine.
The Search Essentials outline the most important elements of what makes your website eligible to appear on Google Search. While there's no guarantee that any particular site will be added to Google's index, sites that follow the Search Essentials are more likely to show up in Google's search results. SEO is about taking the next step and working on improving your site's presence in Search. This guide will walk you through some of the most common and effective improvements you can do on your site.
[1] There are no secrets here that'll automatically rank your site first in Google (sorry!). In fact some of the suggestions might not even apply to your business, but following the best practices will hopefully make it easier for search engines (not just Google) to crawl, index, and understand your content.
How does Google Search work?
Google is a fully automated search engine that uses programs called crawlers to explore the web constantly, looking for pages to add to our index. You usually don't need to do anything except publish your site on the web. In fact, the vast majority of sites listed in our results are found and added automatically as we crawl the web. If you're hungry for more, we have documentation about how Google discovers, crawls, and serves web pages.
How long until I see impact in search results?
Every change you make will take some time to be reflected on Google's end. Some changes might take effect in a few hours, others could take several months. In general, you likely want to wait a few weeks to assess whether your work had beneficial effects in Google Search results. Keep in mind that not all changes you make to your website will result in noticeable impact in search results; if you're not satisfied with your results and your business strategies allow it, try iterating with the changes and see if they make a difference.
Help Google find your content
Before you actually do anything mentioned in this section, check if Google has already found your content (maybe you don't need to do anything!). Try searching on Google for your site with the `site: search operator`. If you see results pointing to your site, you're already on the right track!
Sources:
[1] SEO Starter Guide: The Basics | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google for Developers: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide
[2] Google Search Essentials (formerly Webmaster Guidelines) | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google for Developers: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials
[3] How to do SEO: A beginner’s guide for small businesses and entrepreneurs: https://www.godaddy.com/resources/skills/how-to-do-seo
[4] SEO Basics: Beginner’s Guide to SEO Success: https://ahrefs.com/seo/seo-basics
[5] How to do SEO for your new website [10-step guide]: https://searchengineland.com/guide/seo-for-new-website
