Stop learning SEO from random tips. Every section below links to the page where Google explains it, so you know why each step matters. 45 boxes, eight sections, tick them off as you go.
Why start here
Jumping from one tutorial to the next teaches tricks, not how search works. Google Search Central is Google explaining its own systems. Learn the fundamentals there, apply them to your real site, measure, and keep what works.
01 / 08
Google Search Essentials is the short list of what makes a page eligible to show up at all: technical requirements, spam policies and key best practices. Read it before any tip from anyone else, including us.
02 / 08
Google’s technical requirements are three things: Googlebot isn’t blocked, the page works (it returns HTTP 200), and it has indexable content. Everything in this section protects those three.
03 / 08
This is what people see in the results before they click: your title, your snippet, and the links and images that tell Google what each page is about.
04 / 08
Google’s systems are built to reward people-first content: written primarily for people, not to manipulate rankings. A landing page per service is a start. The questions around that service are what show you know it.
05 / 08
Google lists “pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page” as doorway abuse. More locations means more real pages, each one worth visiting, built around your services, your areas and what people there actually search.
06 / 08
Search Console shows the searches you already appear for, with impressions, clicks and position. That is real data from Google, and it beats guessing what to write next.
07 / 08
Rankings get people to the page. What they do next decides whether they call. Microsoft Clarity is a behavioral analytics tool with session recordings and heatmaps, so you can watch where people get stuck.
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Structured data tells Google exactly what a page is: a business, a service, a breadcrumb trail. Google’s rule is plain: don’t mark up content that is not visible to readers of the page.
SEO isn’t copying every tactic you see. For a local business, your Business Profile, site structure, service pages and content all work together, and the data tells you what to do next.
Read the Google doc for the section before you change anything.
Make the change on a real page, and write down the date.
Give it a few weeks, then compare Search Console and visitor data.
Keep what moved the numbers. Fix or drop what didn’t.
A list of the things that help a site get found and chosen in Google, in an order you can work through. This one is built from Google’s own documentation, so every section links to the page where Google explains it.
Because it is Google describing its own systems. Tips are often someone’s guess, or something that worked once on one site. Starting with the source means you understand why a fix works, so you can tell a good tip from a bad one.
Most of it, but not all at once. Start with Search Essentials and the technical basics, then on-page, then local. Search Console tells you where the next hour is best spent.
Build around your real services and the real places you serve, with a page for each location that has its own details. Google’s spam policies list near-identical city pages that funnel visitors to one page as doorway abuse, so swapping the city name is not enough.
Google’s guidance says generative AI can be useful, especially for research, but using it to generate many pages without adding value for users may violate its spam policy on scaled content abuse. Use AI for drafts and research, then fact-check every claim and add what only you know.
Yes. Local SEO is what we do every day for businesses in Salinas and Monterey County. Start with a free look at your Google listing and we will tell you which part of this list matters most for you.
Start with a free look at your Google listing. I’ll tell you which part of this list matters most for you, whether or not you hire me.
