SEO for startups: what to do in your first 12 months.

A new company starts with a new domain, few links pointing to it and little history for search engines to go on. The team is small, the founders' time is the scarcest resource in the building, and the product changes faster than the website does.

You will hear that Google keeps new sites in a “sandbox” for months. Google's John Mueller has said the idea of holding new pages back “is not the case.” His explanation, in Search Engine Journal's May 2021 coverage, is more useful: with new content, Google has less to go on, so its systems make assumptions from the rest of the site, and rankings can settle higher or lower as they learn more.

The practical reading: there is no timer to wait out. There is a site to make easy to understand.

Before writing a single blog post, make sure search engines can reach the site and that you can see what happens next. Most of this is a one-time setup.

• Search Console. Add and verify your site, submit a sitemap and learn where the Performance and Page indexing reports live.
• Crawl access. Check that robots.txt does not block pages you want found. Google notes that robots.txt is not a way to keep a page out of Google; use noindex or a login for that.
• One version of every page. https only, one hostname, and redirects from the others.
• Titles that describe the page. Every important page gets its own, written for a person.
• A definition of success. Pick the action that matters: a trial, a demo request, a signup. Measure it from day one, or you will spend the year arguing about traffic.

If the site is built on a JavaScript framework, confirm that the content Google renders matches what visitors see. That single check prevents a surprising amount of wasted effort.

For many startups this phase covers the first few months. The goal is simple to say and easy to skip: one clear page for each product, service or use case you actually sell, written for the person deciding whether to buy.

• A homepage that says what you do. Who it is for, what it replaces and what to do next, in the first screen.
• One page per offer. If you sell three things, you need three pages, each built around the words buyers use for that thing.
• Pricing, if you publish it. Buyers search for it. A clear pricing page answers a question they would otherwise take to a competitor.
• Comparison and alternative pages, only where buyers ask. If sales calls keep coming back to one competitor, a fair comparison page earns its place. If nobody asks, it does not.

These pages are where search traffic turns into customers, which is why they come first. Our guide to building an SEO strategy covers how to choose the words each page targets.

Once the core pages exist, publish what only you know. The best startup content usually comes from the founders' inboxes and sales calls, not from a keyword tool.

Write down the questions buyers already ask

A question one prospect asks on a call is often a question other buyers are typing into a search box. Answer it directly, near the top, in plain sentences.

Publish the things you can defend

Processes, benchmarks, pricing logic and hard-won lessons. Specific claims with sources are what Google's people-first guidance asks for, and they are harder for competitors to copy.

Keep the founders in the byline

Early buyers are often buying the team. Founder-led content gives search engines and readers a real expert to attach the claims to. If you need help producing it, our content marketing page explains how we work with founders without putting words in their mouths.

A new domain needs other sites to vouch for it. The good news for startups is that you have more reasons to be mentioned than most businesses.

• Launches and announcements. Funding, product releases and new integrations are news to someone.
• Partners and integrations. If your product works with another one, ask to be listed on its partner or integrations page.
• Founder interviews and podcasts. Industry shows and newsletters often link to their guests.
• Customer stories, with permission. A customer who is happy to be named is worth more than any directory.

Earn them rather than buy them. Google's spam policies treat buying or selling links for ranking purposes as link spam.

From the first page you publish. Google says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond being indexed and eligible for a snippet, so the pages you build in phase one are already your AI search foundation.

Two small additions pay off early. Put a direct answer in the first paragraph of every important page, and make sure your robots.txt allows OAI-SearchBot, the crawler OpenAI uses for ChatGPT search. Our explainer on SEO vs AEO vs GEO goes further.

Google's SEO Starter Guide says some changes take effect within hours and others can take several months, and it suggests waiting a few weeks before judging whether a change helped. So measure in layers:

Early on, the first two layers move first. If they are moving, the work is being found. If outcomes lag, look at the pages that sell before you publish anything new.

Plenty of startups do the first phase in-house, and that is a reasonable choice. Spend founder time where it compounds: the pages that sell, answers to the questions buyers ask, and asking partners for the mentions you have earned. Search Console is free. So is Google's own documentation, which answers more questions than most founders expect.

When outside help makes sense, buy judgment and implementation, not volume. Our SEO service starts with a diagnosis for that reason, and our page for technology companies explains how we approach software and startup sites.