A brand new website doesn't get discovered by accident. Publishing it isn't the finish line, it's the moment Google has never heard of you yet. Here's the exact sequence I run through the day a site goes live, no shortcuts, no paid tricks, just the real groundwork.
Tell Google the site exists
Google Search Console verifies you actually own the domain, then lets you submit a sitemap, a single file listing every real page on the site. Without this, Google finds a new site by chance, eventually. With it, you're handing Google the map directly instead of waiting to be stumbled on.
Structured data, not just words on a page
A page full of good copy still leaves Google guessing at what a business actually is. A small block of structured data (Schema.org markup) states it plainly: this is a business, here's its name, here's what it does, here's how to contact it. It's a few lines of code most visitors never see, and it's the difference between Google inferring your business and Google knowing it.
Clean URLs, not a mess of file extensions
A URL like a site's homepage should read as a name, not a filename. Every real site I build gets restructured into clean folder-based URLs before launch, not because it looks nicer, but because Google and every person sharing a link treats it more seriously.
Real backlinks, earned honestly
A backlink is another real site vouching for yours. The most honest, immediate one available to me: every client site I build now credits "Site by Alastair Banwell" in its own footer, linking back here. It's a real, relevant link from a real, live business, not a bought placement on a spam directory.
A sitemap and a canonical URL that actually agree with each other
A domain that redirects `yoursite.com` to `www.yoursite.com` (or vice versa) needs every canonical tag and sitemap entry to point at the exact version that's actually live. Missing this is a genuinely common, easy-to-miss mistake, mismatched URLs quietly confuse search engines about which version is the real one.
None of this is exciting. It's also not optional. A beautifully designed site that skips this groundwork is invisible to the exact people searching for it.
Getting found is only half the job, see what actually makes a small business website convert once people land on it, or check the Pricing page for how this all fits together.