The guide document known as SEO Starter Guide was first published in 2008. It began life as a 22-page PDF designed to be a comprehensive source covering the SEO topics that were common at the time. Google expanded it into 40 other languages, and it eventually became a modern web page that anyone with an internet connection could open.
Google says: Over all these years we kept adding more topics to this document, mostly general advice about a particular subject such as updates, and it rarely happened that we wanted to remove something from it. More than 15 years have passed since those days, and today we decided to publish a more optimized version of the guide that puts a much tighter focus on the beginner audience — the topics a person can concentrate on precisely when they are only entering the world of SEO, and that explain why the things in it are there.
A tighter focus on the target audience
As the name SEO Starter Guide suggests, this introductory guide is really for the owners of new websites and for other content creators who want to improve how they show up in search results and learn the way to do it; that means its content level is not aimed at specialists.
Along the same lines, and in order to help that target audience, we removed specialized and ambiguous terminology from the guide so that readers can get to the point faster. To that end, most sections were also condensed to the main topics and the key subjects, so that the concepts and definitions a beginner needs are easier to absorb.
Most of our effort went into describing the terms and concepts in a way that is understandable — an important approach that pushes a person to ask “why” and to dig further in order to know more.
What we removed
The Glossary section: in place of it, every term is now explained in the text where it appears.
The Structured data section: that subject is meant for advanced levels, and beginners at the start of the journey do not need it. If you are new and still want to work with it, you can do so with the plugins and tools available in the various content management systems (CMS).
The Mobile friendliness section: most new websites and platforms are already mobile-friendly. For that reason we removed the Mobile friendliness section for beginners.
The Analyzing site performance section: this is another more advanced subject. To start with, you can look at it after understanding the basics and making a few changes on your own site.
What we condensed
The “Are you on Google” sections: these were simplified into a single section that deals with the fastest way to check whether your site is on Google or not. The new version also covers the first steps a site owner should take when the site does not appear in Google’s search results.
The “Do I Need an SEO” section: since Google already has a standalone document with that name, a duplicate version was not needed, so the decision was to link this whole section to that main guide in only two sentences.
The Title links and snippets section
This section was also cut back significantly so that, once the basic concepts are learned, readers move on to the more comprehensive documentation.
The Images section
In our view, image alt text is the more important topic for beginners. Anyone interested can read the image SEO best practices guide and learn more if they want to.
The “Opt out of Google Search” section
While this section points to important subjects, it seemed better handled at other levels.
The Links section
This part was condensed to focus on why link building is useful for users and for search engines.
The promoting your site section
That heading was compressed as well, and linked to the “Google for developers” section, because a more precise guide exists for this subject.
♦️ The Site structure section stayed largely unchanged, but there are a few essential points:
The navigation section
Instead of Navigation, we focused on internal linking and on the site’s important URLs.
The 404 error
We really do not care much about 404 pages. Site owners should know that they simply have to do whatever makes sense for their users’ experience.
The breadcrumbs section
Explicit setup for breadcrumbs is also an advanced-level subject.
Content that was added and is new
We always try our hardest not to add anything new, but some sections had no answer to certain questions. Beginners, for example, kept asking “why should I do this” or “why isn’t this topic here”. That is why, although the changes made are not particularly dramatic, we explain in the duplicate content part exactly what “duplicate content” is and how to fix it if it needs fixing.
We also added a short new section for videos, whose purpose is to balance the content with the images section. There is another new section on common SEO theories and ideas that, in our view, should not get too much focus, and a new section on how long it takes to see the effect of SEO on a site, which makes this update richer.
At first we were a little unsure whether covering some of these side issues and documenting wrong patterns and myths was the right thing to do, but in the end we did it to help newcomers and to keep the focus on the areas that really matter.
What is the next step?
The SEO Starter Guide rarely changes and we hope it stays that way. Still, over the coming months we intend to keep clarifying and simplifying our documentation. If you have an idea about which guide or topic should be prioritized, or feedback on the guide, share it with us.
Author’s note: Google had said before that “the policies and guide documents we have for search engines and SEO need a fundamental overhaul, because a large part of them has expired and no longer works.” Google pointed to that statement to explain that if it set out to update every policy and guide document, the SEO community would not be ready to face that level of change. Now, after the search engine talked about the changes coming to its own SEO guide, it happened today: the SEO Starter Guide has been fully optimized and updated.
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Omid Bodagh
I am an SEO specialist who likes helping businesses get seen on Google. From WordPress to SEO, whatever an online business needs to grow, I can help with it.
