SEO playbook: how I work, writing and questions

Writing · 28 Oct 2026 · 4 min read

How Google finds, reads and files a website

By Belal, SEO specialist

Before a page can rank, it has to be found, read and stored. Those are three separate jobs, and a problem in any one of them can keep a good page out of search entirely.

1. Finding: crawling

Google's crawler, Googlebot, discovers pages mostly by following links: from pages it already knows, from other sites, and from the XML sitemap you give it. A page that nothing links to is hard to find. Before it fetches anything, it checks your robots.txt file, which can tell it to stay out of whole sections of the site.

2. Reading: rendering

Once a page is fetched, Google renders it much like a browser does, including running its JavaScript. Content that only appears after a click, or that depends on scripts that fail, may never be seen. Plain HTML with the important words in it is still the safest bet.

3. Filing: indexing

Then Google decides whether the page is worth keeping in its index, and which version to keep when several URLs show the same thing. A stray noindex tag, a wrong canonical, or thin, duplicated content can each stop a page at this step.

What to check on your own site

Every important page is linked from somewhere a visitor can click.
Your sitemap lists the pages you want found, and only those.
robots.txt isn't blocking anything you care about.
The main text of each page is in the HTML, not hidden behind scripts.
Search Console's page indexing report: it shows which pages were left out, and why.

Ranking only starts after all of this. That's why the first step on any site, this one included, is making sure it can be found, read and filed properly. You can follow how that goes for this site in the Work case study.

Want me to check how your site does on all three? Get in touch.

Playbook

The working parts.

My SEO process, from the first call to the monthly report. Nothing happens to your site that you haven't seen the reason for first.

Day 1
Listen
We talk about the business, who the customers are, and what a good month would look like.
Week 1
Audit
An SEO audit: I go through the site the way a search engine does: what it can reach, what it understands, and what's in the way.
Week 2
Plan
A short, ranked list of fixes and pages, each with the reason it matters, so you can see the order of work.
Monthly
Build and report
I do the work, then show what changed and what it did, in plain language.

Short notes on SEO and how search works, written as I learn it and test it on this site.

28 Oct 2026 · 4 min read How Google finds, reads and files a website Before a page can rank it has to be found, read and stored. Three separate jobs, and a problem in any one keeps a good page out of search. Read it

What people usually ask about SEO before they get in touch, answered straight.

I do SEO. That means fixing the technical side of your site, planning and writing the pages people are searching for, and earning links that count.

SEO is slow by nature. Small fixes can show within weeks; real movement usually takes months. I'll tell you what to expect for your site before we start, not after.

No, and nobody honest can. What I can promise is clear work, plain reporting, and no shortcuts that put your site at risk.

You don't have to take my word for it. This site is my first case study, ranked from zero in public, so you can watch the work and the numbers as they happen.

No. WordPress, Shopify, Webflow or hand-built, the principles are the same. Some platforms just make certain fixes quicker.

It depends on the site and what you want from it. Tell me about yours and I'll come back with a straight quote and exactly what's included.

Ask something else

The working parts.

Listen

Audit

Plan

Build and report