A new website's first 30 days on Google: what to do, in order

A newly launched website does not appear on Google by itself. Nor does it need to wait three months as people often say — most of that wait is four simple things left undone.

Here are nine tasks in the order that matters, with which are free and which cost money.

Week 1 — four mandatory tasks

1. Check that Google is allowed in

It sounds obvious, and it is the most common fault on new websites. Plenty of sites are set to block search engines during development and never switched back.

How to check: open your address with /robots.txt on the end. If you see Disallow: /, Google is fully blocked.

Also check: view the home page source and search for noindex. If it is there, nothing else on this list matters until it is removed.

2. Register Google Search Console

Free, and the single most important tool you have. It tells you what Google sees on your site — not guesswork.

Once ownership is verified, do two things immediately: submit the sitemap, and use URL inspection on your home page, then request indexing.

3. Submit the sitemap

A sitemap is the list of pages you want Google to know about. A properly built site generates one at /sitemap.xml.

Open that address to confirm it exists and contains your pages. Then paste it into Search Console under Sitemaps.

If your site has no sitemap, that is a sign the technical SEO was skipped, and worth raising with whoever built it.

4. Create a Google Business Profile

Free, and for any business with a real address this has the fastest effect on the whole list — faster than anything involving the website.

Fill it in completely: name, address, phone, opening hours, real photographs, and the correct business category. This profile appears in local results within days to weeks, while a website usually takes longer.

Weeks 2–3 — four content tasks

5. Check every page has its own title

Open each important page and read the browser tab. Each must differ, and each title should contain what a customer would search for.

Wrong: "Home", "Products", "Contact". Right: "Apartment interior design in Hanoi | [Company]".

This takes an afternoon and has more effect than most of what follows.

6. Write three pages targeting three real searches

Do not start a blog yet. Write three service or product pages, each targeting one phrase people type into Google.

How to find those three without paid tools: search your own service, read the "People also search for" block at the bottom, and read the suggestions as you type. That is real search data, free.

7. Link the pages to each other

Every important page should be linked from at least two others. A page reachable only through the menu is one Google treats as less important.

Use descriptive text as the link, not "read more" or "click here".

8. Add real contact details and policy pages

A real address or phone number, opening hours, a privacy policy, terms. Google uses these to judge trustworthiness, and so do customers.

Month two onwards — the long game

9. Earn links from other websites

The hardest task, the slowest, and the one with the greatest long-term effect.

The four easiest sources for a Vietnamese business, in order of ease:

• Trade associations you belong to
• Partners and suppliers — ask to be added to their partners page
• Local press or trade publications, if you have something newsworthy
• Local business directories

Do not buy links. Plenty of places in Vietnam sell them cheaply, and most are on sites Google has already devalued or is about to.

What to skip

Keyword stuffing. Write naturally. Google solved this a decade ago.

Meta keywords. Unused since 2009. If somebody sells you "meta keyword optimisation", that tells you what you need to know.

Guaranteed top rankings in 30 days. Nobody controls Google's rankings. Anyone who guarantees it will be explaining themselves in month two.

A realistic timeline

• Days 1–7: Google starts crawling, once week one's four tasks are done
• Weeks 2–4: main pages appear on exact brand-name searches
• Months 2–3: first traffic from long, low-competition phrases
• Months 4–8: competitive on main phrases, given good content and a few links

If six weeks pass and an exact brand-name search still does not find you, something is technically wrong — go back to tasks 1 and 2.

If you want the technical groundwork done already

Every template we ship includes a generated sitemap, robots.txt, canonical tags, structured data and per-page titles editable from the admin area. That means tasks 1, 3 and 5 are finished before you start.

The other four — Search Console, Business Profile, content, links — are yours, and nobody can do them for you.