Indie Developer SEO Handbook (Part 1): In the AI Era, How to Make Google and AI Both Love Your Website? (First Principles)

Word count: ~6200 words

Estimated reading time: ~20 minutes

Last updated: July 16, 2025

Is this article for you?

If you’re an indie developer, SaaS founder, or tech-background entrepreneur.
If you want to build a systematic, correct SEO cognitive framework, not just scattered tips.
If you’re curious about AI search’s future and want to find growth methods that transcend cycles.
Then this article is your “cornerstone” — a deep analysis of SEO and GEO first principles worth saving for repeated reading.

Chapter Contents

Preface: From “Passive Waiting” to “Active Building”
Chapter 1: Return to Origins — Google Search’s Three Eternal Laws
Chapter 2: Embrace the Future — GEO, SEO’s Inevitable Evolution in the AI Era
Chapter 3: Hands-On Practice — Give Your Website a “Complete Technical Checkup” (Detailed Checklist)
Conclusion: Lay an Unshakeable Foundation for Your Digital Asset

Preface: From “Passive Waiting” to “Active Building”

This series distills years of the author’s SEO experience in software globalization, providing indie developers and software/AI entrepreneurs with an effective SEO practice handbook. It’s divided into Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced series, covering SEO and GEO fundamentals, technical SEO, programmatic SEO, content marketing, link building, brand reputation, and more. If this helps you, please follow me — you’ll get a practice-focused, case-rich, complete professional SEO action framework.

This is the first article in the Indie Developer SEO Handbook. I don’t want to repeat basic content many SEO bloggers have covered many times, like “What is SEO,” “How to quickly rank in Top 10” — beginner questions. I want to use minimal theory and maximum practice to tell you how to start SEO work at lowest cost and get results. Of course, this article still covers essential basic theory — the minimum knowledge units required to understand and practice SEO. You must know not just “what” but “why.” Otherwise, you’ll definitely encounter questions like:

Why did I create lots of content but get no traffic?
Why did I build lots of backlinks with no effect?
Why can’t my product pages ever rank?

Honestly, I’m tired of answering these questions. Let’s begin:

A common misconception: indie developers often believe that if the product is good enough, users will come on their own. So we launch the website, then passively wait for traffic miracles. But reality is often our hard work remains unknown in the internet ocean.

The era of passive thinking is completely over. Whether facing traditional search engines built from billions of links, or generative AI powered by large models, we must change roles — from a “product publisher” waiting to be discovered, to an active, strategic “information builder.” What we must do is “build” a website that machines can clearly understand and judge as highly trustworthy. This article, as our handbook’s opener, provides the most foundational “design blueprints” for this grand “construction project.”

Chapter 1: Return to Origins — Google Search’s Three Eternal Laws (Deep Version)

Before diving into any techniques, we must understand the rules of the game. Google’s algorithm is complex as the stars, but its core operation always follows three unchanging first principles. Understanding them is the prerequisite for all optimization.

1.1 Discoverability Law (Crawling) 🧭

Google first needs to “know” your website and pages exist. It does this through programs called “Crawlers/Spiders.” Think of crawlers as tireless API clients, endlessly exploring the web. Ensure your website is a “well-planned city with clear signage” rather than an “inaccessible maze” — this is SEO’s first step. This mainly relies on three core tools:

Robots.txt - Your “Access Pass”: A text file in your website’s root directory telling crawlers which areas are accessible, which are restricted. For example, you might not want backend login pages, user private data, or development test pages indexed. A misconfigured robots.txt could accidentally block your entire site — disastrous.
Sitemap.xml - Your “Building Blueprint”: An XML file listing all important pages you want search engines to discover. It’s like proactively submitting a complete architectural blueprint to Google, helping it more efficiently and comprehensively understand your site structure — especially crucial for new sites or sites with many pages.
Internal Links - Your “Navigation System”: Crawlers follow links on pages to discover new content. A logically clear internal link structure (e.g., homepage to category pages to specific product/article pages) not only guides crawlers deeper into your site but passes “authority,” telling Google which pages are more important.

1.2 Understandability Law (Indexing) 📚

After discovering your page, Google needs to “understand” what it’s about. Like a super database, it parses page content and metadata, storing it in a massive index. At this stage, sending Google clear, accurate, unambiguous signals is crucial. It’s not just telling it “content exists here,” but “this is an article about what topic, with what structure, by whom.”

Basic HTML Signals: Your <title> tag, meta description, H1/H2 heading structure, image alt text — fundamentals of fundamentals. Together they form the page’s “content summary,” giving Google a quick initial topic judgment.
Structured Data (Schema Markup) - “Semantic Tags”: This is the real “killer feature.” By adding JSON-LD code to pages, you describe content in language machines can precisely understand. For example, explicitly tell Google: “This is a ‘Product,’ its ‘name’ is A, ‘price’ is $99, ‘user rating’ is 4.8 stars.” Or “This is an ‘Article,’ its ‘author’ is Mr. Guo, ‘publication date’ is July 15, 2025.” This precise semantic information is key to making your content stand out in search results (like Rich Snippets), and core competitiveness in the future GEO era.

1.3 Value Ranking Law (Ranking) 🏆

When users enter a query, Google finds all relevant pages from its massive index and ranks them through an extremely complex recommendation algorithm. This algorithm considers hundreds of signals, but its core goal is only one: Present users the most useful, most reliable results. For indie developers, understanding and optimizing these core value signals matters far more than chasing every tiny algorithm update.

E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness): Not a single metric, but a comprehensive quality assessment framework.
- Experience: Have you actually used the products you’re reviewing? Are your tutorials from first-hand practice? Showing real experiences, process screenshots, even failed attempts in content greatly strengthens “experience” signals.
- Expertise: Is your content deep, comprehensive, accurate? Does it provide unique insights beyond common knowledge? As developers, sharing deep technical analyses, code snippets, architectural thinking best demonstrates expertise.
- Authoritativeness: Are you or your site recognized as a reliable information source in your field? Usually reflected through quality external links (Backlinks) — are other trusted sites willing to “vote” for you?
- Trustworthiness: Is the site secure (HTTPS)? Are there clear “About Us,” “Contact” pages? Is author information explicit? Are privacy policy and terms of service complete? These build the foundation of user and search engine trust in you.
User Experience (Core Web Vitals): Google believes a page that makes users wait too long or has jumping layouts during load isn’t a good result. So site load speed (LCP), interaction responsiveness (INP), and visual stability (CLS) are explicit ranking factors. For us technically-minded developers, this is precisely our strength.

Chapter 2: Embrace the Future — GEO, SEO’s Inevitable Evolution in the AI Era

2.1 New Search Paradigm: From “Pull” to “Push”

Lately, the community buzzes with “SEO is dead, GEO is king.” GEO’s (Generative Engine Optimization) rise indeed marks a profound paradigm revolution. Its core goal has shifted from “winning user clicks” to “winning AI citations and presentation.”

Behind this is a fundamental shift in information acquisition. Traditional search (SEO) is a “Pull” model: search engines present a list of links, users actively click to pull information. Generative search (GEO) is a “Push” model: AI systems push a synthesized, refined answer directly to users, often bypassing direct website visits.

2.2 Underlying Mechanism: RAG Is AI’s “Open-Book Exam”

To understand GEO, you must understand its core technology — RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation). Think of it as an “open-book exam.” Traditional LLMs are “closed-book,” relying only on pre-trained, possibly outdated memory. RAG systems allow LLMs to “consult references” before answering — instantly retrieving most relevant information from an external knowledge base (like real-time web indexes), then generating answers based on these fresh, reliable “reference materials.” GEO’s entire purpose is making your content the “textbook” AI most wants to reference and cite in this open-book exam.

2.3 First Principles: SEO and GEO’s Shared DNA

So what “textbooks” does AI prefer when “consulting references”? This is where SEO and GEO share DNA. They’re both built on the same “first principles”: an information carrier that’s machine-friendly (discoverable, understandable) and human-valuable (E-E-A-T, good experience) is always the winner.

2.4 Comparative Analysis: From “Clicks” to “Citations” — Tactical Differences

After clarifying commonalities, this table clearly contrasts their tactical differences:

Feature Dimension	Traditional SEO	Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Core Goal	Drive organic traffic through high rankings (win clicks)	Be cited in AI answers, become authoritative source (win citations)
Key Metrics (KPI)	Keyword rankings, organic traffic, CTR	Brand mentions, citation rate, “Share of Model” (SoM)
Content Strategy	Keyword-driven, narrative long-form satisfying user intent	Fact-dense, highly structured, conversational, optimized for machine readability
User Interaction	Users “pull” information from link lists to site	AI “pushes” synthesized answers to users, possibly bypassing site

2.5 Symbiotic Relationship: SEO Is GEO Success’s Foundation

This leads to this chapter’s most important conclusion: SEO and GEO are symbiotic, not substitutes. Leading marketing platform Writesonic found in a study an astonishing fact: Over 40% of AI-generated answer citations come directly from Google’s traditional SERP top 10.

This data eloquently proves a clear logic chain exists:

SEO Is GEO Success’s Foundation

Step 1: Strong SEO Foundation (Healthy technical base, high-quality content, demonstrated E-E-A-T)

↓

Step 2: Achieve High Rankings in Traditional Search (Content appears on Google SERP page one)

↓

Step 3: Selected as “Reference Material” by RAG Systems (High ranking = AI judges it as authoritative, relevant source)

↓

Step 4: Achieve GEO Success (Your viewpoints, data, brand name cited in AI’s generative answers)

Therefore, mastering SEO’s “internal skills” is the best “mindset” for facing the GEO era.

Chapter 3: Hands-On Practice — Give Your Website a “Complete Technical Checkup”

After unifying “Dao” (principles) and “Fa” (thinking), this chapter enters “Shu” (practice). I’ve integrated Google’s SEO Starter Guide with our GEO understanding into a “Technical SEO Health Checklist” designed specifically for indie developers. Follow this checklist to complete a thorough foundation optimization for your site. For each item, we’ll answer “Why it matters,” “How to do it,” and “What tools to use.”

1. Configure Google Search Console (GSC) & Submit Sitemap

Why: GSC is your “official dashboard” — your only direct communication channel with Google. It tells you how Google sees your site, which pages are indexed, what technical issues exist, and what keywords users found you with. Doing SEO without GSC is like driving blindfolded.

How: Visit Google Search Console, add your domain as a resource. Google will require ownership verification (usually via DNS record or HTML file upload). After verification, in “Index” -> “Sitemaps,” submit your sitemap.xml file path (e.g., https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml).

Tools: Google Search Console itself is the tool. Spend time familiarizing yourself with “Performance,” “Page Indexing,” “Experience” core reports.

2. Check `robots.txt`

Why: Incorrect robots.txt configuration is beginners’ most fatal mistake. One line Disallow: / could waste all your efforts. Ensure you’re not accidentally blocking Google from crawling important CSS, JavaScript files, or content pages.

How: Visit yourdomain.com/robots.txt to view your file. A universal config allowing all crawlers access to all content: User-agent: * Allow: / Ensure no Disallow directives block paths you want indexed.

Tools: GSC’s “robots.txt Tester” helps check file validity and whether specific URLs are blocked.

3. Enable Site-wide HTTPS

Why: Security is Google’s top priority. HTTPS not only encrypts user data and builds trust, but is an explicit ranking signal. In 2025, a site without HTTPS appears untrustworthy to users and search engines alike.

How: Obtain and install an SSL certificate for your server. Good news: many services (like Let’s Encrypt) offer free SSL certificates, and most hosting platforms (like Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare) provide one-click HTTPS enabling.

Tools: Check your browser address bar for the padlock icon. Qualys SSL Labs’ Test can comprehensively grade your HTTPS configuration.

4. Optimize URL, Title, Canonical, and Meta Description

Why: This is the most direct way to convey page core content to users and search engines. A clear URL and attractive title/description can significantly improve SERP click-through rate (CTR), and CTR itself is a positive ranking signal.

How: • URL: Concise, readable, contains core keyword. Bad: .../p?id=123. Good: .../blog/saas-seo-guide. • Title: Each page’s <title> tag should be unique, accurately summarizing page content, recommended under 60 characters. Format usually “Core Keyword | Brand Name.” • Meta Description: While not directly affecting ranking, it’s your free “ad copy” on SERP. Write 150-160 characters of attractive summary including keywords, ending with clear Call-to-Action.

Canonical: Declare your canonical page to avoid unnecessary duplicate content. If you don’t understand, just make your standard mapped URL the canonical.

Tools: Screaming Frog SEO Spider (has free version) can batch crawl and check site-wide URLs, Titles, and Meta Descriptions.

5. Establish Clear Content Hierarchy (Heading Tags)

Why: Like a book’s chapter table of contents, H1, H2, H3… heading tags give your content structure. This helps search engines quickly understand article key points and logical relationships, and makes it easier for users to read and digest long content.

How: Follow strict logical order. Each page should have only one H1 tag — usually the article or page’s main title. Use H2 for main section headings, H3 for subsections under H2, and so on. Don’t skip heading levels for styling (like jumping from H2 to H4).

Tools: Use browser developer tools (Inspect Element) to quickly check page heading structure. Many Chrome SEO plugins (like SEO Minion) can also analyze page Heading structure with one click.

6. Deploy Structured Data (Schema Markup)

Why: As discussed in Chapter 1, this is key to making machines “precisely understand” your content. Proper Schema deployment can help your pages appear in richer formats in search results (like summaries with ratings, prices, FAQs), greatly increasing appeal.

How: For indie developers, most common Schema types are Article, FAQPage, SoftwareApplication, Product. Use JSON-LD format to embed code in the page’s <head>. Example, adding Schema for an article:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Article",
  "headline": "Indie Developer SEO Handbook",
  "author": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Mr. Guo"
  },
  "datePublished": "2025-07-15"
}
</script>

Tools: Google’s “Rich Results Test” tool validates your Schema code. Merkle’s Schema Markup Generator helps quickly generate code.

This matters for both search engines and generative AI — it’s key infrastructure for “them” to quickly understand your page content and build trust.

7. Ensure Mobile Friendliness & Optimize Core Web Vitals

Why: Google implements “mobile-first indexing,” meaning it primarily ranks based on your site’s mobile version. Also, loading speed and page experience are explicit ranking factors. As developers, this is where we absolutely cannot lose points.

How: • Mobile Friendly: Use responsive design, ensure text is clearly readable, buttons easily clickable, no horizontal scrolling. • Core Web Vitals: Optimize image sizes (use WebP format, compress), streamline CSS/JS, leverage browser caching, use CDN to improve LCP, INP, and CLS metrics.

Tools: Google’s “Mobile-Friendly Test” tool and “PageSpeed Insights.” PageSpeed Insights provides detailed CWV reports and optimization suggestions.

Conclusion: Lay an Unshakeable Foundation for Your Digital Asset

Everything we’ve done today — from understanding search principles, to clarifying GEO myths, to completing this detailed technical checkup — may seem basic, but is the cornerstone of the entire “SEO growth flywheel.” Schopenhauer said, “The individual person is weak and powerless, like Robinson Crusoe adrift alone; only together with others can he accomplish many things.” In SEO’s world, your content is that “individual person,” and a technically flawless, machine and human-friendly website architecture is the “society” enabling great achievements. I hope you’ve completed this “checkup” and laid the first — and most important — brick for the growth journey ahead.