Most SEO advice aimed at founders is third-party interpretation. Google Search Central publishes the source material - its SEO starter guide - and it is more conservative than the blogosphere suggests. No keyword formulas, no hacks: a short list of mechanical and editorial practices, plus one uncomfortable truth about timing.
Start with what Google can see
The guide's first stop is not keywords; it is rendering. Check whether Google can see your page the same way a user does. For JavaScript-heavy startup sites - and most AI-built sites qualify - this is the step that silently fails: content that exists only after client-side rendering can be invisible or delayed in indexing. Verify before optimizing anything downstream.
Structure is the strategy
The structural advice is plain. Use descriptive URLs that tell a reader what the page is. Group topically similar pages into directories so the site's logic is visible. Reduce duplicate content rather than letting five URLs compete for the same query. On the page itself, write for the search terms your readers actually use, link out to relevant resources with descriptive link text, and keep ads from overwhelming the content.
You can influence - not dictate - how the site appears in results. Title links come largely from your title elements, and snippets from your meta descriptions and page content. Write them for a human scanning results, because that is who reads them.
Images, promotion, and patience
Place high-quality images near relevant text and give them descriptive alt text - both an accessibility practice and how image search understands them. If you use video, the guide has a parallel set of practices for making it discoverable. And promote the site: the guide lists promotion as a real input, since links and mentions from the places your audience already lives are how new sites get discovered at all. For a startup that means the launch post, the community you are part of, and the partners who will actually link to you - not a directory-submission service.
Then the timing truth. Google's own words: some changes take effect in a few hours, others can take several months, and in general you should wait a few weeks before assessing whether your work had a beneficial effect - and not every change will produce a noticeable impact. For a founder refreshing Search Console the morning after a launch, the practical workflow is: ship the mechanical basics, promote the site, then iterate on a weekly cadence instead of a daily one.
What Google says to skip
The guide closes with a list of topics it believes do not deserve your attention. Three land directly on founder folklore. The meta keywords tag: Google Search does not use it. Keyword stuffing: repeating the same words in variations tires readers and violates Google's spam policies. And keywords in the domain name: from a ranking perspective they have hardly any effect beyond appearing in breadcrumbs - pick the name that is best for the business, not for a crawler.
The pattern across all three is the guide's real thesis: do what is best for your readers and your business, and let the mechanics be boring.