A planting calendar for search work done in-house
The year’s work, bed by bed
Running SEO inside a business
Google says there is no need to sign in to Search Console every day: it emails you when it finds new issues on your site, and suggests a look around once a month, or whenever you change the site’s content. This guide lays the rest of the work out the way a gardener lays out a year: search work, planted month by month.
SEO Manager is a guide to running search work yourself, inside a business, written and published by Dotto. Every job on it comes from Google’s own documentation for site owners, linked where it is used.
The year at a glance
Google names one rhythm for this work: a look at Search Console around once a month, and again whenever the site changes. That row is marked across every month below. The six beds under it are an example, Dotto’s, of one way to spread the deeper jobs across a year, a bed every two months, so nothing is dug up at once. Move them to suit your own year.
| Job | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The monthly look in Search Console Every month, and after any change to the site (Google’s suggestion) | look | look | look | look | look | look | look | look | look | look | look | look |
| The job, and the keys to it Example: January and February | in work | in work | ||||||||||
| Reading Search Console Example: March and April | in work | in work | ||||||||||
| Sitemaps and crawling Example: May and June | in work | in work | ||||||||||
| Helpful content Example: July and August | in work | in work | ||||||||||
| Fixing what Google can’t index Example: September and October | in work | in work | ||||||||||
| Structured data Example: November and December | in work | in work |
the monthly look a bed in work (example plan)
Any month: the two jobs that follow a change
- After you change a page, the URL Inspection tool’s live test shows whether Google can fetch the page and whether it might be indexable, and lets an owner or full user ask Google to crawl it again. Google says asking more than once for the same page won’t get it crawled any faster.
- Write the change on the chart. Search Console lets you add your own notes, called annotations, to the Performance report’s chart on the date something happened, such as a launch or a fix.
The seed packets
Each guide is one bed’s job, written from the Google page that covers it and set out in the shape that job takes: a checklist where you are judging, a worked example where you are building, an annotated drawing where you are reading.
Packet 01Jan–Feb
What an SEO manager looks after
The job inside a business, bed by bed, and what Google says to do if your only verified owner leaves.
From Google’s SEO Starter Guide and Search Console Help
Packet 02Mar–Apr
Search Console in plain words
The Performance report drawn and annotated: what each number counts, and what it can’t tell you.
From Search Console Help
Packet 03May–Jun
Sitemaps and crawling
A worked example: one small business site, whether it needs a sitemap at all, and the file if it does.
From Google’s sitemap documentation
Packet 04Jul–Aug
Helpful content, as a checklist
Google’s own self-assessment questions, sorted into the ones where yes is good and the ones where yes is a warning.
From Google’s people-first content guidance
Packet 05Sep–Oct
Fixing what Google can’t index
The Page indexing report’s reasons, sorted into the ones that are fine and the ones worth a closer look.
From Search Console Help
Packet 06Nov–Dec
What structured data does
Labels that help Google read a page, what they can make a page eligible for, and what they never promise.
From Google’s structured data documentation
Before you dig: what Google says up front
- No one can pay for a better spot. Google says it doesn’t accept payment to crawl a site more often or to rank it higher.
- Nothing is guaranteed. Google doesn’t guarantee that it will crawl, index or show a page, even one that follows its Search Essentials.
- Search Console is optional, and free. Google offers it at no charge, and a site can appear in Google Search without ever being added to it.
Keep a gardener’s diary
Gardeners write down what they planted and when, because what they planted shows its result long after the planting. Search Console has the same idea built in. As at October 2026, Google’s help page says a property can hold up to 200 custom annotations, each note can be up to 120 characters, and annotations older than 500 days are deleted automatically. Owners and full users can add and delete them; restricted users can only read them.
Google treats annotations as business data shared with everyone on the property, so its help page asks you to keep names, phone numbers and addresses out of them. The Search Console annotations help page has the current limits.