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Article · Finding clients
A blog for your SEO consultancy on a free plan: what to publish and how to set it up
A small blog that answers what prospects already ask you. What Google's guidance asks of each post, a twelve-post plan, a post template, how to confirm each post is indexed, and the setup on systeme.io's free plan.
The short answer: publish what a prospect would want to read even if search engines did not exist: plain answers to the questions clients ask you, guides to local tasks you know first-hand, and explanations of how you work. Put your real name on each post, give it a specific title and description, and check it in Search Console's URL Inspection once it is live. As listed on 30 October 2026, systeme.io's free plan includes 1 blog and 1 custom domain, enough for one consultancy blog on your own domain.
What to publish: three kinds of post
A consultancy blog has one job: help a business owner who is deciding whether to hire you. Three kinds of post do that without stretching past what you know.
| Kind | What it does | What only you can add |
|---|---|---|
| Plain answers to client questions | Answers a question you hear on calls or by email, in the client's words | The answer you actually give, with its caveats |
| Local guides | Walks a business owner in your area through one task | Detail about the place and the businesses you serve |
| Process explanations | Shows what working with you involves | Your real steps, deliverables and dates |
Start from your inbox and call notes. Google's people-first questions ask whether an existing or intended audience would find the content useful if they came directly to you. A question a prospect asked you last month is a good place to begin.
What Google's guidance asks of each post
Google's page on helpful, reliable, people-first content (last updated 5 October 2026) offers self-assessment questions, not a formula. Paraphrased, the most useful for a consultancy blog: does the post add original information or analysis beyond the obvious; does the title describe it without exaggerating; is there background on who wrote it, such as an About page; does it show first-hand expertise; and will the reader leave having learned enough to reach their goal?
Who, How and Why
| Question | Google's page, paraphrased | On your blog |
|---|---|---|
| Who created it | Make the author clear, with bylines where readers expect them, linked to the author's background. It counts fabricated creator profiles as deception. | Your real name on every post, linked to an About page. No invented team members or credentials. |
| How it was created | Explain how content was made where a reader might reasonably wonder, including substantial use of automation or AI. | One closing line: who wrote it, which examples are hypothetical, and whether a tool helped and who checked the facts. |
| Why it was created | Perhaps the most important question. Content should exist mainly to help people; content made mainly to attract search visits is out of line with what Google's systems reward. | Write each post for a prospect or client you could name. If you would not send them the link, do not publish it. |
The same page lists warning signs of search-engine-first content. Four a consultancy blog can slip into: writing on many topics in the hope some will rank; mainly summarizing others without adding value; writing to a word count, which the page says Google has no preference for; and changing a post's date to look fresh without substantially updating it.
Scaled content and city pages
Google's spam policies describe scaled content abuse as generating many pages mainly to manipulate search rankings rather than to help users, no matter how the content is created. Examples include generative AI producing many pages that add nothing for users, rewording or stitching together other sites' content, and pages that make little sense to a reader but contain search keywords. The doorway abuse section lists pages aimed at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page.
For a local consultant, the trap is one page per town with only the town name changed. Write a local guide when you have something specific to say about that place and task.
A 12-post starter plan you can copy
Four of each kind, alternating. Each row points to one page or earlier post, so the reader always has a next step.
| # | Kind | Working title (hypothetical) | Write it from | Next step |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Question | Why isn't my new page on Google yet? | What you say on calls | Contact |
| 2 | Process | What happens in the first 30 days of working with me | Your onboarding checklist | Services |
| 3 | Local | Moving your [area] business: what to update online, in order | Your client move checklist | Post 1 |
| 4 | Question | How long does SEO take? What I can and cannot tell you up front | Your kickoff email | Post 2 |
| 5 | Process | What my monthly report includes, line by line | A blank copy of your report | Contact |
| 6 | Local | Holiday hours for [area] businesses: where to change them online | Questions clients ask each season | Contact |
| 7 | Question | My calls from Google dropped. What do I check first? | Your diagnostic sequence | Post 5 |
| 8 | Process | What a fixed-price audit from me covers, and what it does not | Your audit outline | Audit page |
| 9 | Local | Hiring a web developer in [area]: questions to ask first | Problems you have seen after redesigns, no client named | Post 2 |
| 10 | Question | Do I need a blog? An honest answer for [type of business] | Your discovery-call answer | Contact |
| 11 | Process | What I need from you before we start, and why | Your access list | Post 2 |
| 12 | Local | Your Google Business Profile in [area]: what to keep current | Your monthly profile checks | Post 6 |
Two posts a month take six months; one a month, a year. Pick a pace you can keep. Material for rows 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8: Page indexing statuses explained, the onboarding checklist, the kickoff email, the monthly report email, the ranking-drop sequence and the SEO audit deliverable.
A post template
One question or task per post. Edit the brackets.
Title element: [The question or task, with your area if it matters] | [Your name or business]
Heading (h1): [The same question, in the reader's words]
Meta description: [The answer in brief, and who it is for.] By [your name], [month year].
Byline: By [your name], [what you do and for whom]. Links to About.
Date: Published [date]. If revised: Updated [date], [what changed].
- The short answer: two or three sentences.
- Who this is for: one line, and who it is not for.
- The answer or the steps: numbered if it is a task.
- What I would check on your site: two or three checks from your own work.
- When to get help: one paragraph, with no promise of rankings, traffic or leads.
- Next step: one link, to an earlier post or your contact page.
- How this post was made: Written by [your name]. Examples are hypothetical. [A tool helped with the draft; I checked every fact.]
Titles and descriptions
Google's title link page says title links can come from the title element, the main visible title, headings such as the h1, og:title, and anchor text, so make the title element and h1 agree. Be descriptive and concise, skip keyword stuffing and boilerplate, put the brand at the start or end, separated by a delimiter such as a pipe, and match the content's language. Google has to recrawl the page to notice a change, which may take a few days to a few weeks.
Its snippet page says snippets come primarily from page content, and Google sometimes uses the meta description when it might describe the page more accurately. Make each one unique, a summary rather than a keyword list, and consider details such as author and publication date. More in the content brief template.
Before you activate a post
- The first paragraph answers the question.
- Your name is in the byline, linked to About.
- Examples are labeled hypothetical; no client is named without permission.
- No promise of a ranking, a date or a number.
- Title element, h1 and description are written for this post alone.
- On systeme.io, Hide from search engines is unticked (step 6 below).
Check that each post gets indexed
Search Console's URL Inspection tool shows whether one URL is in Google's index. If the blog's domain has no property yet, see picking the property type.
- Once: submit the sitemap. On systeme.io it is the blog's domain plus
/sitemap.xml. In the Sitemaps report, enter it under Add a new sitemap and Submit; Google says this needs owner permission, and that not every URL in a sitemap may be crawled. - Inspect the post's full URL. The main result is the indexed version, not a live test. On a new post, click Test live URL; the page must load without a login.
- Read "Indexing allowed?" If the page blocks indexing, typically with noindex, the field shows the reason and the page will not appear in Search. On systeme.io, check Hide from search engines.
- Click Request indexing, once. It needs owner or full user access, requests have a quota, repeating one does not speed up crawling, and inclusion is not guaranteed. The URL Inspection help page says indexing typically takes a day or so but can take much longer in some cases.
- Log the date and inspect again in a week. "URL is on Google" means eligible to appear, not guaranteed. For "Discovered" or "Crawled – currently not indexed", see what those statuses mean; for every field, URL Inspection explained.
Set it up on systeme.io's free plan
As listed on systeme.io's pricing page on 30 October 2026, its FAQ says the free plan supports up to 2,000 contacts, 3 sales funnels, 1 blog, 1 course, 1 affiliate program and 1 custom domain, with unlimited emails; it never expires and needs no credit card. A longer version of that FAQ answer in the page's structured data adds that accounts with no login or activity for 6 months are deactivated, so log in regularly even in months without a post. The comparison table also has a Blog posts row; check the free-plan figure there before you commit to a posting plan. The FAQ names Startup, at $17 per month, as the next step. Menu names below are from systeme.io's help center on the same date.
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Choose and connect the domain
If your site already runs on systeme.io on your domain, put the blog on the same domain with its own URL path, such as
/blog; the help center says one domain's sitemap groups all its blogs and funnels. If your site is hosted elsewhere, do not add that domain: the help article warns a root domain already used by an external website stops being available there. Use a subdomain such asblog.[yourdomain].com; the help pages do not say whether it counts toward the one custom domain, so plan as if it does.Profile picture, Settings, Custom Domain, Add domain. Enter a root domain starting with www (one without www will not be approved) or the full subdomain, and Save. Add the two CNAME records shown at your domain host; for a root domain, also forward domain.com to www.domain.com, which the article says usually works only over HTTP. Records can take 24 to 48 hours to propagate; a working domain is approved within 24 hours.
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Create the blog
Sites, Blogs, Create: Name, Blog domain, URL path, a template, Save. Click the blog's title, then Blog settings, to change its name, domain, URL path and language; match the language to your posts. To make the blog the domain's homepage: three dots next to the blog, Settings, empty the URL path, Save.
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Pages, layout and byline
A new blog comes with five sample pages; About and Contact can be deleted, Home, Post list and Search cannot. Keep About and write your real background there. Blog layout has a default header and footer; anything added there appears on all pages and posts that use it. Under Posts, Post layout is the template for every post: add the Blog post date element, and a text element with your byline linking to About; anything added there appears on every post.
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Three categories
Categories. Three are created with default names; rename them from three dots, Settings. A new one takes Name, Path, Description, SEO title and SEO description. The help center says the SEO title appears in browser tabs and social shares, and the SEO description in search results and social previews. Use Client questions, Local guides and How I work.
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Add posts
Posts. Some default posts come with the blog; edit or delete them so no placeholder goes live. Create: Title (the post's header), Short description (shown on listing pages, so make it a one-line summary), URL Path, Image, Categories, Save. Three dots, Edit to write it from the template; then three dots, Activate to display it on the blog.
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Check the SEO settings in the editor
systeme.io's help article on the editor's Search Engine Optimization (SEO) section, under Settings in the left panel, lists Title (shown in the browser tab), Description (tied to social sharing; it does not say whether it becomes the meta description), Keywords, Author, Social media image and Hide from search engines. It says pages are hidden by default, and that after re-enabling indexing you must request it in Search Console. The blog articles do not say whether posts start hidden, so open each post in the editor and, if the section is there, untick the box; "Indexing allowed?" in URL Inspection confirms it either way. Put your name in Author. Google says Google Search does not use the meta keywords tag, so for Google, Keywords can stay empty.
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Sitemap and RSS feed
The help center says each connected domain's
/sitemap.xmlupdates when you create a post and is referenced in robots.txt automatically; submit it once, as in the indexing steps. Each blog also gets an RSS feed of its 20 most recent posts, under the blog's Settings. To announce posts by email, ask first: see who you may email. For a sign-up offer on the blog, see a checklist lead magnet.
Before you share the link, open the published blog and look for a platform badge; if one can earn you a commission, label it as in the one-page website build.
For the follow-up emails behind a sign-up form, on the same free plan, see Part B of the walkthrough.
Sources
- Self-assessment questions; Who, How and Why; fabricated profiles; warning signs; word count (last updated 5 October 2026): Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content (Google Search Central)
- Scaled content abuse and doorway abuse: Spam policies for Google web search (Google Search Central)
- Title link sources, best practices, timing: Influencing your title links (Google Search Central)
- Snippets and meta descriptions: Control your snippets (Google Search Central)
- Meta keywords not used: Meta tags that Google supports (Google Search Central)
- Indexed version vs live test; "Indexing allowed?"; indexing time; "URL is on Google": URL Inspection tool (Search Console Help)
- Owner or full user; quota; repeated requests; no guarantee: Ask Google to recrawl your URLs (Google Search Central)
- Submitting a sitemap; owner permission; not every URL crawled: Sitemaps report (Search Console Help)
- Free plan FAQ and its structured-data version (6-month inactivity), Blog posts row, Startup price, as listed on 30 October 2026: systeme.io/pricing
- Creating a blog, blog settings: article 175; blog as homepage: article 143; pages: article 639; layout: article 700; post layout: article 1689
- Categories: article 1690, article 1696; posts: article 359; editor SEO section: article 510
- Sitemap and robots.txt: article 11336; RSS feed: article 11064
- Connecting a domain: article 135; subdomain: article 142; approval and www: article 347