When you search something on Google, how does it know which pages to show in the search results and in which order to rank them? Understanding the basics of how search engines work can help you understand how to promote your business on Google for free.

Before it can show a page in search results, Google needs to find the page and index it. To accomplish this, Google uses bots that crawl the web via links, then analyzes each page it comes across and adds them to Google's index.

When Google analyzes a page, it looks at numerous factors to determine its quality and what topics it covers.

It uses these factors to determine which order to rank pages in for each search. Google's goal is to show users the most relevant, high-quality content for their searches.

So, to rank well in Google, you need to help Google figure out what your page is about and show Google that your page is high-quality. That is the basic goal of search engine optimization (SEO).

SEO encompasses a wide variety of tactics, some of which involve some cost.