Indexability: Can Search Engines Even Find Your Content?
Part [I] of the SIGNAL(S) Framework
Rage Bait.
Shallow listicles.
Clickbait-y hooks.
AI-regurgitated noise.
Reposted opinions dressed up as original thought.
What do these all have in common?
This is the stuff that often floats to the top—not because it’s good, but because it fits the format. And the people who created it understand that format.
It loads fast.
It triggers emotion.
It plays nice with the algorithm through engagement metrics.
Pro Tip: Substack rewards engagement. If you want to help this content reach more people, tap the 💜, leave a quick comment, and/or ‘restack’ it. Each small action sends a signal—and helps spread the word. 📡
Meanwhile, thoughtful content—the kind someone actually needs—gets buried.
Not because it lacks value, but because it lacks structure.
And that’s the real problem.
We assume good content will rise to the top on merit alone.
But that’s not how platforms work.
Search engines and social feeds don’t think like humans.
They don’t “read” your content the way a person does.
They scan it.
They sort it.
They index it—if it’s built in a way they can understand.
If it’s not built properly?
It’s like shouting into a void.
This is where indexability comes in (the “I” in the SIGNAL(S) Framework).
It’s not the sexiest part of content creation.
But it’s the part that determines whether your work gets discovered—or disappears.
Looking for the rest of the SIGNAL Framework?
Indexability – What Is It?
So let’s talk about indexability.
What is it, really?
At a very base level, indexability is your content’s ability to be seen—not by a human, but by the platform itself.
Good ideas deserve good scaffolding.
Not just for the algorithm’s sake—
But so your work can reach the people it’s meant to help.
It’s whether or not the system can find it, understand it, and slot it into the vast catalog of everything else that’s out there.
Think of it like trying to shelve a book in a massive library.
If the book has no title, no spine label, no clear authorship, and no table of contents inside…
It probably gets tossed in the wrong section—or worse, lost in a back room no one ever checks.
The same thing happens online.
In a website or article, those identifiers look like:
Header tags (H1, H2, H3…)
Title tags
Meta descriptions
URL structure
Internal linking
You can write something brilliant—but if it’s not labeled properly…
If the structure is messy, the metadata is missing, or the headings are unclear…
Search engines don’t know what to do with it.
And when they don’t know what to do with it, they don’t show it to anyone.
Indexability isn’t about tricking the algorithm.
It’s about giving your content a fighting chance to be found and properly ranked—
By an inhuman librarian sorting through 225,000 new websites created every day.
And that doesn’t even include the 7.5 million blog posts published daily.
The Common Mistakes That Hide Good Content
Here’s the frustrating part.
Most people don’t mean to make their content invisible.
They just don’t realize how easily it can happen.
You write a beautiful post…
But it’s buried in a JavaScript-heavy page that search engines can’t crawl (meaning they can’t read or properly navigate your content).
You launch a landing page…
But forget to set a title tag or write a meta description, so the preview in search results looks like gibberish.
Or maybe you use two title tags (H1 headers), so to the search engine, it looks like you’ve given your content two different titles.
You publish 10 blog posts…
But never link them to each other, so they float in isolation—like islands with no bridges.
It’s rarely one big mistake.
It’s a handful of small, invisible mistakes that add up to a single outcome:
Your content doesn’t get indexed properly.
Here are a few of the most common culprits:
No clear heading structure. Just walls of text. No hierarchy. No map.
Missing metadata. Title tags, descriptions, alt text—all blank.
Orphan pages. Great content that nothing links to.
Over-designed templates. Pretty to look at, painful for crawlers.
Blocking bots by accident. A bad robots.txt file can keep Google (and other web crawlers) out entirely.
None of these are exciting to fix.
But all of them are fixable.
And the truth is, most of them are less about technical expertise…
And more about simple, intentional structure.
You don’t have to be a developer.
You just need to be made aware (which is what this article is for).
After that, it’s just a matter of knowing how to fix it—and fixing it.
Indexability Is Signal Clarity
At first glance, indexability feels like a bunch of technical details.
Headers. Tags. Metadata. URLs.
But underneath that?
It’s really about clarity.
It’s about making your signal easy to receive.
Because every piece of content you publish is a signal—
A message you’re sending out into the noise.
And if that message is buried, tangled, or hard to interpret…
It gets lost.
Indexability is what helps it cut through.
It’s what makes sure your ideas don’t just float aimlessly…
But land—in the right place, at the right time, for the right person.
Yes, it’s about helping platforms understand your work through clean, intentional structure.
But it’s also about the human on the other side.
The one scanning quickly, overwhelmed, looking for something that actually helps.
The one searching in a quiet moment.
The one who’s made it to page three of Google because nothing on the first two pages quite answered the question they were really asking.
When you structure your content with care, you’re not just helping it rank.
You’re helping it resonate.
Because indexable clarity and structure isn’t just a strategy.
It’s a signal.
Tools That Can Help (Without Taking Over)
You don’t need to become an SEO expert to make your content more discoverable.
But a few good tools can go a long way in showing you what’s working—and what’s missing.
Think of these not as magic wands, but as flashlights.
They won’t do the work for you. But they’ll help you see what needs attention.
A few worth exploring:
Google Search Console (and Google Analytics)
These show how your content is performing in search and alert you to indexing issues.
You can set them up for free and uncover a surprising amount of insight about how people find—and move through—your site.Screaming Frog
A website crawler that gives you a behind-the-scenes look at your site structure (especially internal link efficiency) and metadata.
It’s free up to a certain number of pages. If you’ve got a larger site, their paid plan is still pretty reasonable for the level of insight it unlocks.Ahrefs
A powerhouse tool for auditing your site, understanding backlinks, and tracking search visibility.
Platforms like Ahrefs, Semrush, and others aren’t cheap—they process massive amounts of data, and that costs money.
But if you can swing one of their basic plans, it’s worth it.
If you’re not looking to add any subscriptions to your tech stack (the tools you’re using to create, optimize, and scale), that’s totally fine.
Just make sure the free ones—like Google Search Console and Google Analytics—are set up and running in the background.
These tools won’t write your content.
They won’t choose your voice.
But they can point out the gaps—so you can fill them in and connect the dots.
Don’t overthink them, though.
They’re not the story. Just a quick signal check.
Closing Reflection: You Can’t Be Felt If You’re Not First Found
That post you wrote at midnight—when something finally clicked and you wanted to share it with someone else who might need it.
That guide you created from years of hard-won experience.
That idea that won’t leave you alone until you get it down in writing.
It should all be seen.
Indexability isn’t glamorous.
It’s not the part that gets celebrated or shared.
But structural clarity is what helps your signal travel further and faster.
It’s the framework that allows your words to reach the people they were meant for.
Because no matter how powerful your message is…
If it can’t be found, it can’t be felt.
No spam. No noise.
Just real signals, sent with care.
Wow this is the most useful information about posting content —I have to reread it!
Super useful!