Posts in this series:
Great Work! 
Now that you have identified your keywords and naturally added them to your website, it’s time to establish a baseline so you can measure how your site is ranking now so we can watch the progress as movement happens.
First Sign up for Google Search Console (GSC) – a free reporting tool linked to your site that provides a wellspring of information so you can easily find & fix any issues that could be affecting your site.
Setup will take a few minutes as you first need to verify your site & approve that you want to link to the GSC. There are a bunch of great videos on how to add GSC to your site, here is a simple version for quick reference.
With that complete, you now have access to some incredible data that will help you understand if you have any issues to address which could be impacting your search ranking & your customer’s experience with your site.
Key data included in the
GSC:
Necessary HTML edits: missing site titles & non-indexable content
Usability Issues: broken links & website errors to fix
Search Traffic Insights: top keywords used to find your service; how often Google returned your site in searches; the number of links to your site
Analytics: How your site is performing in organic search queries
Security: Potential site hacking risks; Malware warnings for bad linking practices
Action taken against your site: fingers crossed you don’t have this but if you do, call an actual person at Google & get it resolved immediately
Second, check Google to confirm all your pages are indexed
Basically, you are confirming that all of your website pages are working. If you have a broken link, the page will not be indexed & Google is highly unlikely to access this page, obviously, really bad for search results.
Go to Google.com and type in your domain & it will return all pages that are indexed
If you find that any of your pages aren’t showing up, they could be too new or there is an issue
Third, check your site speed.
We are going for lightening speed to get the Google love here – anything above 80% is solid.
Check your website with GTmetrix for the full report.
That’s it for today, see you in the next few days for tips #4 – 7! Have a wonderful day & remember, just set aside an hour each day on your calendar to focus on this.
Then get out & have some fun.
The weather is gorgeous here in the Seattle area so I am heading out on the lake for a late afternoon cruise with a few great friends to enjoy The BeachHouse Bar + Grill in Kirkland – my new favorite spot for a great salad & epic view. Cheers! 🍷
