SEO: The Site Query Trick

Let’s face it: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is hard, and everyone claims that they are an expert. As soon as you get a web site up, you probably start getting emails from all sorts of people claiming they can “Boost your search results” and “get you top rank” in the search engines. These emails are right in terms of the goals that everyone wants, but what does it mean and how do you know if you need help? This post will help you see if you’ve got the right foundation started with your site, and give you some tips on how to improve your results by yourself.

Here’s how to see through google’s “eyes”:

1. Go to google

2. In the search box, type in: site:(yoursitename.com)

3. Hit the search button.

The results will look something like this:

The ol' "Site" trick

What is this view? It is what google has indexed about your site so far. Why is this important? Because it is generally how potential customers FIRST SEE YOUR BUSINESS. Of course they won’t do this secret query trick, so let’s use a real world example. If you google “google analytics new milford”, here is what you get:

google analytics new milford

So, if someone was looking for google analytics help in New Milford, I’ve set myself up on the first page in under a week. This is not a huge feat, as not many people in New Milford want to rank for that term, but that’s a different post some day. 😉

The Most Important Part of this Post:

Let’s dismantle what I did right for google with my post.

google analytics snippet search result

  • I used Google Analytics in my Title.
  •  I used Google Analytics in the URL.
  • I used a description of what the post is about.
  •  My site is search friendly

With all of that said, here is your homework assignment: Google your site with the super-double-secret site query. Do the results make sense? Do they tell your potential visitor something that would make them pick you from all of the available results?

If not, then you really do need a little help with basic SEO.

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