Don’t wait for Google to clean up your mess

I often have clients who want to move their sites, and then are surprised that their numbers drop after getting into their shiny new home.

The problem isn’t that the site is bad; it’s just that they took all their problems along with them instead of fixing them before moving.

Every time you change something on your site Google will come along and read it all over again. If it’s a new site, Google’s sure to find all the problems you have and rank them all over again. The fewer problems you have, the higher your site will rank after Google looks through it.

The solution is simple. Make your site as lean and effective as you can before you move. One of the tools I use for that is on Firefox, called SEO Firefox. Once you use it, search for your keyword string and set the results to 100. This will give you an in-depth snapshot of all the sites that are your competition. Once you know the baseline, you’ll have an ideal of the goal you want to shoot for.

Using Create CVS, check your own site for results. The trouble is often pages that don’t lead anywhere. Google’s ranking those pages and, since they don’t lead anywhere, they pull the ranking on your entire site down.

Create CVS will show you duplicate pages and other pages you don’t need to be indexed. Once you’ve narrowed down the list of undesirable links, go to your Google search console. If you click on Remove URLs, you’ll be able to block the offending pages and hide them from Google’s inquiring eyes. Add each page’s URL to the search box, and then click Temporarily Hide to make them invisible. Your ranking should rise within a few days as a result.

I also need to mention the webinar that we will be hosting next Thursday 29 October. It will be covering the secrets of Magento Marketing and how you can profit from avoiding the most common mistakes. Book your spot here

Jim Stewart is a leading expert in search engine optimisation. His business StewArt Media has worked with clients including Mars, M2 and the City of Melbourne.