Now That You’ve Optimized Your Site - Measure It

SEO Tips Part II

Now that you've published and optimized your website, it's time to submit your sitemap for indexing and track the traffic to your site. Once your site is indexed by search engines, you'll start learning how your visitors found your site and which key words and search engine queries are bringing users to your website. You'll also know whether or not you have errors on your site, which will ding your search engine ranking, and be able to proactively address them.

Search Engine Analytics

At a minimum, make sure that you have verified your domain property on Google Search Console and then set-up a website profile on Google Analytics, which is part of Google’s Marketing Platform. (Be sure to create an association with your Google Search Console account.) In Analytics, set-up Google’s new ‘GA4’ property, which combines mobile app and website usage data reporting, for your domain.

Next, verify your domain with Microsoft’s Bing Webmaster Tools, which offers a very simple Google Search Console import process for your domain and the property data you just set-up with Google Search Console. Verifying ownership of your domain on search engines helps to improve your presence in search results.

Both Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools are search-engine, rather than website user-focused (like Google Analytics). Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools reporting helps you troubleshoot website errors and improve visibility in search engine results.

Any time you add or change a URL on your website, you also need to re-submit your sitemap for indexing on Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to ensure that the search engines have the 'freshest' view of your website.

Directory Listings

Last, but not least, be sure to set-up a profile and verify your company on Google My Business, Microsoft's Bing Places for Business and Yelp for Business. This will help your company website become searchable not only on search engines, Google Maps and Yelp, but also provide desirable backlinks (or inbound links) to your website. Furthermore, Google Maps also serves as a convenient source of Google reviews for your website and gives you additional analytics on site views and traffic (no pun intended). Yelp may also be a good source of reviews for your business – some more than others, depending on your industry. The more people talk about and engage with your brand - hopefully, in a positive manner, the higher the probability of traffic to your website.

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