One thing I’ve learned in my years in business is to never assume you know everything is well. Specifically, I needed to relearn this painful lesson this morning when I discovered I had failed to adhere to the simplest Search Engine Optimization processes for this blog.
Some years ago (although briefly), constructionmarketingideas.com ranked number one on Google searches for “construction marketing” and (despite my failings), it still has a reasonably good ranking on the search engine.
But could it have been better?
This morning, I discovered that I had failed to register the domain with the Google Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools); one of the simplest things any website owner can do to encourage reasonably positive search Google search results.
The Search Console includes provisions to upload a site map and note variations in your site (such as www. references). A listing here certainly doesn’t guarantee a great search result, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to be indexed properly.
Along with the registration with Google Search Console, I got around to installing one of the simple and free “SEO Plugins” available for WordPress.org users. Again there is no cost for the tool (I’m using the free version of Yoast SEO), which will help automate some of the standard SEO strategies.
The whole process took just a few minutes.? We’ll see if it improves the search rankings in the weeks ahead. But it certainly can’t hurt — and when there is a reward/benefit as good as this, it makes plenty of sense to take care of the details.