To Google yourself or not to Google yourself, that is the question?
So you've been putting all the hard work and effort into your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) for your website and you're eager to see if your efforts have paid off, right? Well why wouldn't you? SEO plays such a big part in a businesses potential to reach their clients that you need to make sure you get it right.
One key thing to remember is that you don't get to Page 1 overnight on Google.
For some it can take 12-18 months if not longer to get to Page 1, so don't be disheartened if you don't see an immediate result.
Now you may either wish to enlist the help of a professional agency to help you with your SEO, or you may be managing it on your own, which isn't a bad thing, let me tell you. The more you learn and do yourself, the better you will begin to understand how it works, why you do it the way you do and the better you will become at managing it. And with the wealth of information, blogs, online tutorials/webinars that are available out there, you have all the resources available at your disposal to easily continue learning.
But what happens once you get everything done, your keywords, your Meta Descriptions, Slugs, Goggle Analytics, it's all setup and you're wondering where you rank on Google. How do I find where I rank on Google?
One of the common misconceptions about where a website ranks on Google is, and I hear this far too many times, is people simply heading onto Google and searching for themselves. Now if you are doing this, it's the most inaccurate way of doing so. And why you might ask?
For starters, your SEO is based around keywords that are setup in conjunction with your Meta Descriptions, Slugs etc, so that your content can be found on the net. So when Googling yourself, or your business for that matter, you need to be running your search based on your keywords, not your business name. However, if you self manager your CMS (Content Management System), there is no doubt at all, that your browser history will have your website listed in dozens if not hundreds of times. Using your normal browser actually provides you with an inaccurate ranking, as Google will actually use your browser history in conjunction with what you are searching for and go, 'Ok well John Smith has viewed this website about XYZ Business 120 times, so we'll show that website first because he obviously likes it'.
No thank you, that isn't how you want it to work!
If you use Google Chrome as your main web browser, and for this example I will be. If you open Google Chrome, and on the far right corner of the screen you will see the 3 little dot symbols (as you will see in my screen shot below). If you click on that you will see 'New incognito window'. Click on this.
What you will then see is something resembling the following.
Now you're probably asking yourself, why go incognito? The answer is simple. Using an incognito (or private window as it will be called in other web browsers) doesn't store your website history, cookies etc, so basically it's like a clean slate. Performing a Google Search using your main keyword for your website, will now provide you with a more accurate ranking of where you actually sit.