How Many Pages of Your Website Has Google Been To?

A quick simple exercise to see how many pages the mighty Google has “indexed” or visited on your website.

How much of “you” does the world really see? Well worth keeping a check on.

Some folk think that just because your website is “live” and you’re getting some web traffic that Google have been there. Not necessarily so.

This subject came up again while we were doing a rebuild for a client. I like to do a “status report” before we even touch a thing. I mean, how can rave about how well a site is ranking if I don’t have a starting point?

The first thing I do is check how many pages are “indexed”. How many pages does Google “see”?

Here’s how to find out –

• Open up your browser window, Firefox, Internet Explorer, whatever.
• Go to Google.
• In the search window type in site:www.yourdomainname.com.au

In the case of our client it was this

site:www.annettestanton.com

and guess what? This was the result that came back

- Your search – site:www.annettestanton.com – did not match any documents.

So if someone searches for Annette Stanton on the internet will they find her? Umm, NO! Well, not her website anyway.

How can they? Google don’t even recognise this as a website yet! And get this. The site has been live for nearly a year!

What did I find? Annette’s Facebook profile!

I’ll update you in another post and show you how quickly we get a heap of pages “indexed” by Google. We’re doing an indepth case study of Annette’s site – The “4 Week Website Work Over”.

So do a check now on your own site. Remember, in Google search put in – site:www.yourwebsite.com/au

Let me know what you find and how many pages you have indexed!

Are the leads that you’re harvesting “qualified”, or anywhere near the mark of the “Ideal Client” for you?

I made a “Post” blunder on Monday on my www.SmarterWebsites.com.au site. I stuffed up.

I needed to narrow the niche that I’m marketing too so I was refining my lead generation “Funnel” on my site. Trouble is I forgot that the auto update was turned “On” so the edit that I did went out automatically to my list.

This would have been the starter of the email you got…

Attention: Self Employed Professionals & Small Business Owners!

Really am sorry about that, it was just an internal site edit and wasn’t supposed to go out.

Anyway, the blessing is that it’s a good subject for a post.

Are the leads that you’re harvesting “qualified”, or anywhere near the mark of the “Ideal Client” for you?

It’s a valid question.

I had people signing up left, right and centre but in running them through my “process” I realized that in building this list some of these leads weren’t after what I was offering. Now, you could argue that it doesn’t matter because it’s all done online that it doesn’t cost me anything.

Well, yes, and the extra traffic to my site can be a good thing for ranking but obviously if we can all refine our process to attract that “Ideal Client” then the faster our business will grow and the quicker we’ll slip into the serious money stream.

Un-qualified traffic can also be a negative too – if they come to your site and leave quickly that will increase your “bounce rate” which is the percentage of single page visits. This is bad if it’s too high, it means they’re not finding what they came for. Google God demerit point!

The point being, always “Test and Measure”.

• Check your offer – how many clicks on your offer (Your button or newsletter opt-in) compared to new visitors?
• How many people are then following through and filling in their details to get your stuff?
• How many “unsubscribes” down the track?
• How many convert into a paying client?

Here’s a quick starter check hit list – In Google Analytics (which we install on all our sites – that was subtle “sell” on one of the many sexy things we do) you should be looking to compare – “new visits” to “click throughs to your opt in page” to “actual opt ins”.

Test and measure and refine always. Websites are a work in progress!