Search Yourself
If you can’t find yourself on the internet, neither can your potential costumers.
You don’t have to be in the middle of an existential crisis to search yourself.
Google gives you that opportunity and it only takes a few seconds! Why should you do it? It is an incredible way to check in on your company’s online presence and reputation. In this brief article I’ll go over what to look for while searching yourself and expand on why self-checks are so important…and I am not referring to the kind the doctor recommends, although those shouldn’t be forgotten either.
DO YOU EXIST?
As Google is by far the most used search engine, you should start there and repeat the process with Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc.
Navigate to Google and search your company name. Does your company show up in the first page or two? Can you find your website at all through the search engine?
If your company utilizes very common words or phrases, your site may be drowned out by others with similar names. If you can’t find your company, try searching the exact domain name (for example: coughlin.co) or include the city and state where you operate and see if it shows up.
If you still cannot find your company’s website, there is an issue! There is likely a setting in the backend of your website that needs to be changed to ALLOW search engines to crawl and index your content. If your site is index-able and you still cannot find yourself, you need to make some big improvements to your content.
WHAT DO RESULTS SAY ABOUT YOU?
Is there a brief, accurate description of your business under your link? (Technical terms: SERP, snippet)
If this data is missing or inaccurate, you will need to change or add a meta description for your web pages. Search engines will see this meta description and populate that information alongside your link whenever appropriate.
Do multiple pages from your domain show up under the main result? For example: Products, About, Contact pages, etc.
If there is a lack of additional pages or other information showing up, it could be due to one of many different reasons. One could be that Google doesn’t find your other pages relevant to a user’s search query; at the end of the day, sometimes there is nothing you can do to change what Google wants to do. Another could be that your meta descriptions for your other pages is lackluster or nonexistent. Perhaps your sitemap could be optimized to help Google find and populate more information. There are plenty of other potential explanations (another article for another day).
Confused about what you should find? Try this search: “Coughlin Watertown NY“. Alternately, you could Google, “Coughlin Lowville NY” and examine the results. You will see that our website URLs are correct, we have meta descriptions for each page, our Google Business listing appeared in the right column, our hours are up-to-date and available, phone number, etc. You will also notice the “Manage this listing” option (mentioned later in this article) just above the “Questions & answers” section. Now try it with your business.
MAPS
DOES THE SEARCH ENGINE KNOW YOU HAVE A PHYSICAL LOCATION?
Search for your company (include city and state in the search) in Google Maps.
- Does your location exist on the map?
- What does the search engine show about your location?
- Does it display any or the correct hours of operation of your business?
- Does it have links to your website in the map listing?
If you don’t see your company on the map or your hours aren’t listed or you wish to add more information to that business listing, there’s an easy way to do so! If you have a listing, find the link that says, “Manage this listing” and go through the quick verification process. You’ll then be given the capability to edit the listing information. If you do not have a listing, check out Google’s step-by-step guide.
WHY SEARCH YOURSELF AND GO THROUGH THESE STEPS?
- Discoverability: Your online billboard is lit; people can find you and consume your content.
- Credibility: Your online business card. Customers will consider your company as legitimate if you show up well in search results.
- Profitability: Your online billboard and business card will inevitably result in more customer interaction. Increased, positive interaction = $$$.
The unexamined site is not worth visiting.
