Search Engine Optimization can get highly technical and complex quickly, but there are also easy SEO fixes. So before anyone convinces you to tackle an SEO list a mile long, ask the simple question:

Am I ranking for my brand name?

If the answer is no, then this needs to be the very first item you optimize on your website. After all, how will anyone find you if you they can’t even search for your business name?

What to do? Type site:yoursite.com into your google search engine and you’ll immediately see how many pages on your site are being indexed by Google.

Connect4 Consulting is ranking for 1,350 results. Looks like all of our blog posts are working well for our brand name ranking.

What to ask:

• Is that amount the number of results we are expecting to rank?
• Are there pages in the index that we don’t want ranked?
• Are there pages that should be appearing that aren’t ranked or indexed?

What to do next:

• Do another search and and check different groups of pages on your site and see if they are ranking as well.
• Check and see if subdomains are indexing.
• Check old versions of your site and see if they are ranking instead of, or in addition to, your new version.
• Look out for spam – a good indicator if your site was hacked – you could have spam that is on your site and also indexed by Google.
• Figure out what’s causing all of the indexing problems and then optimize your site for better SEO results.