Testing Your Website

Testing Your Website - as if you were a 1,000 miles away and didn't know your Business name! We show you how to get true search engine results.

This page is probably the most important page in the entire website!!

This article and video snippets - from our Free Business Seminar, are all about finding out where you really are listed in the results displayed on Google, Yahoo and Bing. According to your computer, you believe you are #1 - hope you're ready for some true reality!?!

So, how do you find where you really are in the Internet categories?  Very simple — You need to pretend you're looking for your business without knowing the domain name of it. In order to “pretend” this, you need to trick your computer so it doesn’t know where you are or what’s already stored in it. 

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You MUST erase all history and the browser’s cache.  Just open your Internet browser (Firefox, IE, Chrome, etc.); hit the Tools section on top, then Options, then Privacy.

Your purpose is to erase your computer’s history and cache - it will be literally like a new computer out of the box!

Your "Bookmarks" will remain in place.  Once that is done, reboot your computer and use a search company called Start Page.  Just search for "Startpage" and download it onto your computer.

Startpage Search Engine

This particular search engine company uses Google as its search tool, but it doesn’t tell Google who or where you are. The site hides your IP address so the search engine is tricked into thinking you are in the United States only. Now, you will get a true idea where your business really is categorized in the “Yellow Pages” of the Internet. Testing your website should be done every few months!

When you search, you should first type only a general category for your business. Example, if you are a RV park owner in Quartzsite, Ariz., you would type RV parks, AZ and see where you are.  Then type RV parks, La Paz County, AZ; then RV Parks, Quartzsite, AZ.  Each search you narrow it down to see where you are.

Are you on a major highway? If so, type the same search request info with perhaps the name of your major highway. Example: RV parks, Arizona I-10.  You must think how someone 10 miles or a 1,000 miles away would find you without knowing your business name.

DO NOT select any results. Just see where you are in the search results.  Once you select a result, your computer memorizes that and the “test” is no longer a nationwide generic search.  Just write down what page of the search results you are on for each request. Now you will quickly realize why testing your website is so important! You "think" you are on page 1 in the world, only to realize you are on page 5 - never seen!

Remember, the goal was to learn where your business displays itself in search results when someone 1,000 miles away from wherever you are types in the above type of search. Odds are the RV'er in Maryland doesn’t know your RV park name, just as in the old White Pages.  You want to learn how your website is being displayed in the search results of that RV'ers computer while they plan their trip through your area.

Another example would be a restaurant. Let's say you are a "Pizza" restaurant in a town. You would type the name of the town and then pizza to see where your domain shows up. Is it on the first page or 5th page? Is it showing up under the domain name first (before a Facebook listing); is it showing up as a Google Business Map location. Notice, we are typing what a "human" would type to find your business category - RV Park, Quartzsite, AZ or Pizza, Prescott, AZ. They don't know or can't remember your business name - but, they know what it is about. That's the key to this type of research!!

As you can imagine, if your business website isn’t categorized properly or is displayed incorrectly in the “Yellow Pages” of the Internet, your business profits could be drastically hurt over the course of years. Worse, when you personally type your business name or keyword/phrases into your everyday computer, it comes up right on top of the search results.  Your computer has memorized all your search results.  We see this all the time and the business owner believes he is being displayed like that all over the country.  This is why you must ERASE everything first. 

If you are truly on Page One, or within the first few of the results for each search, you have a great webmaster. If not, our next installment we’ll discuss what minimum information the search engines want about you and how it should be presented to be taken seriously by the Googles/Yahoos/Bings of the Internet.

Testing your website on different search engines is critical to your basic business plan!

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