Pre-SEO Website Audit
A good website structure won’t compensate for a critical error in the site that Google doesn’t like. So it can be worth-while checking these things as well …
- Make a site search in Google to check that you haven’t accumulated spammy pages. In the google search field type site:your-domain-name.com and see how many pages are listed. If there are far more than in your website, then you need to track down what’s producing them and also remove them.
- Check the website speed & handle that if needed – read the post on How to speed up your website.
- Have a look in Google Webmaster tools and check that there are no critical issues listed under the News and important heading at the top of the dashboard.
- Look in Webmaster tools in the Crawl > Crawl Errors, in case there are any non-existent or weird pages picked up that need handling.
My view on using Google webmaster tools is that it’s not dangerous to connect it to your website and look at what’s happening. But NEVER click a button or provide any info that indicates to Google that you are trying to improve your search results.