In order to get search traffic, you need to get your new site indexed. It is also helpful to keep track of site metrics with Google Search Console and Analytics.
Add Your Site To Google Search Console
There is no point getting your site indexed until you have set up your site and have some content.
If you purchased an expired domain, your domain may already be indexed. If you have other pages in the index, it is worth recreating the pages with the exact same URL.
Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools, which is now called Google Search Console. All you need for this is a Google account. Once you opened your account, you need to add your site. You have to do this twice, both for the www and the non-www versions.
If your have it set up with https, which you should, make sure you add it as an https site and not http.
Verify Your Site
After adding your site you will need to verify your site. You will be taken to a screen that shows Recommended Methods and Alternate Methods of verification. Click on the Alternate Methods tab and select the HTML tag option.
A unique meta tag will be generated, copy only the randomly generated number from the code (see screenshot below) not the entire tag and leave this page open. We will be coming back here to verify your site.
Now, head over to your site and go the All in One SEO Pack General Settings screen. Scroll down to the Webmaster Verification section and paste the code into the Google Webmaster Tools field. Make sure you do not include any quotes. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Update Options.
Go back to the Google Webmaster Tools page that you left open from before and click Verify.
Another way to verify your site is by downloading a verification file from Google Webmaster Tools, then uploading this to the public folder of your domain and then pressing “Verify” in Google Webmaster Tools.
Setting Up Your Site In Search Console
Once you did this, click on the tiny gear symbol next to your domain name in Google Webmaster Tools. Select “Site Settings”. Set your Preferred domain to www or non-www. This way you tell Google that the links and traffic that come to the two different versions of your site should be counted altogether, thereby increasing your chances to rank.
If you bought an expired domain with links, it would make sense to make the version primary that has the most incoming links.
It usually takes Google a couple of weeks to populate everything with content in your Search Console. The points you would regularly look at would be inside the “Search Traffic” tab. In Search Analytics you can see the search traffic of your site along with ranking keywords and your ranking webpages. You should also keep track of “Links to Your Site”. In “Manual Actions” any webspam penalties would be listed coming from review of your site by a human Google employee.
Creating And Adding Your Sitemap
Now go to All In One SEO>Feature Manager. Activate XML Sitemaps. Now you will see a tab called “XML Sitemaps”, click on it. At the bottom, press “Update Sitemap”. If you scroll back to the top, you will see a link “View Your Sitemap”. You can view your sitemap there. Check that URL, it should be yoursite.com/sitemap.xml.
Now go back to Google Webmaster Tools. Click on Crawl>Sitemaps. On the top right corner click on the red button “Add/Test Sitemap”. Enter “sitemap.xml” into the box (or whatever the name of the file was) and press “Submit”. Google will crawl your site and it will be indexed in a few days. You can check back in a few days to see how many pages of your site are indexed. You can verify this by going to Google search and entering site:yourdomain.com without space. This will list the pages of your site that are indexed.
Adding Your Site to Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a great tool for analyzing your visitors and where they come from.
Open an account, then add your site. Each site is considered an “account”. Once you added your site, get your Google Analytics ID for that (account) site. It will look something like UA-121212121212-1. Go to your WordPress Admin panel, All In One SEO Pack>General Settings. Scroll about halfway down or search for “Google Analytics ID” and paste the ID you just got from Google Analytics. Press update and from now on every single visitor to your site is tracked.
You will be able to go back to Google Analytics later on and under “Acquisition” you will be able to see where your visitors come from. “Direct” means someone typed in your URL or from a bookmark, but many times also if you buy traffic, it will show up under “direct”. You will see your Facebook or Twitter referrals, how long they stay on your site, what browser they use, etc.
Connecting Up Search Console With Analytics
There are some functions in Google Analytics that require Search Console data, therefore it is wise to connect these two up.
Go to your website in your Analytics account, click on the gear symbol in the right top corner, click on “Google Analytics Property”. Follow the instructions to connect the two accounts.
Adding Your Site To Bing/Yahoo
Open Bing Webmaster Tools and sign up for an account if you don’t already have one.
You will need to add and verify your site similarly to Google and then add your sitemap for crawling and indexing.
If you have any problems, such as your site doesn’t get indexed in Bing & Yahoo, contact Bing Support.
You will get back something like this:
Hi Peter,
Thank you for contacting Bing Webmaster Support and bringing this to our attention. I have reviewed the site and confirmed it is not currently serving. I have escalated your site to the Product Group for site review. I will update you with a status when I hear back from the team
If you have any additional questions or new updates, please let me know.
Thank you,
And in a few more days I got this follow-up:
Hi Peter,
Thank you for your patience while we investigated your request further. After submitting your site to be reviewed the team has decided to lift the block. Please allow up to 2-3 weeks for your site to be crawled indexed and serving again. Also, feel free to respond to this message if you have any additional questions or concerns about this issue. I am happy to help!
Adding Your Site to Majestic SEO
Majestic SEO is a well-known company that crawls the internet for and keeps track of backlinks.
You can get a free analysis of your owned site at Majestic SEO. You can see your backlinks, anchor texts and other data like Trust Flow and Citation Flow.
Citation Flow has to do with the amount of backlinks you have and Trust Flow with the quality of these backlinks. The more trusted the sites are that are linking to you, the higher this number. The correctness of these numbers depend on the correctness of the backlinks in the database.
Create an account, enter your site URL. You will see the top few backlinks to your site. Scroll down to the ones that are blanked out and press “Verify”. You can simply verify your site by connecting your Google Analytics account and then you will be able to view an in-depth analysis of your site. You can actually go to the sites that link to yours and find your backlinks by searching for the anchor text.
Checking Your Site Metrics On MOZ
MOZ is a similar company to Majestic SEO, and uses different metrics to measure sites. If your go to OpenSiteExplorer.com, you can enter your site. You will see your backlinks, but chances are these will be different, as both companies use their own databases.
You will also see two numbers: DA is Domain Authority. It is a number created to show how likely a domain is to rank in Google. The better quality backlinks your site has, the higher the DA.
PA is Page Authority and marks a similar number, but not for a domain, but for an individual page of your site. The correctness of these numbers also depend on the correctness of the backlinks in the database. MOZ is more likely to crawl important sites, therefore you will have a lot more links missing and sites showing 0 backlinks.
With the above tools you can analyze and keep track of your site.