A site goes live, and nobody can find it. Most of the time something small is in the way: a leftover "keep out" setting, no sitemap, or Google simply doesn't know the site exists yet.
This is the free routine I run on every new website. It isn't one tool. It's two short lists.
Before launch:
- WAVE, a free accessibility checker. It shows what blocks people with disabilities: faint text, images with no description, buttons with no name.
- Ahrefs Free (formerly Ahrefs Webmaster Tools). Its site audit visits every page the way Google would, and lists broken links, missing page titles and pages hidden from Google.
- Take down the "keep out" signs. Check robots.txt, the file that tells Google where it may go, for "Disallow: /". In WordPress, untick "Discourage search engines" under Settings, Reading.
- PageSpeed Insights: how fast your homepage loads on a phone.
Launch day:
- Google Search Console: verify the site, submit the sitemap (the list of your pages), inspect the homepage and ask Google to list it.
- Bing Webmaster Tools: import the site from Search Console.
- Yandex Webmaster, optional, if your visitors might come from there.
- Open the site like a stranger: the padlock shows, www and non-www go to one address, and a missing page gets a real "not found" page.
Eight checks, all free. I'm Leon, and on this channel I find what's broken on websites and show the smallest fix that works.
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