On the day I gave notice at my previous employer, I knew that I would need to have a web presence ready to go before the day I was actually out on my own, both for explaining to people what I was doing and for SEO reasons. I gave notice on Monday, July 27th, 2009. I gave the customary two weeks, so my last day in the office would be Friday, August 7th.

I wasn’t just leaping into the great wide open; I had known for weeks (if not months) what direction my interests and ambitions were guiding me. So building a site had become a nights and weekends project. I’ve been chronicling a few of the highlights of the journey since then. Here’s my journal.

2009-07-27: Soft Launch

After extensive review of hosting providers, I selected A2 Hosting to host SearchViz. They offer the most comprehensive array of features (including PostgreSQL databases) I’ve seen at a shared hosting company, they’re green, and they offered a great deal for the economic downturn.

Before the soft launch, I had set up the hosting account, used the one-click WordPress install, and basically had the site built. In order to launch, all I had to do was update my DynDNS.com account (which I use for all my DNS needs) to point to A2. Presto! SearchViz was online. I sent to a select group of early birds for confirmation that internal browser testing would be confirmed in the field (requesting an embargo since I didn’t actually want inbound links at this point). And I used the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin to ensure that I’d be getting data from day one.

2009-08-03: Official Launch

Made things official by distributing a press release offered as an exclusive. Authorized my semi-private semi-beta testers to link/distribute as desired. And began laying the groundwork for monitoring our success. I verified the site with Google Webmaster Tools, created a Sitemap with the Google XML Sitemaps plugin for WordPress, and verified the Sitemap in Webmaster Tools. I also ensured that the primary snippet was in good shape by updating the meta description.

2009-08-05: Good Publicity

Milt Capps, one of Nashville’s old dogs of journalism (and one, I hope, of a breed that is not dying), blessed the venture with a wonderful article in his Venture Nashville Connections niche publication. If you’re interested in the venture world in Nashville (venture capital, new businesses) and you don’t read it, I suggest you start. In addition to the copy generating good buzz, this was the first known inbound link for SearchViz.

2009-08-06: Unintentional Cloak of Invisibility—WordPress Default

I had operated and enhanced various WordPress installations, but I don’t think I had ever actually set up my own from scratch before. More than a week in to trying to build a strong SEO foundation, I discovered (thanks to Google Webmaster Tools) that robots.txt was preventing search engines from crawling my site. It turns out that WordPress defaults to private blogging and creates a default robots.txt preventing crawling. So I fixed that by updating my Privacy Settings.

Also, I verified the site in Yahoo! Site Explorer and submitted the site to the Open Directory Project in a relevant category.

2009-08-07: Google Juice… Finally!

Google finally re-downloaded robots.txt after about 24 hours, and several hours after that Googlebot slurped up the Sitemap. Delicious!

2009-08-08: Indexed by Google!

A query for [site:searchviz.com]* revealed that Google now, in fact, had SearchViz-brand bananas today.

As of first being indexed, we showed up on the 20th page of Google search engine results pages (SERPs) for [nashville seo].

2009-08-09: SERP Creep

Within 24 hours of being indexed, we advanced a page in the Google SERPs to 19 for [nashville seo]. Unsurprisingly, we’re the top listing for [searchviz].

Also, I sent out a broader version of the launch press release.

2009-08-10: SERP Jump

Within 48 hours of being indexed, we advanced 8 pages to land just outside the first 100 results on the 11th page of Google SERPs for [nashville seo].

2009-08-11: More Inbound Link Love

Another local media outlet, The Nashville Scene (now owned by SouthComm, incidentally), covered the SearchViz launch on their blog. We also became an official Sitemason partner and got linked to from their partner page. Finally, I leveraged a quality source I have some control over and updated my bio at Liberadio(!), a local radio show I co-host.

2009-08-12: First Phase Success

Within 24 hours of the additional links, we cracked the top 100 results in Google for [nashville seo]. Not bad for a couple weeks worth of work.

2009-08-13: The Benefit of Tools

Google Webmaster Tools reminded me that WordPress uses the default meta description throughout the site. Yup. Duplicative snippets. So I installed Michael Torbert’s All in One SEO Pack for WordPress and sorted that out.

Epilogue

Since opening for business on Monday, August 10th, I’ve been busy with actual work. In case you couldn’t tell from this post, I’m chasing [nashville seo]. Eventually, it’d be nice to continue advancing in the SERPs for that phrase. We’ve been bouncing around the bottom of the top 100 for [nashville seo] in the Google SERPs and the other major search engines. And we’ll probably evolve what we’re targeting.

But we’ve been seeing remarkable results with our first round of customers on their own inbound marketing goals, and I expect that as I continue to add original content, make technical adjustments, and build business (and goodwill), we’ll see some additional inbound links and verification of authority in terms of ours. I should also note: We don’t take the approach of treating all this as dark arts. We find that the more our customers understand what we’re doing, the better. We’re here to add value and serve as a resource since not everyone can (or should) have an in-house SEO.

This site, as all good sites should be, is an evolution. Our focus? Technical on-site best practices, quality original content, and quality off-site relationships. And that will remain our focus for this site and for our customers.

UPDATE 2009-08-27 16:28 CDT: This post alone has caused considerable movement in Google SERPs, advancing us further than we’ve been yet. Proof positive of the power of quality original content and strategic copywriting.

* Just a little note here on the post title and notation used throughout: It’s how Googlers (and apparently Yahoo!s) write search queries.