We’ve talked about tips, tools and various types of optimization issues.  There’s a sort of basic first step that falls before everything else, though - appearing in Google’s search results at all.

Whether you’ve got a new site that seems to have escaped Google’s notice or an old one that appears to have been ignored (or even an old one that’s unexpectedly lost a lot of ground), you’ll eventually want to resort to a reconsideration request.  But before you do that, a post on Google’s Webmaster Central Blog recommends, “You may want to check if there are any access issues with your site - you can do this by logging in to your Webmaster Tools account.”

Look for messages from Google as long as you’re accessing the account, and revisit Google’s Webmaster Guidelines to make sure you haven’t missed some important detail.  Then, after fixing anything that looks incorrect, go ahead with the reconsideration request.

“Make sure to explain what you think was wrong with your site and what steps you have taken to fix it,” writes Mariya Moeva.  “Once you’ve submitted your request, you’ll see a message from us in the Message Center confirming that we’ve received it.  We’ll then review your site for compliance with the Webmaster Guidelines.”

Then, assuming you receive Google’s approval, you can get back to all the general search engine optimization stuff.  And hopefully not ever again have to worry about reconsideration requests.

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