Week one: prove the plumbing
day 1 submit the sitemap, open the property
day 2 submit one real form, confirm the stored response
day 3 read the site on a phone over a slow connection
day 4 confirm the analytics tag fires once per page
day 5 check crawl errors and unexpected redirects
day 6 read the first impressions, and expect them to be low
day 7 write down what changed, and stop
A filled month
Meridian Landscaping, launched 2026-09-18. The log, as it was written.
day 1 sitemap submitted, property verified, 131 urls listed
day 2 test response stored, receipt r_71aa, notification in 40s
day 3 home page 2.1s on a slow profile, one image resized
day 4 tag counted once in the built html, consent banner shows
day 5 two 404s from the old host found, both fixed
day 7 impressions 0. Expected on day seven.
week 2
day 10 impressions appear, 14 across 3 pages
day 12 the drainage page has 9 of the 14, and no clicks
day 14 read the query behind the drainage page: "soakaway cost"
the page does not mention cost
week 3
day 17 added a cost paragraph to the drainage page
day 21 no change yet, and no conclusion drawn
week 4
day 28 impressions 96, clicks 2, both from the drainage page
decision: write two more cost paragraphs on the sibling pages
declined: a blog, because nothing supports it yet
what was ignored
- bounce rate, which is noisy at this volume
- average position across all queries
- session counts before consent was configured
Acceptance: the month is read when
- a form submission was stored, not assumed
- the tag was counted in the built HTML
- the pages with impressions were read against their queries
- one change was made and left alone for 28 days
- what was ignored is written down, with the reason
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| No impressions after two weeks | The property or the sitemap | Check both before rewriting pages |
| One page holds all impressions | Other pages are not linked | Add internal links to the section |
| Clicks with no stored responses | A form posting elsewhere | Find where it posts |
| Every week feels urgent | The cadence is daily | Move to weekly, and keep the 28 day window |
| A page still has no impressions at day 30 | It may not deserve to exist | Decide in the quarterly review |
Limits
A new site can take months to collect enough data for a decision.
Thirty days is enough to find plumbing failures and obvious mismatches. It is not enough to conclude that a change improved anything.