Many small business owners I speak with are obviously very interested on how their site is performing in regards to Google’s search results. Often during our initial part of a SEO campaign, their business site will be ranking somewhere at #70. Normally this would equate to being on “Page 7″ of Google, as most of us have our default Google settings displaying only 10 organic results PER PAGE. Get ready to find your Google’s Top 100 Results all on ONE easy to navigate page!
It is annoying to have to go page by page searching for your business! There are countless expensive software options available that basically tell you how to do the same thing I am going to show you… but my method is free! It’s quick, and it’s easy to follow. I smile every time I work with a small business owner, and show them how to do this…. and they find their business is ranking better than they originally thought! They just didn’t know how to find the results.
In my step by step tutorial below, I will demonstrate how to quickly, and easily, find out if your site is ranking in Google’s Top 100 results! So… buckle up. Sit back… and enjoy the ride!
Step #1 – Go into your Google Search settings
- Hit the “Gear” icon, and click on “Search settings”.
Step #2 – Set your results per page slider
- MAKE SURE… that “Never show Instant results” (or you will not be able to do the next step).
- Go ahead and slide the “Results per page” slider all the way over to the right so it is sitting on 100. This is effectively going to tell Google to display 100 results per page instead of the default 10 results per page.
Step #3 – Save your setting 
- Make sure you hit the blue “Save” button towards the bottom of the page to save your settings. I tend to forget this step a lot!
Step #4 – Search for your sites main key phrase
Use a keyword phrase from your site. If this is a newer site I would try targeting key phrases from your Meta Title, or Headline (H1). For this test I am using “railroad hats”. As you can see from the above image, there are almost 5 million results for the KW Phrase.
For this test I am selecting a random site, jelsma.com. This is purely random, and I have no affiliation with this site.
Step #5 – Open up the “Find” Box
- On your keyboard, hit the CTRL+F at the same time. This will open up the “Find” box. Depending on your browser, it might be at the top or the bottom of the screen.
Step #6 – Google’s Top 100 results… Search for YOUR URL
- Start typing in your URL in the Find box. As you start to type, it is actively looking for results in Google’s Top 100. If your site is in the Top 100… you will see the search focus in on your listing! In this example jelsma.com is ranking #8 our of 100. Not to shabby!
- If you hit the “Next” key in the “Find” box… you can see if your site is listed multiple time in Google’s Top 100 (see image below)
As you can see, jelsma.com is also ranking #47.
This is a great method to also see how your competition is doing. Use the same technique outlined above and enter your competitors URL, or business name into the search to see if they are ranking in Google’s Top 100 results.
Another way to utilize this technique is to try with just searching for very specific key phrases. You do this to see if Google is associating your site with the keywords your are targeting. If you are NOT in Google’s Top 100 results, then you need to reevaluate your content strategy on your website. And by using this technique, you will be able to effectively monitor your results.
Hey Steve thanks for the post seems helpful, but I can’t seem to get my results to show all 100 results. I go into the settings and change it to 100 and still I only see the top 10 or so results. Any idea on what I am doing wrong? Thanks for the help.
Meta…
In Step #3 above… Save your setting. Make sure you are clicking that.
Also… if all else fails, try to log into Google (using your Gmail credentials) and try rerunning my tutorial.
Do these fix the issue?
Steve:
Great tip! You’re right, this is very simple. I wonder if the results change as your IP address location changes. I’m going to experiment with Google local to see if this also works.
Hello,
I have a problem since my name is so common. When you type in Donna Brown, there are many of us out there.
How can I individualize? I use my middle initial for Real Estate licensing purposes already, Most viewers would not type in an initial. I use my maiden (Ceva) plus married name (Brown) on Facebook.
Please advise. Thanks
Donna… tough question!
I don’t really have a good answer. I think we all (as individuals) run into this problem. My suggestion (and something I am trying hard to do) is to start establishing yourself as an “authority” in your individual subject matter. Google is hard at an individuals “authorship” authority.
So if you are in the real estate business…. try to find a place you can express your knowledge in the real estate market…. maybe as a guest blogger, or start your own blog. Just make sure you are using the name you want to be found for in your posts. Soon, you should be found with no problem!
Hope that makes some sense. Let me know if you would like further explanation.