Whether you're website is DIY or professionally maintained, Google offers a ton of free information about your site at http://www.google.com/webmasters/.  You'll have to create an account and confirm ownership of your site, but that is a very easy process.

Once logged in, you're presented with a diagnostic summary letting you know the last time your homepage was indexed and if Googlebot encountered any problems crawling your site.  You also have control of various settings, like how fast Google crawls your site (hint: You want fast or at least normal.  If you have to slow down your Google crawl it is time to move onto a better server.).

The diagnostic section is extremely important but I'm always drawn to the other reports ... like search "Query Stats". 

Google's definition:  "Top search queries are the queries on the selected search property that most often returned pages from your site." This morning's report for www.nwrealty.com follows ...

Top search queries/Average top position 
  1. skyline realty/5 
  2. northgate apartments/6 
  3. spokane for sale by owner/6 
  4. lake roosevelt washington/9 
  5. lake cavanaugh/8 
  6. 77084/6 
  7. 78759/4 
  8. lake roosevelt wa/9 
  9. for sale by owner spokane/7 
10. bainbridge wa/10 
11. kitsap property management/10 
12. 77095/8 
13. puget sound real estate/8 
14. wallingford wa/8 
15. lake realty seattle/9 
16. 78731/5 
17. 75204/6 
18. wallingford washington/3 
19. hood canal real estate/10 
20. lake cavanaugh realty/2 

This time of year it is typical for our top searches to be recreational destination locations like lakes.  Late August and early September this switches to the Islands and ocean areas.

More to come tomorrow!