Google Webmaster Tools

 

Google Webmaster Tools is a no-charge web service by Google for webmasters. It allows webmasters to check indexing status and optimize visibility of their websites. It has tools that let the webmasters: Submit and check a sitemap.

How Do I Get Started?

In order to use Google Webmaster Tools, you need to join it first. You can do it from here. After you join, you need to go through the verification process, so that Google knows you are the legit owner of the site you want to use Google Webmaster Tools on.

There are several ways to verify ownership. The first one is to download an HTML file and to upload it to the root directory of your site. Another one is to add an HTML tag into the head of your home page. If you are using the same Google account for Google Analytics, a third option to verify ownership is through Google Analytics. There are more ways to verify ownership but if you are interested in them, check the Google Webmaster Tools settings and you will see them.

Google Webmaster Tools to Use Daily

Once you have verified your ownership and have Google code in place on your site, you can now start enjoying the advantages of Google Webmaster Tools. When you log into your Google Webmaster Tools account, the first thing you see is the Dashboard: 

From here you can access all the major sections - Search Queries, Links to Your Site, Crawl Errors, Keywords, and Sitemaps. Clicking on any of these will open the respective section.

Search Queries

The Search Queries section shows the keywords that led users to your site. 

This long list shows which keywords users searched for when they came to your site. It is best if this list matches the keywords you are optimizing for but very frequently this list contains good keywords you were unaware of. In this case, pick these good keywords and start optimizing for them, too. 

In the Search Queries section, you can also see the number of impressions and the number of clicks, which gives you an idea about the CTR for this keyword. All equal, a higher CTR means the keyword is relevant, so you might want to invest some more efforts into this keyword. However, if you notice that as a result of your efforts, the CTR goes down, it is best if you don't touch this keyword anymore.

Links

The second very useful section of Google Webmaster Tools is the Links to Your Site section. 

Here you can see where your backlinks (internal and external) come from, as well as the pages they are linking to. As with other link checking tools, don't expect that every single link to your site is displayed but nevertheless this list of backlinks is useful to check from time to time. 

One of the advanced uses of the Links section is to disavow links to your site you deem harmful. Links from bad sites can hurt your rankings.

Crawl Errors

The Crawl Errors section shows the errors Google bot encountered on your site. The data you get is similar to what you get when you use the Spider Simulator and it shows inaccessible pages, missing pages, server errors, and all sorts of problems that prevented Google from correctly crawling your site. You also get some other crawl stats (such as the number of pages crawled a day) that are useful to know.

Keywords

Similarly to the Search Queries section that also deals with keywords (but it is the ones users type to get to your site), the Keywords section also shows keywords. However, the difference is that here you see what keywords (and their significance) Google has found on your site. The two lists (of keywords users type and the keywords Google finds on your site) could be very different, which means you are not optimizing for what users are searching for. 

The Keywords section also allows to see the theme of your site, which post Panda has become even more important.

Sitemaps

The last section you can access from the Dashboard is the Sitemaps section. Here you see the sitemaps of your site Google has found and the number of URLs in them. If the sitemap found by Google is different from what you expected it to be, you can submit a new sitemap for Google to use.

Robots.txt and Other Advanced Stuff

The sections described so far are the basic Google Webmaster Tools sections. There is also a lot of advanced stuff in each of them but we won't describe it into details. For instance, you can use your Google Webmaster Tools to submit a robots.txt file, or to set the preferred domain syntax (i.e. with or without www) to be displayed in search results. Google Webmaster Tools also allows to know if your site is infected with malware. If it is, you need to clean it first and then resubmit it for review. 

Google Webmaster Tools is a really valuable instrument for SEO. It gives you at a glance data about all important SEO aspects of a site, such as keywords, links, crawl errors, etc. If you don't use it already, take the time and get familiar with it ‐ it will help you get better rankings for sure.

SEO - Optimized Metatags

There are two important meta tags:

• Meta description tags
• Meta keyword tags

Some search engines may display the meta description as a part of the search results, but the meta keyword tags should not appear in search results.

The general consensus among SEO experts is that metatags are dead. Even so, many of these same experts continue to use metatags in their own sites.

For Google, adding the description meta tag does not result in a boost in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), but the description might be used for the description for your SERP listings in Google.

Yahoo! says, they use the Keyword Meta Tag when it ranks a page. Hence it makes sense to add one for Yahoo! and any other minor search engines that still use.

Meta Description Tag Tips

Important tips for good Meta description tags:

• Use keywords in your Meta description tag.
• Try not to repeat the words overly often, but try to use multiple syntaxes of your key words.
• There should not be more than 150 characters in a description metatag of a single web page.
• Use a different meta description tag for each page, as each page is different and stands a better chance of being found if you place a good title and description on it.

Meta Keywords Tag Tips

Please refer to the previous chapter for identifying good keywords. Use the following tips for preparing good meta keywords tags.

• Use synonyms.
• Use unique keywords.
• No need to repeat any given phrase.
• You can repeat a word any number of time, as long as each time it is part of a different phrase.

SEO - Title Optimization

An HTML TITLE tag is put inside the head tag. The page title (not to be confused with the heading for a page) is what is displayed in the title bar of your browser window, and is also what is displayed when you bookmark a page or add it to your browser Favorites.


This is the one place on a webpage where your keywords MUST be present. Correct use of keywords in the title of every page of your website is extremely important to Google - particularly for the homepage. If you do nothing else to optimize your site, remember to do this!

Here are some considerations while designing the title of a webpage:

• The title shouldn't consist of more than about 9 words or 60 characters.
• Use keywords at the very beginning of the title.
• Do not include your company name in the title unless your company name is very well known.

Improper or nonexistent use of titles in webpages keeps more websites out of top rankings on Google than any other factor except perhaps for a lack of relevant content on a page or a lack of quality links from other websites that point to your site.

Best Practices for Creating Titles

Here are some best practices you should follow for creating titles on pages:

Each page should have a unique title.

• If practical, try to include your Primary Keyword Phrase in every title of every page.
• Begin the title of your home page with your Primary Keyword Phrase, followed by your best Secondary Keyword Phrases.
• Use more specific variations to your Primary Keyword Phrase on your specific product, service, or content pages.
• If you must include your company name, put it at the end of the title.
• Use the best form, plural or singular, for your keywords based on what WordTracker says is searched on more often.
• Do not overdo it - do not repeat your keywords more than 2 to 3 times in the title.
• Make sure the <title> tag is the first element in the <head> section of your page - this makes it easier for Google to find the page.

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the activity of optimizing web pages or whole sites in order to make them search engine friendly, thus getting higher positions in search results.

This tutorial explains simple SEO techniques to improve the visibility of your web pages for different search engines, especially for Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is all about optimizing a website for search engines. SEO is a technique for:

•  Designing and developing a website to rank well in search engine results. 

•  Improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website from search engines.

•  Marketing by understanding how search algorithms work, and what human visitors might search.

SEO is a subset of search engine marketing. SEO is also referred as SEO copyrighting, because most of the techniques that are used to promote sites in search engines, deal with text.

If you plan to do some basic SEO, it is essential that you understand how search engines work.

How Search Engine Works?

Search engines perform several activities in order to deliver search results.

1.  Crawling - Process of fetching all the web pages linked to a website. This task is performed by a software, called a crawler or a spider (or Googlebot, in case of Google). 

2.    Indexing - Process of creating index for all the fetched web pages and keeping them into a giant database from where it can later be retrieved. Essentially, the process of indexing is identifying the words and expressions that best describe the page and assigning the page to particular keywords.

3.    Processing - When a search request comes, the search engine processes it, i.e. it compares the search string in the search request with the indexed pages in the database.

4.    Calculating Relevancy - It is likely that more than one page contains the search string, so the search engine starts calculating the relevancy of each of the pages in its index to the search string.

5.    Retrieving Results - The last step in search engine activities is retrieving the best matched results. Basically, it is nothing more than simply displaying them in the browser.

Search engines such as Google and Yahoo! often update their relevancy algorithm dozens of times per month. When you see changes in your rankings it is due to an algorithmic shift or something else outside of your control.

Although the basic principle of operation of all search engines is the same, the minor differences between their relevancy algorithms lead to major changes in results relevancy.