I’m constantly looking for ways to get a better understanding of how sites rank for keywords in organic search results. And, while there are plenty of tools out there to help you analyze your web site, one that is often overlooked is Google Webmaster Tools.
Webmaster Tools, a free Google product, was often seen as a simple tool good only for ensuring your site was submitted to Google and that there were no problems with how your site was being indexed by search engines. Recent changes have provided far more richer uses to the web site owner (webmaster) or marketer. Here’s some of the reasons why you should use Webmaster Tools if you aren’t already. And, if you haven’t stopped by in awhile, why you may want to go give it another look:
Google Webmaster Tools can help you
- Get your web site indexed effectively. Webmaster Tools leverages XML Sitemaps (provided by the site owner) to index the content you want indexed considered. The XML Sitemaps that Webmaster Tools accepts are standard to the industry, also being supported by Yahoo and Bing. Beyond the basic Sitemaps which define a website structure. Sitemaps can also be created to provide information about different types of content, including videos, news, code, mobile and even geographic information.
- Ensure Google serves your content to your geographic location or the world. Webmaster Tools has setting that allow you to specify what country you wish to target users in. The default setting is that Google assumes your content is International, but, for instance, if you are only concerned about people in your Country, the setting is a quick click away.
- Help you move a website to a new domain. Called a “Change of address” in Webmaster Tools, advice is provided to do a (hopefully) worry-free migration.
- Assist in troubleshooting reasons why a site isn’t being indexed as you’d hoped. Webmaster Tools has a whole section called Diagnostics which provides reports on malware being present on your server, crawl errors and statistics, and HTML suggestions where Google might think you need a hand. Crawl errors are especially helpful to find errors in your site structure, sitemap file, or pages that were moved but never accounted for so users can find them. HTML suggestions help out by reporting problems with Meta and Title tags.
- Know how you’re ranking on Google searches. This is a feature that has recently been updated, and although I’ve heard of varying accounts of its accuracy, it is worth knowing about. Google provides data on top search queries resulting in the display of your site in search results as well as how many clickthroughs resulted. Knowing that you’re getting a good deal of search impressions but not clickthroughs helps determine ways to optimize your title and meta description tags.
- Know who links to your site, where, and how. Webmaster Tools isn’t the best in the business for this, but it’s certainly welcomed data. Aptly named, “Links to your site,” a series report shows how many links from internal and external sites each page has as well as what the linking anchor text is.
- Know how Google ‘sees’ your site. By combining a few different reports, you can form a decent understanding of how your site structure, internal and external links are effecting your Google rankings. The Keywords reports provides, in descending order, what the most common keywords are on your site and what their significance is. Analyzing that report in conjunction with the linking structure of your site provides clues to what’s ranking and what’s not. Other more direct way to see how Google interacts with your site include the “Fetch as Googlebot” functionality (available in the Labs section) as well as the “Site performance” report which coaches you on where speed improvements might be made.
Resources for those interested in Google Webmaster Tools:
- Google Webmaster Tools
- Google Webmaster Tools Help
- About XML Sitemaps
- Google XML Sitemaps plugin for WordPress
- More about creating and submitting Sitemaps from Google
And, if there’s something specific you’ve read here and want to know more about (or have another feature you value in Webmaster Tools), let me know below.
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