Search Engine Optimization is most important in these days . Google’s algorithm update slap blog and website with large amount of duplicate content . Google sends a lot of warning messages to web masters about their site , unnatural links etc.
So it is important to set up a webmaster tool account for your website or blog.You need only one account to manage more than one sites.
Google Webmaster Tools provides you with detailed reports about your pages visibility on Google.You can use webmaster tools to :
- Get Google’s view of your site and diagnose problems
- Discover your link and query traffic
- Share information about your site (sitemap)
How to Submit your site to Google Webmaster Tools
Login to Google Webmaster Tools with your Google account. Click ’Add a Site’ Button(in the right corner).Paste your site URL in the box and click ‘continue ‘.
Now you want to verify your site ownership. The ‘Recommended method ‘ is to upload an HTML file to your server. You can download this file to your desktop and upload it to your website/ blogs root using a FTP client.
There is also a ‘Alternate Method’ tab. There are 3 options:
- Use your Google Analytics account
- Add a meta tag to your site’s home page
- Add a DNS record to your domain’s configuration
you can choose any of these methods to verify your site ownership. After verifying your site, click on your site URL and goto the Dashboard.
Site Verified What is Next ?
ok , now the site is verified and we need to configure some settings .
Submit a Sitemap
This is the first and most important configuration in your webmaster tool account. Sitemap tells Google about pages on your site . Creating and submitting a Sitemap helps Google to knows about all the pages on your site, including URLs that may not be discoverable by Google’s normal crawling process .
Go to Optimization >> Sitemaps >> ADD/TEST SITEMAP
Site configuration
In site configuration menu there are 5 sub menus like Settings , Sitelinks, URL parameters, Change of Address, Users and Associates
- Settings :
- Here we can set Geographic target . If you are not targeting any countries simply skip this settings.
- Preferred domain – check ‘
- Crawl rate – Check the option ‘Let Google optimize for my site (recommended)’
- Change of Address : This option can be useful if you are move your site to a different domain .
- Users : Here you can add new users . You can set ‘restricted’ and ‘full’ permissions to site owners.
- Associates : With this option you can add new associates to your sites. (eg. Link YouTube channel to site.)
Health
From Health menu we will get all information about our site health like crawl errors, crawl stats, blocked URLs,Index status and malware.
Traffic
Traffic section tells you about the top Search Queries, Links to your site, Internal links and +1 Reports
- Search Queries – This page lists the top search queries for which your site appeared in search results, as well as queries for which users actually clicked through to your site
- Links to your site -This page gives information about pages on your site linked to from other sites(backlinks ).
- Internal links – This page lists URLs on your site which are linked to other URLs on the same site(inbound links).
- +1 metrics – Shows the impact on social media (Google+) on your site.
- Search impact : This page shows how +1′s affect your site’s performance in search results.
- Activity :The Activity page shows you the total number of times your pages have been +1′d.
- Audience: The Audience page displays aggregate information about people who have +1′d your pages.
Optimization
Optimization tab include
- Sitemaps – we have already submit our xml site map. You can also submit your blog rss or atom feed as sitemap.
- Romove URLs – You can submit a URL removal request here . Only site owners can file a request . For example if your site has duplicate content , then you can file a URL removal request.
- HTML Improvements - This page lists ways in which you can improve the HTML on your site . This suggestion will help you to improve your site’s load time and user experience.
- Content Keywords – This page lists keywords in your content.
With Google Webmaster Tool you can able to monitor and optimize your site effectively.