Using Google Webmaster Tools Effectively

This is a brief tutorial for new webmasters on how to use Google's webmaster tools. Sometimes Google's instructions are a little difficult to understand, so I am attempting to make this easy for beginners.

Simple Guide to Using Google Webmaster Tools

So if you already have a gmail account, you have access to Google webmaster tools. One Google account gives you access to everything Google has to offer.

When inside Webmaster Tools, the first thing you will do is add a site. Self explanatory, add your URL.

Now that your site is added, Google Webmaster Tools will give you all sorts of valuable information about your newly added site. It will show you how many pages are indexed in Google, crawling errors, top pages, search queries, clicks etc. Next, however it is imperative to add a sitemap.

Adding a Sitemap

Once your site has been submitted, you should always add a sitemap which will help Google crawl your site, and discover all the pages of information your fantastic creation has to offer. Well, before you submit a sitemap, you need to create one.

If you have a Wordpress blog, there is a plugin called XML sitemap generator, which will do this for you , fast and easy. Now for a regular website, creating a sitemap manually can be a daunting task. Luckily there is the Google Sitemap Generator  which does all the hardwork for you. Simple go there, input your URL, and you are done.

When a sitemap is generated, the output will look like this 'somesite.com/sitemap.xml'. Make sure the xml file is uploaded to your main site's directoy, click submit sitemap in Webmaster Tools, and you are done. Then Google will show you how many pages submitted, how many are indexed, and if there were any errors in your submission.

The sitemap , in my opinion, is a very important step to getting indexed and having new content discovered on your site quickly.

Navigating Webmaster Tools

Here is quick guide to the left side navigation of Google Webmaster Tools.

1. Site Dashboard - will give you a quick glance of your site. Crawl errors, search queries and sitemap information. Click the header of each to get more details
2. Search Appearance - this is not really for beginner's - will explain more about structured data, sitelinks, etc .. in a future post. Do not really concern yourself at this point with this,
3. Search Traffic - this is important because it tells you about incoming links to your site, how they link to you (anchor text) and more about search inquiries.
4. Crawl - this is another great feature I love on Webmaster Tools. You can see errors encountered while the Googlebot crawled your site, and crawl stats to see how much information was downloaded off your site, and my favorite feature 'fetch as Googlebot'. Tip - if you want to get your site indexed as fast as possible, use 'fetch as googlebot'.

Well, that pretty much covers the basics of Google Webmaster Tools. Once again, this post was intended for beginner's, intermediate users may laugh at this, but people all have to start somewhere.