Winning Strategies for Online Success!

Google Webmaster Tools – Part One

Google is slowly taking over the world by providing free web marketing tools. One such offering is Google Webmaster Tools. Sign up for a free Google account and add your website to Google Webmaster Tools. From there you can track the “Health” of your website and its traffic patterns, find out which websites have hyperlinks to your website, receive tips on optimizing your site for search, find and fix crawl errors, and see how your website compares to other websites in regards to page loading time.

How to Open a Google Account

You can use any of your email addresses to open a Google account. A gmail.com email address is not required. Start at google.com/accounts. Follow the instructions to open your free account and remember to check your email for the verification link.

Google Webmaster Tools

Do you have a working Google Account? Great! Now go to google.com/webmastertools and sign in. Are you logged in? Congratulations, you are on your way…

The next step is to add your website. Click the “ADD A SITE” link and type your web address in the box. Remember to start with http:// then type your domain and click “Continue.”

Adding and Verifying Your Website

After submitting your domain, Google will ask you to verify ownership of your website. You can do this by adding a meta tag to your home page, uploading an html file to your hosting account, verifying your domain through your domain provider, or adding your Google Analytics tracking code. Google suggests a Recommended method and Alternate methods for verification.

Meta Tag: If you have direct access to your website files, open the home page, add the Google verification meta tag between <head></head>, and upload the file to your hosting account. Look in your account for your Google id number.

<meta name="google-site-verification" content="YOUR WEBSITE GOOGLE ID NUMBER GOES HERE" />

HTML File: If you have direct access to your website hosting account, create an empty file called googleYOURGOOGLEIDNUMBER.html. Upload the file to your hosting account.

Domain Name Provider: If your domain is register with GoDaddy or other large domain registration company, login to your domain registration account and follow their verification instructions. Call their help line if you need assistance. Don't have a domain yet? Register your domain here...

Google Analytics: If you already have Google Analytics setup for your domain you may be able to use it for verification. Select the Alternate methods – Google Analytics option and read the requirements.

When you have followed the requirements and selected your verification method, click “Verify.” Google will let you know if your verification method works properly. If it does, good for you! If not, try again…

Website Data, Critical Issues, and Warnings

Is your website verified? Yes? Great! The Google Webmaster Tools Dashboard will show a small graphic of your website and a link for more information. Click the link and view the data Google has gathered. Are there any critical issues, crawl errors, or warnings? If there are, review them with your webmaster. If not, good job!

Next Post: Creating and uploading a sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools...

Posted on November 28, 2012 | Permalink | Join email list

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