Google Webmaster Tools provides many functions that are very useful to search engine optimisers. It is a service provided by Google. If they approve it, then so should you. My top 5 reasons for opening a GWT account are as follows:
1. Site Troubleshooting- GWT contains a category called Diagnostics. This category has options that will inform you if Google has problems crawling through your site. It can also make HTML suggestions that will help you to improve your website. Website owners need to know if there are any issues with the site that would prevent it from ranking high. This option will help shed some light on that situation
2. Indexing- Google treats every page of your site individually; therefore it is highly important that all the pages of your website are indexed. Only when your pages are indexed will they start appearing on Google search results. If you decided to target a new service and created a new landing page for this targeting keywords related to that service, then you want to make sure that Google will find your page.
3. Link Analysis- Inbound links to your website is probably the most important ranking factor there is. Any information that Google can give you about these links is important. In GWT, there are options for ‘Links to Your Site’ and ‘Internal Links’. Both of these options will give you a very rough indication of the amount and type of links in your site. It is not accurate but it is good to be able to see what Google sees.
4. Geographic Target – If your website is solely targeting Ireland and you have a .com TLD then your website is at a disadvantage on local search engines. Most people search through local search engines like Google.ie so it is important that you level the playing field. Ideally your website should have a .ie TLD but for many reasons this option is not always available to businesses. To fix this you can set a geographic target in GWT. Google will then associate your .com website with being from Ireland.
5. Indexing – If your web page is not indexed then that page cannot appear in the search results for the key phrases that it is targeting. It is in your interest to ensure that all your pages get indexed. This is especially important for very large sites. The best way to ensure this is through submitting XML sitemaps through GWT.
If you need further information on how to improve your rankings then contact JumpStart SEO Ireland. Our Internet marketing experts will help your website to thrive online.