Top 5 Things You Might Not Have Done in Google Webmaster Tools

Add A Site Map - One of the first things you should do is create an XML Sitemap and add this to your webmasters account. Simply click onto the Sitemaps link and click Submit a Sitemap. Simple enter in the extension of where the sitemap sits and its name and submit this. Try to make sure the sitemap is on the root of the server / site as this makes accessibility a bit easier and also gives you more control.

Set Your Crawl Rate - If you have quite a few new pages you would like to get seen and possibly indexed by Google, you can set the crawl rate to be at the highest possible. The crawl rate is how often the Googlebot comes to your site and how many requests it makes per second, once it's on there. If you have a decent web host, set this to the highest, especially if you are a new site as the more requests you can handle, the more likely it is to get the pages indexed quicker, although there is no guarantee of this.

Choose Preferred Domain - The age old debate about whether Google sees www domainname.com and domainname.com as two different websites continues and will continue for many more years. The way we see it is, if you don't use the www, like we do not, tell Google you do not use it. You can simply select whether it should see the www or not and even if this is not massively beneficial, it doesn't hurt to make sure the way your site is seen and indexed by Google is the best it can be.

Define Geographic Target - If your site targets visitors in a particular location, you can provide Google with the information that will help determine how your site appears in our country-specific search results, and also improve the Google search results for geographic and location specific queries. This is great if you only sell products to the UK, it means you can tell Google to try and only send your UK Traffic, which is of course more relevant for your website.

Fix Crawl Errors - Although you will never be penalised for submitting a sitemap, with errors or without out, it is vital to pay attention to any errors Google is telling you about, and of course also fix them. The fewer errors you have, the better, so make sure you keep any eye on the crawl errors section periodically and fix any issues that are reported.

The Google Webmasters tool has really been developed to make sure your site is as good as is possibly can be for Google, and we think this is a great thing. But, you have to make sure you use the tool for more than just checking your rankings and links back, and by implementing a few of the above tips, will hopefully make sure your site is indexed in the most efficient way.

Ian Spencer works for Clear Web Services, a SEO Web Optimisation and Web Design company serving the Forest Of Dean, Gloucestershire and South Wales. He has worked in the SEO and Internet Marketing world for many years, and working in partnership with another company has launched the new SEO business.