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.

5 Ways That Google Webmaster Tools Can Help Your Website

If you are a webmaster, managing one or more websites, then Google Webmaster Tools could be very useful to you. It enables you to monitor the performance of your website and its visibility to search engines.

1. Firstly, Google Webmaster Tools enables you to submit an XML sitemap of your website. A sitemap is a list of pages on your website. These pages are displayed in a hierarchy, showing the route leading to each page on the site. The site map is available to search engine robots and tells them about pages which they may not have otherwise found. Google Webmaster Tools shows how many of the pages on your site have been indexed.

2. Google's robot (Googlebot) crawls web pages and indexes those pages which it thinks will be of interest for future search engine results. Googlebot logs any pages it cannot crawl or links which it comes across which are broken. This information can be accessed through the Webmaster Tools dashboard, enabling you to fix any issues and fulfill your website's potential.

3. Another facility which is useful is the ability to see which searched keywords led to your site being listed in Google's search results and how many users clicked through to your site. From this information you can assess which are the most popular pages on your site so you can focus on those pages and the products or services which they relate to. By seeing the click through rate of your listing in the search results you can also see how appealing your listing is to users.

4. Maximise your sites' optimisation by deciding which URL you want search engines to direct traffic to. For example, either htt p://www.yourdomainname.com or yourdomainname.com, this can be set on Google Webmaster Tools.

5. An important aspect of website optimisation is obtaining both external and internal links to your site. Google Webmaster Tools lists details of these links which is downloadable. Details include which websites are pointing to yours and which pages they are pointing at.

If you want to drive more traffic to your site then Google Webmaster Tools provides the information which will make a difference.

3 Major Functions Of Google Webmaster Tools For Better SEO Practice

Google Webmaster Tools is a non-paid web service from Google dedicated to webmasters. With these tools, webmasters can check their indexing as well as optimize their website's visibility. There are several ways webmasters can perform to enhance their SEO. Some given here are the most common SEO methods a webmaster carries on:

1. Link Building

It is not a secret that the number of inbound links on Google Webmaster Tools is commonly more than what a search query can discover. Often, you will be surprised that even orphaned pages or pages that don't benefit much from linking to your website get the inbound link. How this can possibly happen, those geniuses at Google still keep it zipped. Often, some pages that are linked to your site are no more than automated sites, but sometimes you will also find the really good ones from the long list of inbound links. When you find these good links, you can utilize them for better traffic and inbound links. Focus on finding authority sites as your inbound links, as they are worthier than any automated links combined.

2. Keyword Research

Besides for building significant links to your website, you can also examine the affability of keywords. Indeed Google provides you with some keyword research tools for your convenience, but Google Webmaster Tools do better. The service not only does examine keywords, the tool finds which keywords would suit your website. The concept of the service's keyword research is finding out the reachable keywords that are already ranked near the top five. Using effective low-level SEO practice, the keywords are enhanced to rank better and get a high ROI. Most practitioners are focusing on keywords with high traffic, important queries, and high profit. This kind of SEO method is a good way to save your money and time as you don't have to battle with other website competitors for better visibility.

3. Conversion Rate Optimization

As customer behaviors are hard to predict, webmasters may use conversion rate optimization to improve customer's awareness of their websites. Conversion Rate Optimization or CRO is a method to increase the conversion of the visitors of a website into the website's customer. But before you can turn the visitors into customers, you should change your searcher into visitors first. Using Google Webmaster Tools, you can find your converting keywords; all the best and the worst. As not all keywords get high Click Through Rates (CTR), you will be surprised when finding out that some unpredictable keywords may get higher CTR than those that seem more appropriate.

Keywords Are It! Seven Powerful & Useful Keyword Marketing Tools

After years of running websites and earning a full-time online income, I am constantly reminded that it all comes down to keywords. Actually, it all comes down to obtaining top rankings for your profitable keywords in the search engines, mainly Google.

And that statement has to be refined even further, it's all about obtaining top keyword rankings and keeping them at the top. You must consistently keep your keywords in the top spots on that all important first page of SERPs since your keyword rankings can make or break your online marketing.

If you're targeting extremely competitive and profitable keywords you will have your work cut out for you; unless you have tons of money to buy your way (links) into the top spots, expect to spend months if not years, getting to those top listings. Google has frowned upon link buying and has taken steps to fight it, but this practice is still widespread throughout the web.

Most beginning and honest webmasters want to take the proper route and earn those top rankings by providing good quality content that web users will actually find helpful and useful. They build those links the natural way by offering viral link bait in the form of videos, ebooks, articles, reports... all branded with backlinks to their sites.

Gradually over time, these links will build up and your keyword rankings will go up in the search engines. People will find your content and bookmark it in all the social bookmark sites like Digg, Facebook, MySpace... and your rankings will climb even faster.

However, since keyword marketing has become extremely competitive, you do need a little help with achieving those top rankings. Over the years I have tested and used many keyword tools and I have listed some of the best ones below. (Just Google to find links to these tools and programs.)

Internet Success Spider

One of the first keyword tools I ever used was The Internet Success Spider by Neil Shearing which is now free. The Spider is a very simple, yet powerful keyword tool because it shows you the major players in your keyword niche. It slowly works in the background to give you valuable information on your keywords. I realized very quickly, with online marketing (like most things in life) information is what separates the losers from the winners.

Keyword Elite

Later, I tried and am still using Keyword Elite by Brad Callen, it remains one of the best keyword research tools on the market. I can directly link many of my keyword successes to my early use of this tool.

Brad Callen simply creates some of the best marketing tools for online webmasters and marketers. KE is no exception. It will do some very comprehensive keyword research for you and let you easily arrange that information. Keyword Elite has earned a well deserved reputation as a very useful marketing tool.

Brainstorm It - Site Build It

Another, perhaps even more powerful keyword tool is Brainstorm It! which is offered through the Site Build It marketing/hosting system run by Ken Evoy. This is a powerful keyword analyzer and finder, which is now in its third version.

SBI run by Ken Evoy creates many tools for webmasters and Brainstorm It, Version 3 is simply one of the best. This keyword tool will do both Vertical and Lateral keyword research to give the most comprehensive array of information for your online marketing. Only negative, you only get so many Wordtracker credits and you have to pay extra when those run out. Actually, Wordtracker should be at the top of any keyword tool list, but I have mainly used it in conjunction with other programs like Brainstorm It.

Google Keyword Tool

Then again there is the Google own keyword system run through it's AdWords program. Like everything Google does, this keyword tool can be very helpful especially for the novice online marketer.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

MSN Commercial Intention Of Keywords

Not to be outdone, another helpful tool is Microsoft's Online Commercial Intention tool, which tells the probability your chosen keyword has a commercial value to it:

http://adlab.msn.com/Online-Commercial-Intention/Default.aspx

SeoBook Online Keyword Tool

For very quick keyword references, I like using Aaron Wall's keyword tool on his Seobook site. It's quick and gives very good stats for your chosen keywords.

SeoQuake

Still yet another SEO (sort of related to keywords) is the SeoQuake Toolbar which you can run on Firefox. It will slow down your browser but it will cough up valuable information about your own site and more importantly, it will give you valuable information on your competitors' sites. One feature that I find very helpful is the SEM Rank and SEM Price, which tells you how much your Search Engine keyword traffic is worth.

Plus, you must not ignore your website stats and traffic logs for they can supply you with your most valuable keyword information regarding your site. Closely examine which keyword phrases are bringing in the traffic and/or sales. Develop these keywords with your online marketing, especially any "long tail" keyword phrases visitors are using to find your site or products. These longer keyword phrases have proven to be the most profitable because many times consumers using these phrases already have their minds made up on what they're going to buy.

Why am I using all these keyword tools?

Simply because obtaining and keeping top rankings for my chosen keywords is my livelihood. Unless I can keep that targeted traffic coming from these keywords via the search engines; it's game over. Therefore, I use all the tools and information I can gather in order to keep those keywords at the top.

Google is always changing, you really have to stay on your game if you want to keep your keywords at the top. It all boils down to producing quality content web surfers need and want. The SEO pretty much takes care of itself as long as you keep promoting your keywords with good viral branded content like videos, articles, ebooks, PDF reports... and you must mix up your online link building to include links from such places as Facebook, Digg, Google Bookmarks, MySpace... I have always used the free "Addthis" button to all my important content and this has resulted in 100's of free links that your visitors will build for you!

I also believe you have to be careful when using viral articles to vary your anchor text (clickable part of a link) so that you don't have the same keyword phrase repeated 100's of times across the web. Just use different versions of your keyword phrase and if you can, get those keyword links in the body of the article, as near to the top of the page as you can. This will make your link building look much more natural in the eyes of the search engines, especially Google.

Overall, you must have hundreds, if not thousands of keywords that you're targeting with your online marketing. You must constantly keep building links for those keywords from related sites on the web. Sometimes it is helpful to truly view your keywords as organic, something that keeps growing naturally on its own. But you must first build a solid foundation with good quality content and then keep nurturing those keywords with good quality link bait so that others will bookmark, recommend and link to your keyword content.

Over the years, if there is anything I have learned about keywords which always holds true, it is this: you must be persistent. You must keep at it: building links, building content... it will usually take months, if not years, to get those top rankings for very competitive keywords and it will take some further work to consistently keep those keywords in the top positions. But you will quickly learn keywords are well worth it since they can easily make or break your online marketing.

Is Ranking in Google As Easy As Using Google?

Google's algorithm which helps websites rank, or boots them out of the search results entirely has many variables to it. The thing is - Google can only use what it knows. If you think about it - using as many of Google's services like Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Email, Google RSS Reader, Buzz, and the rest of it - makes sense if you want to rank in Google.

Google has access to heaps of data through these services they offer for your website. Do you think they're using the data from them to decide how you should rank? They are screening emails to decide what ads you might like to see above your email inbox... I think it's a pretty safe bet to say they are using whatever information they have to decide where your site is ranked for top terms important to you.

Google employees like Matt Cutts have said again and again that Google wants to index the best pages online and answer the queries that Google users type into the search engine.

Google wants the best sites to rank very highly because it shows the world that Google's service is irreplaceable. It shows that they know which sites will answer your query. If they had AOL, Geocities, or MySpace profiles showing up in the top results for a keyword searches - how would that look? Not so good.

By using Google's services you are telling them everything about your site possible. You're telling them how many people are using it, what the bounce rate is, the demographics of the people using the site, whether the site is for ecommerce or other use. Whether it's being updated frequently, and many other variables Google must be using to decide how well your site compares to other sites.

Currently Google has a long list of services - nearly all free, that you can put to use for your business.

Here are some:

Analytics Calendar Checkout Documents - including presentations, docs, spreadsheets, forms Email Maps Photos Reader Sites Webmaster Tools YouTube

Why would using Google applications give you a jump on other businesses that don't employ this tactic?

For the simple fact that Google created all these tools to help you create quality content online. For instance, in Google Webmaster Tools there are many tips that can help you better format your site to be optimized for Google. Someone not using these must be losing out. In webmaster tools you can configure many options too.

You can tell Google:

every page you want indexed by using a 'sitemap' which country you prefer your site to be found in above all other countries whether your website should be know as http: //www.yoursite.com or just yoursite.com how quickly the Google bots (spiders) should crawl your site in case you have a server that is subpar.

One of Google's top tools you could use to add content to your site is by embedding YouTube videos directly onto the pages of your site. Google loves multimedia.

If Google is using all the information they have from customers that are taking advantage of all Google has to offer with the services mentioned above and how they relate to website ranking, they will probably never tell us about it. We can only guess that they are doing it because it just makes a whole lot of sense, and enables them to give us the best results for our Google queries.

Use Google for everything, all their services are free - and  they offer some great ways to beef up the content and formatting of your site so it's more easily found.