1 Look At Your Google Webmaster Tools Account!

With the speed of the internet and the rate of growth we have been seeing, it is very difficult to keep up with everything never mind taking the time to actually analyze your own website surroundings and linking structure to see what websites are linking to you from a structural stand point. It is important to take the time to really understand the linking structure of your website so you know where to make improvements and where to ratchet things down. Let’s take a look at some of the important areas the Google webmaster will show you for your website:


Here is a basic video (a few years old but still good!) about how to use Google Webmaster Tools:



Links to Your Site:

This is a great area to be familiar with because it will show you all the links that are pointing to your website along with all your internal website pages as well. It is nice to be able to look at who is connecting with you so you can estimate what direction you want to take your link building into. Your links should be evenly spread out throughout your entire link building campaign. You don’t want to be top heavy on any one effort.

Crawl Errors:

Google webmaster tools will also show you in detail any crawl errors that are occurring on your website. This is important because you want to know if certain areas of your website are having a difficult time to be read by the search engine crawlers.

Keywords:

It also shows you what keywords have a significant focus on your website. This will allow you to diversify or shift your focus in order to utilize a variety of different keywords throughout your website.

Sitemaps:

Having a sitemap is just SEO 101. It will show you how many pages are being indexed currently by your existing sitemap. If your sitemap has any issues this is where you will see it.
Make the effort to install Google webmaster tools on your website. This also gives Google a heads up that you are open and willing to let them in so they can understand everything about your website. This is important from a ranking and trust factor standpoint. This tells the search engines that you have nothing to hide from them and you don’t mind them seeing how you build your links and market your website. If you have nothing to hide this will help you in the long run.