Learn how you can employ Google Webmaster Tools to guide, refine, and re-evaulate your SEO strategy and performance!
This is a refined version of the PPT I gave in front of the Internet Masterminds Group in Vancouver BC. It details the parts within Webmaster Tools that are most useful to SEO - and ROI. Find simple answers to guide your content and search strategy, and get the details on where your website might be lacking!
2. How does Webmaster Tools help SEO?
Get important messages directly from Google
Get info on your site’s current presence & optimize your keyword
targeting
Get informed on sites that link to you and links within your own site
Make your site as “Google-friendly” as possible
Webmaster Tools is Google’s own SEO tool. It helps you optimize
your online presence in ways that are officially
recommended/sanctioned by Google.
3. Step 0 – Email Notifications:
Get critical updates straight from Google
1. Login to Your Webmaster Tools Acc’t
2. Click “Preferences”
3. Configure your messages to forward to an email account
Done – you’ll be e-mailed whenever Google has important
messages for you about your website
4. 5 Ways to Supercharge Your SEO
With Webmaster Tools
1. Use the Search Queries and Content Keywords tools
to fine-tune your site keywords and content
2. Use the HTML Improvements tool to correct some of
Google’s least favorite site content errors
3. Use the Internal Links tool to check out and optimise
your site’s internal links
4. Use the Crawl Errors tool to diagnose & fix site health
issues
5. Use the External Links tool to monitor your link profile
and evaluate current initiatives
5. Use the Search Queries and
Content Keywords tools to
fine-tune your keywords and
content.
6. Use the Search Queries and Content Keywords
tools to optimize your site keywords and content.
Search Queries Tool:
Reports on the performance of your site’s search queries, to:
Identify available opportunities for improvement
See the impact of SEO, campaigns, and fresh content
7. Use the Search Queries and Content Keywords
tools to optimize your site keywords and content.
What does the Search Queries tool report on?
1. Queries: # of different search queries your site appeared for
2. Impressions: # of times your site appeared in response to a query
3. Clicks: # of times your site was clicked
4. CTR: “Click-Through Rate” = Clicks / Impressions
5. Avg Position: Avg position of your site for that query, for all results & pages.
8. Use the Search Queries and Content Keywords
tools to optimize your site keywords and content.
Select a Search Query to see:
•Which different pages are served for that query, and how they perform
•Site stats for specific search positions and ranges
9. Use the Search Queries and Content Keywords
tools to optimize your site keywords and content.
How does my CTR Measure Up?
The most recent study
produced these
numbers use use them
as a baseline and flag
any of your queries that
have lower CTR.
*Don’t stress them too
much – Google Search
results are so unique to
each user that there isn’t
really a true standard CTR
Source: “Google & Bing Click-Through Rates - CTR Study” by Slingshot SEO
http://www.slingshotseo.com/resources/white-papers/google-ctr-study/
10. Use the Search Queries and Content Keywords
tools to optimize your site keywords and content.
How to Use the Search Queries Tool to Optimize Your Site
Keywords:
Step 0: do your keyword research first so you know which search queries to target
Step 1: Login to Webmaster tools and open the search queries tab to view your
top search queries.
11. Use the Search Queries and Content Keywords tools
to optimize your site keywords and content.
How to Use the Search Queries Tool to Optimize Your Site Keywords:
Step 2: Identify the Search Query you’re going to optimize for:
• Higher-value as identified by your keyword research
• Start with keywords that are already performing well
12. Use the Search Queries and Content Keywords
tools to optimize your site keywords and content.
How to Use the Search Queries Tool to Optimize Your Site Keywords:
Step 3: Head to Google, search for that query, and see how your site appears
to evaluate your Page Titles, meta descriptions, and URL’s – and identify which
need to be optimized.
...Not bad – should shorten the meta description so it doesn’t get truncated
...Uh-Oh - This page needs a meta description!
13. Use the Search Queries and Content Keywords
tools to optimize your site keywords and content.
How to Use the Search Queries Tool to Optimize Your Site Keywords:
Step 4: Return to the Search Queries tool, and click your chosen search query
for more info on which pages appear for that query and how your site performs.
14. Use the Search Queries and Content Keywords
tools to optimize your site keywords and content.
How to Use the Search Queries Tool to Optimize Your Site Keywords:
Step 5:
Things to look for: Is the best page for that term the being served the most?
Are there too many pages? Are there any duplicate URL’s being served?
15. Use the Search Queries and Content Keywords tools
to optimize your site keywords and content.
What does the Content Keywords tool report on?
-The keywords that Google has Select a keyword to see:
deemed “most significant” when How many times it appears in your
crawling your site. site. More important keywords should
What Google says it thinks your site is be more prevalent.
about. Your content’s keywords should Which variations appear on your site
reflect your search keyword goals – (ie “system/systems”)
and your business.
Which pages are most strongly
associated with that keyword
16. Use the Search Queries and Content Keywords tools
to optimize your site keywords and content.
How to Use the Content Keywords Tool to Optimize Your Site
Keyword Content:
•Check out the Content Keywords tab: Do the keywords match your site’s goals and
the keywords you wish to target?
Click a keyword to see how often it
occurs and which pages it appears
on.
17. Use the HTML Improvements
tool to quickly diagnose and
fix some key elements
18. Use the HTML Improvements tool to quickly
diagnose and fix some key elements
Meta description:
• Duplicate meta descriptions:
Google strongly encourages
unique meta descriptions
• Long meta descriptions:
Meta descriptions should be no
longer than 155 chars
• Short meta descriptions:
Meta descriptions should be no
shorter than ~ 50 chars
Tip: resent research has shown
longer descriptions perform better.
19. Use the HTML Improvements tool to quickly
diagnose and fix some key elements
Title tag:
• Missing title tags
• Duplicate title tags
• Long title tags
> 69 char (incl spaces)
• Short title tags
? (Use common sense)
• Non-informative title tags
Generic / placeholders
• ie “Index” or “Page 2”
Better to use tags that describe
content:
Ie “Home Reverse Osmosis
Systems”
20. Use the HTML Improvements tool to quickly
diagnose and fix some key elements
Non-indexable content:
• Pages containing content
that Google cannot crawl and
index (in other words, can’t
give meaning to), such as
some rich media files, video,
or images.
(Not involved in this “quick
fix” procedure)
21. Use the HTML Improvements tool to quickly
diagnose and fix some key elements
How to use the
HTML Improvements
tool:
1.Access the HTML
Improvements tool under
Optimization > HTML
Improvements
On the HTML Improvements
main page, you’ll see a list of
possible errors, with errors
that have been found,
marked in blue
22. Use the HTML Improvements tool to quickly
diagnose and fix some key elements
2. Click on one of the errors to view a list of all the pages on which this error
occurs
23. Use the HTML Improvements tool to quickly
diagnose and fix some key elements
3. Work your way through the list of pages that contain the error until
you’ve corrected all errors on all pages
4. Repeat: Return to the main HTML Improvements tab and start on
the next list of errors, if any
Best order in which to address the HTML Improvements tool?
1. Title tags - the Most Important Site Element for SEO
2. Meta descriptions
3. Non-indexable content
(may be more complex / not a “quick fix”)
24. Use the Internal Links tool to
analyze and optimise your
site’s internal linking*
*internal links are links from pages on your own site to other
pages on your own sites
25. Use the Internal Links tool to analyze and
optimise your site’s internal linking
1. Open the Internal Links tool to view the pages on your site that received
links from other pages on your site, in order from most to least.
26. Use the Internal Links tool to analyze and
optimise your site’s internal linking
2. Click on a specific page in the list of to see which other pages on your site
link to that page.
27. Use the Internal Links tool to analyze and
optimise your site’s internal linking
What to do with the info you get from the Internal Links tool?
The Most Important Pages Should Have The Most Internal Links
If they don’t you should try to build more targeted internal links to your more
important pages, or if needed, reduce internal linking to some less-important
pages – or both.
Find out what kind of internal linking takes place on the site and find
opportunities to enhance it.
Example:
If nearly all your pages have the same number of internal links, then they’re
probably just in your navigation, and you probably could stand to add more
keyword targeted internal links within your site content
28. Use the Crawl Errors tool to
diagnose & fix a variety of
technical “website health”
issues
29. Use the Crawl Errors tool to diagnose and treat
a variety of site “health” issues.
What does the “Crawl Errors” tab tell us?
Crawl Errors take place whenever Google is not able to access – to “crawl” - a
URL as expected.
When they take place on your site, it means that your site contains these such
errors - and these can affect your rankings.
The crawl errors listed in Webmaster tools are classified according to a few
different criteria.
30. Use the Crawl Errors tool to diagnose and treat
a variety of site “health” issues.
How to correct crawl errors?
Server error: The site was “unable to respond” to Google’s request for the
URL. check your server / the website’s technical back-end. Possible .htaccess
file issues.
Soft 404: Usually occurs in empty blog categories. Not a true 404, rather the
website is responding that the URL exists, but there’s no content for it.
Access denied: Determine why Google is attempting to access a protected
URL – did it used to be public?
Not found: Either redirect the missing URL’s to new ones, or block them using
robots.txt so that Google will stop looking
Correcting “Not found” can be a great way to “recover” links to your site
Not followed: A URL that Google found while crawling your site, but was
instructed by your site not to follow. Make sure it should indeed be no-follow,
and then leave it alone.
31. Use the Crawl Errors tool to diagnose and treat
a variety of site “health” issues.
What is robots.txt?
A file that allows you to instruct search engine spiders (the programs that crawl
the web and follow links) not to crawl or index content.
Blocking specific URL’s with robots.txt is a great way to cure Crawl errors
when the URL returning the error cannot be fixed or redirected. It tells Google
to “stop looking.”
32. Use the Links to Your Site
tool to review your link profile
in order to evaluate and plan
linking strategies
33. Links to your site
o Plan and track growth of inbound links
o Who links most to you and linked # of pages
o Most-linked content
o Anchor text used to link
34. Links to your site
What to look for:
•Have you gained or lost a lot of links lately? & To what
pages?
•What *kinds* of sites are linking to me? Example: forum
marketing initiative leads to lots of links from forums.
•Are there links I know about that aren’t indexed?
• Protip: The fastest way to get Google to index something is to
+1 it.
35. Other Tools:
• Crawl stats: How many pages does Google crawl? How much of
Google’s resources are spent on these pages?
• Improved indexation
(HTML suggestions & Crawl errors)
+
Improved site speed (Google Page Speed
https://developers.google.com/pagespeed/)
=
Better crawl stats
• URL Removal Tool: URL index that shouldn’t be? Ask Google to
deleted it (make sure it’s gone, ie returning a 404, when you do –
and block it w/ robots.txt)
36. Conclusions on Webmaster Tools
Important tool for monitoring and configuring:
− Critical site elements for SEO & content targeting
− Errors & issues
− Launch of site, new design, new host
− How your site appears in search results