5 Google Webmaster Tools Functions You Should Know About

If you are dipping your toes into the SEO waters for the first time then setting up your website on Google Webmaster Tools should be part of your set-up plan. My top 5 reasons for using GWT:

1. Indexing – GWT provides a sitemap submission service. This allows you to submit an XML sitemap of all the pages on your site. By providing this to Google you are ensuring that all your web pages are found and indexed. Pages that Google cannot index will not appear in their search results and therefore you will not rank for the key phrases that page is targeting. It is important that all your pages are indexed and for new websites it is important that they are indexed quickly. This feature will help the process.

2. Geographic Target – If you possess a .com website and you only target 1 country then you are best off setting your geographic target to Ireland (.ie) if you are an Irish based business. Google will associate your website with Ireland and this will help you in the local searches on Google.ie. Most people search on local search engines so gaining improved rankings would be very important for your business.

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.

This article was created by JumpStart Marketing an online marketing and web design company based in Ireland.