Google Webmaster is an amazing tool, and if you are a serious blogger, you should never avoid the Google Webmaster’s tools.
From an SEO perspective, they’re a life-saver because they give you complete information about how your site functions in the Google Search engine.
The Search Console (aka Google Webmaster Tools) offers many tools that will let you thoroughly analyze your blog. From this analysis, you can work on problem areas to make your blog rank better in the Google Search engine.
Remember that search engine optimization (SEO) is a gradual process and doesn’t happen overnight. Sometimes it takes weeks or months to get a proper search engine ranking.
I will not be talking about backlinks or other strategies for SEO ranking in this post.
Instead, I will be sharing how you can use the best free SEO tool called Google Search Console (aka Google Webmaster Tools) to optimize your blog for search engines.
How To Make Your Blog Search Friendly Using Google Search Console:
1. Submit Sitemap to Google
This is the first thing that you need to do.
Generate a sitemap of your blog and submit it via the Google Search Console. This will help Google crawl your site effectively, and you can keep track of how many links are being indexed by Google.
If you have not yet submitted your sitemap, go ahead and submit your sitemap with the Google Webmaster Tool.
2. Webmaster Settings
The Webmaster Settings section enables you to configure some important things like “Geographic target”.
If your blog or service is limited to one particular region, you should configure the target settings for that region.
For example, one of my client WordPress blogs is for Australian kids fashion, so I configured her “Geographic target” as Australia.
The same goes with your blog or service. If your blog targets globally, leave it as is.
For the “Preferred domain”, if you are blogging on WordPress, know that WordPress takes care of the whole “www.” thing. However, I still suggest using Google’s Webmaster Tools to configure this setting.
“Crawl rate” depends on how often you update your blog.
I always let Google decide, though depending on how often you update, you might like to play with this setting.
3. Manage Google Sitelinks
Some time back, ShoutMeLoud got sitelinks.
- If you don’t know what site links are, read here.
Briefly, sitelinks are the pages from your site which Google finds useful, and from my experience, the pages you link to the most will define your sitelinks.
Google then displays these sitelinks on its Search results.
Sometimes Google adds less useful posts or pages like the disclaimer page or the privacy policy as a sitelink. In this case, you can use this feature of the Search Console tool to configure your sitelinks.
Note: You can’t add links to be included in your sitelinks from here, but you can block unwanted links.
4. Search Analytics
When it comes to maintaining your search engine ranking and improving it, finding the top ranking keywords is one of the most crucial parts.
The “Queries” feature of the Google Webmaster Tool will show you which keyword you are ranking for, your Google position, and a link to the post.
You can use WordPress plugins like SEO Smart Link to auto-link such keywords to maintain your ranking. This will also try to push posts on the second page to the first page of Google Search.
This is one of the top features that you should be using now.
5. Keywords
Ranking for the right keyword is more important than ranking for the wrong keyword.
If your blog is about shoes and you rank for keywords like shirts and trousers, even though you are on the first page, all of the traffic you are generating is useless.
The Google Webmaster “Keywords” tool determines the keyword Google has found while crawling your site.
If you are ranking for a wrong keyword, your strategy should be to find the cause while trying to show related and useful keywords to the search engine.
Others
There are many other tools like:
- Website Speed
- Internal Links
- Crawl Errors
These are all equally important.
I suggest you spend some time inside your Google Webmaster tool (aka Search Console) and come back here to the comments section with your queries.
Also, let us know which feature of the Google Search Console tool you find most useful. Let’s make a good discussion thread about SEO using the Google Webmaster Tool!
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Really very useful tips for me. I integrated webmaster to my business site and its working good. Now It would help me to track organic visitor of my site. Thanks’ for these beautiful tips…
Thanks for sharing these informative ideas with us. In this post everything is written pretty well, but missed one thing that International targeting only required for ccTLD domain not not for gTLD Domain. keep posting new and different ideas.
Hi , This very Informative Post ….thanks for Sharing ….But I am little bother about my post indexing problem in WMT
– why My google Indexing Rate Continuously Decreasing (from 45 to 31 and then only 24 out of 56)?
Please reply me
hi Harsh,
I am confused with my Google webmaster tools. I want global traffic o my blog. I have .com domain but i do not know to which country should i target or leave it unchecked. Please help me Harsh.
@Abhijeet
If you are not sure, leave it unchecked!
I have made a new site and submitted on google webmasters tools.After submiting the sitmap.xml for my site. it saying that links are not coming for robots.txt. I don’t have any idea about robots.txt. Have you any articles for solving this.Thanx in advance Harsh Brother 🙂
how to deal with this error 404 pop-ups on Android?
Hello Harish Sir !
I Submitted my blog sitemap to google webmaster tool 6 days ago but still 10 posts indexed , why my indexed urls are not increasing ? my website link will be available to you behind my Name “Luqman” please check if you want to serve your fan . thanks
Helpful article. I have done all the necesaary steps today, I guess I will have to wait for some time to let G deindex my categories and tages url.
Great Article Harsh, I found ‘Disavow Tool’ the most important tool in Google Webmaster as it helped me to remove poor Backlinks from my blog.
Thank you so much for the info , but i submit my full sitemap and when the indexing complete it says : 2400 page submitted 129 page indexed
Can you help me with that?
Yet another great post:-)
Google webmaster- a great way to help optimize site for particular keywords.
We can also use google analytics to see users information and the keywords which lead them to your blog…
Thanks 🙂
Unfortunately, I used to give more emphasis on Analytics than Webmaster tools. This in depth explanations and comments really make me think once again about Google webmaster tools deeply.
I use the keywords feature of Google webmaster tools and I have found it to be pretty useful feature. Knowing which keywords you are ranking for and which ones are sending you the most traffic is very useful data.
Another useful data that is given is the number of impressions for each keyword and the CTR. That way you can also understand where visitors are attracted or not attracted to your website after seeing your title and description.
That way, you can take remedial measures if necessary.
True Sammy. Thanks for insightful comment. 🙂
Nice article but your title must be check your stats by using Google Webmaster Tool instead of “Search Engine Optimization of Blog using Google Webmaster Tool” since here from this tool search engine optimization is not goin on….it just shows our stats
Maze karo I might not agree with your comment as the stats (keywords) which webmaster tool is showing is a part of SEO.
I have been using Google’s Webmaster Tools heavily as I think that there are a lot of good information in there to improve your website. I particularly pay attention to the new “search queries” feature and the “Crawl Errors” part of it. It is always good to take a look to see if there some problems you have to fix while Google crawls your site. Great.
Crawl errors are one of my fav part of Webmaster tool as it offers me enough insighe if any plugin or my robots.txt is cheating on me 😉
Thanks for your comment DItesco.
Hi,
Great review of Google Webmaster Tools.
I sometimes use it to check backlinks, though I find yahoo site explorer to be a better method to check backlinks.
Kindest,
Nabeel
P.S.Typo in post:
“If you (your) blog or service is limited to one particular region configure it for that.”
Thanks for letting me know about the typo Nabeel. Its fixed now 🙂
nice article harsh….infact i realized i was using google webmaster tools for very little things and you have explained that this can be used very effectively…..thanks bro
Do try to make most out of Webmaster tool and do let me know what difference it made for you 🙂
In the case of a software company which wants to target users from all countries which is the best option ?
Should I select the checkbox at all ?
OR
Select the dropdown box as “Unlisted” ?
OR
Should I select it as “United States” ?
You explanation was not lucid that’s why ?
I had the same confusion a few months back. I searched through Google resources & Internet but I didn’t find any satisfactory answer. Then I did some sort of experiments by selecting the check box & selecting United States, Unlisted & India at different point in time.
IMO: If you are targetting a global audience, Don’t select the check box.
Thanks Basant for clarifying @Zervidesk Doubt. 🙂
Good article harsh..webmaster tools are pretty important. Though newbie bloggers often tend to use Analytics much more & avoid Webmaster Tools which is wrong. Hope this post will make them realize
Mani Analytic and Webmaster tools are two different thins. Analytic is for your stats and other stats analysis, where As name suggest” Webmaster tool” is for webmasters and provide in depth detail of your site.
Thanks for your comment.