49
The Webmaster Tools Ac0on Plan Top 5 Ac0ons For Website Owners Presented by: Carol Poole

Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Embed Size (px)

DESCRIPTION

The website owners guide to the top 5 things you should do in Webmaster Tools - plus the other 80% you ought to know.

Citation preview

Page 1: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

The  Webmaster  Tools    Ac0on  Plan  

Top  5  Ac0ons  For  Website  Owners  Presented  by:  Carol  Poole  

Page 2: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Agenda  

•  What  is  Webmaster  Tools  

•  Your  Ac9on  Plan:  The  Top  5  Things  You  Should  Do  

•  A  quick  word  about  Bing  

•  Useful  Wordpress  Plugins  

•  The  Other  80%  (if  9me  permits)    

Page 3: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

What  is  Webmaster  Tools  

•  Free  Tool  from  Google  &  Bing  

–  hNps://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/    

–  hNp://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster    

•  Designed  for  webmasters  

•  Used  by:    

–  Webmasters  

–  SEO  Professionals  

–  Analy9cs  &  AdWords  Professionals    

Page 4: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Why  Use  Webmaster  Tools  

•  To  help  improve  visibility  in  search  engines  

•  Ensure  the  website  is  healthy  

•  Understand  &  improve  how  the  website  is  found  

–  Search  queries  

–  Who  links  to  your  website  

•  Improve  the  user  experience  (UX)  

Page 5: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Tools  for  Different  Purposes  

•  Tools  for  site  visibility  &  website  health  

–  Site  maps,  robots.txt,  broken  links,  crawl  errors,  site  errors,  malware  

•  Tools  to  improve  how  the  website  is  found  

–  Search  queries  &  CTRs  

–  Review  links  to  your  site  &  any  manual  ac9ons  

•  Tools  to  improve  UX  

–  Broken  links  &  site  errors  

Page 6: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Valuable  Data  in  Webmaster  Tools  

Page 7: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Key  Features  

•  Sitemap  submission  

•  Fix  crawl  errors  &  set  crawl  rate  •  Site  health  &  messages  

•  See  which  websites  link  to  you  

•  Set  the  country  you  want  to  target  •  See  what  searches  people  type  into  Google  when  people  

find  the  site  

–  Can  the  CTR  be  improved?  

Page 8: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Top  5  Things  You  Should  Do    

1.  Add  your  website  to  webmaster  tools    

–  Ensure  you  are  set  as  a  site  owner    

2.  Setup  site  no9fica9ons  

3.  Link  Webmaster  Tools  to  Google  Analy9cs  

4.  Submit  a  sitemap  

5.  Looks  at  your  search  queries  &  index  status  report  

BONUS  

•  Check  who  is  linking  to  your  website    

Page 9: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Add  Your  Site  

Page 10: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Verify  Site  Ownership  

Page 11: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Verify  Site  Ownership  

Page 12: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

SeJng  Up  Page  Owners  &  Users  

•  Three  levels  of  access  –  Owner  –  User  –  Full  Access  –  User  –  Restricted  Access  

•  Users  with  full  access  can  not  add  new  users  or  link  to  Google  Analy9cs  

•  Users  with  restricted  access  can  generally  only  view  data  

 h"ps://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2451999  

Page 13: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Who  Should  Have  Access  

•  Webmasters    

•  Website  Owners  

•  Google  AdWords  Professionals  

•  Analy9cs  Professionals  

•  SEO  Professionals  

Page 14: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Add  Users  &  Site  Owners  

Page 15: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Add  Users  &  Site  Owners  

Page 16: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Site  No0fica0ons  

Page 17: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Site  No0fica0ons  

Page 18: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Submit  Site  Map  

Page 19: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Linking  To  Google  Analy0cs  

•  Go  to  Google  Analy9cs    

•  To  Queries  

Page 20: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Linking  to  Google  Analy0cs  

Page 21: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Linking  To  Google  Analy0cs    

Page 22: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Linking  To  Google  Analy0cs  

Page 23: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Linking  To  Google  Analy0cs  

Page 24: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Linking  To  Google  Analy0cs  

Page 25: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Submit  Site  Map  

•     You  can  usually  find  what  sitemaps  you  have  by  typing  in  sitemap.xml  

•     Some  sites  have  more  than  1  sitemap.  Submit  all  of  them.    

Page 26: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Search  Queries  Data  in  Webmaster  Tools  

Page 27: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Search  Queries  Data  in  Google  Analy0cs    

Page 28: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Analyzing  Search  Query  Data  

Page 29: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Don’t  Forget  Bing  

•  Do  the  same  thing  in  Bing  Webmaster  Tools    

–  Covers  Bing  and  Yahoo  Search    

•  Why    

–  Bing  shows  search  query  data  from  a  longer  9me  period  

–  Google  only  goes  back  as  far  as  90  days  

–  You  can  also  do  keyword  research  in  Bing  WMT  

–  You  can  see  not  only  who  links  to  your  site  but  also  your  compe9tors  

–  Can  connect  your  social  media  profiles  in  Bing  WMT  

Page 30: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Useful  Wordpress  Plugins  

•  WordPress  SEO  by  Yoast  

•  Google  XML  Sitemaps  Plugin  

•  XML  Sitemaps  

•  Redirec9on  plugin  

•  Structured  Data  Schema  Creator  plugin    

•  W3  Total  Cache  or  WP  Super  Cache  –  for  site  speed  

Page 31: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Ques0ons?    

Download  the  slides  at    hNp://goo.gl/cY5hnv      

Page 32: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

The  Other  80%  

•  If  your  domain  is  .com  –  set  the  country  you  are  targe9ng  

•  Fix  crawl  errors  &  set  crawl  rate  •  Fetch  as  Googlebot  –  Good  for  when  you  update  your  site  

•  Get  your  keyword  data  back  

•  Sitelinks  –  if  you  want  to  demote  them    

•  Structured  data  –  for  web  &  SEO  pro  

•  Fix  HTML  improvements  –  for  your  web  developer    

•  Useful  wordpress  plugins  

Page 33: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Fix  Important  Crawl  Errors  

•  Really  common  in  ecommerce  sites  

•  Priori9se  the  important  URLS  (the  404’s)  

•  If  it’s  a  big  list,  download    

–  Work  out  where  old  URLs  should  point  to    

–  Do  a  301  redirect  (server  side)    

•  Mark  as  fixed  in  WMT  

Page 34: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Errors  To  Pay  A\en0on  To  

•  404  Not  found  errors  

Page 35: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Errors  To  Remove  Or  Ignore  

Page 36: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Fetch  As  Googlebot  

•  What  is  it?    

–  Lets  you  see  a  page  as  Google  sees  it    

–  No9fies  Google  when  there  are  new  pages  or  changes  to  a  page  

•  Why  Use?  

–  Troubleshoot  page’s  poor  performance  in  search  results    

–  Helps  get  new  pages  or  changes  to  pages  indexed  quickly  

–  Check  crawl  errors  and  redirects  are  fixed  

Page 37: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Errors  To  Remove  Or  Ignore  

Page 38: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Sneaky  Trick  To  Get  Keyword  Data  Back    

Page 39: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Sneaky  Trick  To  Get  Keyword  Data  Back    

Page 40: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Sneaky  Trick  To  Get  Keyword  Data  Back    

Page 41: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Sneaky  Trick  To  Get  Keyword  Data  Back    

Page 42: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

•  Free  (with  ads)  

•  Without  ads  

Sneaky  Trick  To  Get  Keyword  Data  Back    

Page 43: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Sitelinks  

•  What  are  sitelinks?    

–  Addi9onal  links  to  your  website  that  appear  underneath  the  main  URL  in  the  organic  lis9ng  

–  Auto  Generated  

Page 44: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Demote  Sitelinks  

•  Give  you  extra  real  estate  under  your  brand  name  

•  Site  links  can  be  demoted  in  Webmaster  Tools  

•  Why  demote:  

–  Informa9on  is  incorrect    

–  Don’t  want  a  par9cular  page  appearing  as  a  sitelink  

Page 45: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Other  Features  

•  Rich  snippets  /  data  highlighter  

–  A  way  of  summarizing  content  on  a  page  to  make  it  easier  for  users  to  understand  what  the  page  is  about    

•  Page  speed  insights  

–  Enables  you  to  test  speed  of  website  which  is  now  considered  a  factor  that  impacts  search  engine  rankings  

Page 46: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Structured  Data  

Page 47: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

HTML  Improvements  

•  What  is  it?    

–  Shows  poten9al  issues  when  Google  is  crawling  &  indexing  site  

•  Why  Use?  

–  Improve  user  experience  

–  Drive  traffic  to  your  site    

–  Helps  iden9fy  problems  with  9tle  tags  or  non-­‐indexable  content  

Page 48: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Structured  Data  

•  Yoast  WordPress  SEO    –  Facebook,  TwiNer  &  G+  

•  Schema  Creator    

•  Webmaster  tools  –  Data  Highlighter    

•  Genesis  Themes  

Page 49: Top 5 Things Website Owners Should Do in Webmaster Tools

Ques0ons?