Back to News and Articles

The Five Most Fundamental Applications of Google Webmaster Tools for SEO Experts

Author : Sourav Agarwal
The chief end of Google Webmaster Tools that is available free for SEO pros is to make websites search engine friendly by diagnosing the websites’ technical issues. That a search engine friendly website enjoys higher SERP ranking and gets countless views is undeniable. A Google account of your website and access to the website’s main header template are must haves for using Google Webmaster Tools. The website must be fully indexable.
Turning 404 errors from Dead Links to Live Links
Diagnosing 404 errors in websites is one of the important applications of Google Webmaster Tools. 404s refer to “Not Found” URLs that appear when they are sought after due to some webpage design and link related issues. With webmaster tools from Google, you can check this problem by following the steps, given below-

• Go to the Google Webmaster Tools Dashboard and click on the website
• Go to “Not Found” under “Overview” and click on “Details”
• Follow the URL that appears as an 404 error
• Correct the URL with 301 redirect, a PHP redirect script
• The correct URL when clicked the next time will be 301 redirected
Measure the Traffic-generating Capacity of Keywords
Go to the columns of information under Top Search Queries by moving from Google Webmaster Tools Dashboard to Statistics. The columns of information consist of Impressions to measure how many times a website appears for a specific keyword and Traffic to measure the traffic-generating capacity of keywords. This application of Google Webmaster Tools helps you pick out popular keywords and utilize their traffic potential. Make sure to optimize your website content with those keywords. It also helps you determine the number and density of keywords in proportion to the volume of the website content.
Check the Quality of Back Links pointing to Websites
Checking the quality of back links, important elements for the search engine ranking of websites is another application of Google Webmaster Tools. Go from Dashboard to Links to Pages with External Links. Clicking the hyperlinked number under the External Links column will show the backlinks to your web pages. Make sure to check the relevancy of the websites that link to yours in order to assess the quality of those backlinks. Build networking with those sites to get more quality traffic that can boost sales and conversions. Only relevant sites are a good source of referral traffic that contributes immensely to site sales and conversions.
Upload an XML Sitemap Checking Robots.txt
A sitemap is an index to a website’s position on the search maps of search giants. Driving thousands of traffic to your website by indicating the site’s position in the search engine listings is a sitemap. Navigate from Google Webmaster Tools Dashboard to Sitemaps in order to upload an XML sitemap to search engines. Make sure to test the robots.txt before submitting the sitemap to the root directory of the server.
Remove Unimportant URLs from Websites
Websites with unimportant pages that are useless for both search engines and visitors lag far behind other websites in search result pages. These pages will be blocked in robots.txt and search engine bots find it difficult to index websites with blocked pages. You can remove those URLs using Google Webmaster Tools. Navigate from Dashboard to Tools to Remove URLs. Make sure to check if the URLs return a 404 header status before removing them.