Simple SEO- Google Webmaster Tools

One day I would like this blog to get the majority of its visitors through search engines rather than social networking and bookmarking sites. There are a few reasons for that:

Number one reason is that if a site is well set up for search engines then I can ‘set it and forget it’; meaning that visitors will keep coming in, months even years down the line. If I optimize this blog in the best possible way then I don’t necessarily have to be active in social networking sites for example. I can leave things alone and focus on other things, other ways to make or spend money or have some more free time to just relax.

To read up on other reasons why optimizing your site/blog for search engines is a good idea you can read an older post regarding The Good Kind of Traffic.

So today I am going to write about something I have been meaning to write about for a few weeks. I am not going to present a secret or the most helpful advice regarding SEO (Search Engine Optimization)….I am just going to write about a few things anyone can do to get better results.

Simple, ‘dummy proof’ advice

Google Webmaster Tools

To activate this tool you need to have a gmail account. Then after you sign in, search for the tools in the try something new section. Sign up for Webmaster Tools and you are ready to go. Unfortunately this will not be an interactive tutorial where you can follow certain steps and, do a few things and see results right away. If you are signing up for the service now, it might take a few days for you to see what I will be talking about here.

Once you sign up and set up your site start by getting in your Dashboard, then select the site you want. You will then be taken to the next page, the overview:

You can see various statistics here like HTTP errors, how many times your page was not found, and how many of your URLS where restricted by robots.txt….All great information but for someone who knows more about this stuff. I said earlier that this post will present a few simple tips. I want to focus on the Statistics tab. Once clicking on this tab you will be redirected to the following page.

Then click on ‘Top Search queries’

This ‘magic’ page is full of great advice. It is like a palm ready to be read by a palm reader…. It is great because it shows you the most popular search queries that list your site as a result.

On the left side you can find the top search queries in which your blog, in this case my blog, appeared. The # ranks the results based on frequency, the %....yes you guessed right, the percentage those searches represent from the total amount of searches, the Query is the keyword used, and the position is the position your page had in that particular search. Have in mind that Google presents results in batches of ten. So if the page is positioned at 11 it means it is at the second page of results.

On the right side you can see on which searches your results got clicked in, at what position they where when that happened and how many times did that happen.

So what?

Well there are many potential uses for this information.

Why is this information so important?

It is important because you can learn:

1. All the keywords your site does well in
2. How well it does for each corresponding keyword
3. Which ones get clicked more
4. Which post shows up for the particular search
5. Which post gets on the front page of a search more often

Another thing you can learn is that your blog can rank high for typos…

Anyway, after I found out that I had results in the first page for certain Google searches for a particular keyword 3 weeks ago, I tried a few things got those posts ranked higher and got more hits from Google!

Three weeks ago I noticed that my blog appeared in a search for a phrase that had the word Entrecard, you can see that the exact phrase was: “Entrecard code won’t validate”.

The post that showed up for that search was a post I had written about Entrecard a while back titled Entrecard Tips. So I went back to that post, made it longer, added the particular keyword a few more times, changed the title to Entrecard tips, linked to it from other posts on my blog, submitted a few articles in databases linking back to this post with the keyword Entrecard Tips and two weeks later I got the post about Entrecard Tips on the first page. That post gets me the most visitors from Google. It is not that many hits, but it is still something better than before and way better than nothing.

So to get more traffic from Google you have to

1. Find which posts or articles do better
2. Go back and make them longer, add more content. Spruce them up, write more in every paragraph, edit them, make them helpful and informative
3. Increase the frequency of the particular keyword that got you there in the first place. Don’t over do it though, keep a maximum of 5-7 keywords for every 100.
4. Revamp the title, make it simple and catchy. Add the keyword there as well, if you haven’t already
5. Add a few links on some of your other posts with the desired keyword pointing back to that post. (Keywords and Backlinks)
6. Write a new post about a similar topic with links to the target
7. Submit articles in databases with links pointing back to the one you want to get to rank higher

Do this for a few

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