While talking about SEO, GWT (Google Webmaster Tools) serve as the most potent resource in an online toolbox of marketer. It is an easy task to get in GWT, and even most of the people are familiar with its main functions. If you’re a beginner in GWT? Come with us, with the help of this article you will be able to learn a lot of new things regarding Webmaster Tools.
1. Change crawl rate
The rate at which you want your site to be crawled can be set in Google webmaster tool. This crawl rate setting is available only in GWT. Most of the times, you want your site to run as frequently as possible but set a realistic timeline based on your update frequency. Follow the following step in order to change it.
- Click the settings in icon in the top right
- Choose “Site Settings”
- Select “Limit Google’s maximum crawl rate.”
- You will have the option of “Low” or “High” set the crawl rate accordingly.
- Click “Save.”
If you’re not sure just select “Let Google optimize for my site (recommended)” and leave the decision to Google.
2. HTML improvements
Using the option “HTML Improvements” you can identify all the basic issues in your website.
- Go to “Search Appearance.”
- Select “HTML Improvements.”
Below are the few check points:
Meta Descriptions
Here Google will highlight the following issues: Duplicate meta descriptions, Long meta descriptions, Short meta descriptions. It’s recommended to use 160 characters in the meta description so any pages which has more chars will be shown under Long meta descriptions and pages with less chars will be shown under short meta descriptions. Pages with duplicate meta descriptions will be highlighted under duplicate meta description.
Title Tags
Title tag is the key component in optimizing the pages. The recommended length of characters to be used in title tag is 60 characters.
Duplicate Title Tag- Pages with duplicate title will be highlighted here
Long title tags – Pages with lengthy title tags
Short title tags – Pages with less than 60 chars title
Non-informative title tags – Pages without informative title
3. Change sitelink ordering
Whenever a user searches for a well known brand sitelinks will be displayed in Google. An example of sitelink with the keyword “Oracle”
Since it’s generated through Google’s algorithm, it will remain out of your knowledge to learn how to control these sitelinks. But, if you don’t want a certain page to be displayed in sitelinks, through sitelink option in GWT you can demote that page from sitelinks.
To do this
– Go to “Search Appearance”
– Press “SiteLinks”
Enter the link which you want to demote from sitelinks.
4. Fetch as Google
“Fetch as Google” is a good tool to find out how Google fetches your page.
– Go to “Crawl”
– Click “Fetch as Google”
– Enter the url you want to fetch
– select “Fetch and Render”.
Different between Fetch and Fetch and Render
Fetch: Fetches the page of your choice and displays the response. This will help you to check the server connectivity and verify if you page is easily accessible.
Fetch and Render: This will perform the above function and also it will render the page for a desktop and smartphone.
5. Search Analytics
Using search analytics you can find out the keywords driving traffic, pages featured in the search results, visitors country and devices used to access your website. This is a great new feature by Google to get more insight on your search traffic.
If you’re a doing SEO then it’s highly recommended to use both Google webmater tools and Google analytics as often you could. Since most of the keywords in your Google Analytics are shown as “Not Provided” Google webmaster tools can help you to address this issue.
Which is your most useful feature in Google Webmaster Tools? Please share it in the comment section.
