Google Webmaster Tools for beginners (Essential for new site!)
(Essentials for beginners by Brian O’Boyle)
If you have just designed and launched a new site then these steps are essentials and should be considered as important as any other major step in the design process. I will try and go through it as simply as possible. (If you have any probs or stumbling blocks, just leave a comment and I will reply and edit my post accordingly to simplify matters. We can help each other along, see?!! : )
Ok then, firstly,
Step 1. You need to log into your google account or register if you dont have one, and ad the site submitting it to google. https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin
Step 2. Go to “My Account” at the top right of the screen, and then go to “Webmaster tools’. You will then see a list of any sites that you have added or submitted.
Step 3. You now need to verify your site. This lets google now that you own or control the site. So lets click on the “Verify Site” link. Where it say’s “Verification method” use the drop down menu to select ‘Upload an HTML file’ method. With this method, we download the file to the root of the site at C:\yoursite\public_html for example. (I use dreamweaver to then upload file to my remote server)
Step 4. Having uploaded the html file, you can now press verify and your done!! Congrats.
NOW YOU NEED TO SUBMIT A SITEMAP!
This is done so that Google can index your site, pick up on your content and pages, and you can start monitoring all sorts of information, traffic, hits and where they are coming from etc.
Steps to submit an XML sitemap to google are as follows….
1. Generate the sitemap at http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/. Enter your url and select frequency. (I suggest weekly for most sites, depending on how often they are updated.)
2. Click on the downlaod uncompressed XML Sitemap (top link).
3. Place the sitemap.xml file into your public_html root folder and upload it to the site. (Again, i use Dreamweaver but any other ftp will do.)
4. Now submit the full url (ie. http://www.yoursite.com/public_html/sitemap.xml) to Google via webmaster tools > Site configuration > Sitemaps > Submit a sitemap.
And thats it!!
Indexing could take a while so be patient!
