Google Webmaster Tools - Startup

Google Webmaster Tools constitute a free service provided by Google to the webmasters. It allows webmasters to add their websites and then view and analyze various Google Search Engine related statistics. Some of the functions which webmasters can perform are:

1. Submit their sitemap for Google to crawl the links in it. This also discloses any broken links.
2. View sites that link to their site and how they link it.
3. View the Search result impressions and clicks to their site.
4. View the search queries that resulted in listing of their site in the results.
5. View how Google fetches / views their site.

And much more.

It is a vast topic and we will cover it in parts beginning from the very start.

Login to Google Webmaster Tools:

To use Google Webmaster Tools, you must have a Google account. If you do not have one, just register for Gmail at http://www.gmail.com

Login to Google Webmaster Tools at http://www.google.com/webmasters/ with your Google login information.

 

Add Website:

Now you will see the text box to add your website's URL. Type in the URL and hit Add Site button

Your site will be added as shown below. However, to utilize the tools, you need to confirm your ownership of the site you have added.

 

Verify Ownership of Site:

Although, Google provides several methods for verifying that you have ownership of the site, the easiest one is presented to you by Google. You have to download a small html file (3-4 kb) and upload it to your sites root directory. Then click the verify button and Google will check if the file has been uploaded to your site. If Google finds the file, it means that the site is owned by you.

 

Site DashBoard:

After verification, you will reach this screen showing all the tools and overview of the site.

Since the site has just been added, there is no data.

Tools Home:

The next time you login to Webmaster Tools or if you click the Webmaster Tools link (when logged in), you will be presented with this screen showing the list of your websites along with their snapshot.

While at this screen, you can add more sites by clicking the red link on the right. Clicking any of the listed sites takes you to the Site DashBoard.

Submit SiteMap:

Take a look at the Site Dashboard. In the Sitemaps section, it says "No Sitemaps". You have to submit your sitemap to Google. Click on "No Sitemaps" to go to detailed view in respect of sitemaps. You can also reach here through the menu on the left by clicking on "Crawl" and then "Sitemaps".

Here click the red button / link on the right, fill in the name of your sitemap file and click the "Submit Sitemap" button. We presume, you already have Sitemap file at your site. Otherwise, go to this post about making your proxy site to know how to make sitemap of your site.

Refresh the page and Google will tell you how many pages your sitemap mentions and how many have been indexed by Google. Since, the site is new, no pages would be indexed at this time.

Come back after a few days and Google would have made progress in indexing your pages.

In a later post we will explore the various Webmaster Tools. Till then add all your sites to Google Webmaster Tools!

Google Adsense - How To Get Approval

Refer to my previous post in which I recommended a few high paying CPM advertisers. However, over there I did not tell you that in the virtual world of Internet, Google's Adsense is the king of Advertising. But getting approved for Google Adsense is not an easy task and it is becoming more and more difficult every day. This is because:

1. The number of Publisher websites are increasing at a much faster rate than the number of Advertisers.
2. Google wants that the Ads placed through it are displayed on:

• high quality websites
• websites having reasonable visitors
• websites having visitors from search engine queries
• websites having original content not copied content
• websites which have content not just pictures and movies that fill most of the pages 

3. Google also dislikes bad English, grammar mistakes, incomplete sentences and things like that.

4. Design mistakes, HTML problems also effect Google.

So, in order to get your Publisher account with Google Adsense, you have to take care of many things. A brief of these factors is given below:

Number of Pages: 

Your site must not be a one or a few pager. It should have sufficient pages so that Google can crawl and determine what types of advertisements can be displayed on these. If your site is a blog, dont apply before writing less than 35 blogs posts, each containing atleast 300 words.

Site Structure: 

The site's navigation should be easy for the visitor. There should be no broken links.

Google Webmasters: 

The site should have been verified through Google Webmasters as your own. Login to http://www.google.com/webmasters/ with Gmail ID and add your website and follow the instructions to verify. 

SiteMap: 

Your site should have a sitempap.xml file which is used by the search engine crawlers to navigate through your site. This file is also used for Google Webmasters verification. There are many free sitemap creation sites such as:

Some Required Pages: 

Your site should have pages for Privacy Policy, Disclaimer, Terms of Usage and most importantly for Contact.

Site Age: 

Dont just apply for Google Adsense on the next day of launching your site. Your site should be atleast a few months old.

Site Domain: 

Preferable your site should be hosted on your own domain not a subdomain. These days getting a domain name only costs around $10.

Traffic: 

A few thousand unique visitors per month is necessary. Google will not approve you if you dont have enough visitors. How much is enough for Google is not fixed. This would depend on other characteristics of the site. But it is clear that the number of unique visitors per month should be in thousands.

Original Content: 

Google is too smart in recognizing copied content. So be very cautious in this respect. Never copy anything. Write your own content. And remember, sites containing just pictures and animations don't get approved.

When you apply for Google Adsense, keeping in view these requirements, your chances of getting approval are quite high.

Happy earning on the Net!!

Get Visitors to Your Site

Here we will look at various ways to inform search engines about your website and create links (backlinks) to your website. The purpose is to get your site listed in search engines, improve its visibility in search results and ultimately get visitors to your site.

Site Map:

The first thing to do after creating a site is to submit it to search engines. For this purpose, create a Sitemap of your site. Sitemap lists URLs of all the pages on your website, their date of modification, modification frequency, etc. This information helps the search engines to crawl your website. There are many free online sitemap generation sites such as:

http://www.freesitemapgenerator.com
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com

Input your site URL. You can generally leave the options to their defaults. Download the generated sitemap.xml file and upload it to your sites root folder.

Ping Search Engines:

Now you have to tell the search engines about your site and its sitemap. This is called pinging the search engines. For this purpose also there are many free websites such as:

http://www.ping-sitemap.com
http://www.pingsitemap.com

By the way you can do it manually too. If you are interested, following are the codes for major search engines:

Google:

http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=http://yourwebsiteaddress/sitemap.xml

Bing / MSN / Yahoo:

http://www.bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?siteMap=http://yourwebsiteaddress/sitemap.xml

Ask:

http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http://yourwebsiteaddress/sitemap.xml

Just open this URL in your browser and you will get the acknowledgment of submission. 

Similarly, there are services which submit your site to many search engines for free. Utilize any one of these services to submit your site to many search engines.

http://www.submitexpress.com/free-submission.html
http://www.freewebsubmission.com
http://www.entireweb.com/free_submission

Whois Sites:

There are sites which maintain record, statistics and analytical data of all the websites. Informing them of your newly created website is also beneficial. Once again, free online tools do this for you.

http://www.backlink-generator.de
http://www.links.autobacklinkbuilder.com

All the above is mostly automated. Now come the steps requiring more manual action and time.

Niche Directories / URL Exchange:

Submit your website URL to directories and URL exchanges relevant to your site subject. For example, if you have created your own Proxy site using our previous post, you can submit your URL to Proxy Lists such as the following and many more:

http://www.bypasser.net
http://www.www.usproxies.com
http://www.everyproxysite.com
http://www.proxylisty.com

Forum Comments / Answers to Questions:

Participate in different forums and post comments there. Make your website URL part of your signature so that every comment contains it.Where possible, use HTML tag to enclose your URL in keywords.

<a href="http://yoursiteaddress">Keyword(s)</a>

Don't just spam the forums. Comment meaningfully.

Answer questions on Yahoo Answers and Answer.com. Again give your site URL in your signature.

The links you thus create make search engines to move you up in their listings.

Social Website:

Use Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. Join groups, participate actively and always include your website URL in your writings and registrations.

Within a few months, your website will start getting reasonable number of visitors.

In the meantime, you need to register with good Advertisers to get advertisements to be shown on your website to make you some money. This topic will be covered in a coming blog. By the way, most advertisers pay your through PayPal. If you are in a PayPal unsupported country, open your PayPal account using the easy steps given in our post regarding Verified PayPal Account in Unsupported Countries.

Till then, propogate your website URL!!!