The two major search engines as well as other sites offer free webmaster tools that make it easier to improve site performance.
Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools both provide a wide array of services that identify problems that hold a site back from higher rankings in search results.
Website managers and staff will find that both tool sets are worth investigating. Google is the most useful for anyone who wants higher rankings in the Google search engine. Ditto for Microsoft Bing.
Both products provide a similar set of services. So anyone stretched for time can focus on Google because it is the dominant search engine. Bing provides another perspective and a small advantage with improving search results with that search engine.
Google has too many tools to cover in one article. Some of the most useful ones include:
If nothing else, a site manager should use the product for the sake of identifying and fixing bad links.
Bad links on a site can reduce site search rankings. Bad links to a site — which can be repaired in the htaccess file — are a lost opportunity for higher rankings.
The “analytics” report with page clicks, rankings and impressions will give a true picture of how certain pages rank on Google. Simply doing a search in Google for a page’s rank is no longer an accurate guide because the rank depends on so many factors.
Like the Google product, Bing Webmaster Tools will show the number of pages indexed in the Bing search engine, how many impressions they receive, how many clicks they get, etc.
It does have a few features that outdo Google. One is an SEO analyzer that will provide suggestions on improving a page for search results.
It also has a keyword research tool that will show how well the site ranks in Bing based on specific keywords. The tool can narrow down the results according to the country and language of the visitors.
The Index Explorer is unique in that it gives a hierarchical view of the site based on folders and files. The tool is helpful in advancing site navigation and finding folders that may no longer be accessible on the public part of the site.
A Google Ads strategy for beginners begins with defining a few simple goals. Knowing these…
A Google ad strategy is an inexpensive, efficient and highly educational way of driving targeted…
The analytics bounce rate is an excellent way to measure the quality of a website…
Keyword density is an SEO tactic that suggests how many times a particular keyword should…
Forum link building is a marketing tactic that has some moderate benefits with search engine…
Website publishers who track new versus returning visitors will find new ways to increase site…