Integrate Webmaster Tools Into Your Site Easily With Google Publisher Plugin
You've
probably heard of Google's Webmaster Tools and figured you should be
using them, but just haven't had the time to set them up. If only there
were an easy way to manage your Google services all in one place,
right?
Well, Google has just released a brand new plugin which
still in beta testing as of this writing that will help you do just
that.
It's called Google Publisher Plugin
and, to start out, is only offering management for AdSense and
Webmaster Tools, but indicates that more services will be integrated
after it passes beta testing. Here is your chance to get in on the
ground floor using this great plugin produced directly by Google.
In
the past, verifying your site would mean uploading files through FTP or
adding code to your header or footer files. With this new plugin, you
to verify your site with Google Webmaster Tools with just one click.
For
today's tutorial, we will focus on Webmaster Tools, and my next
tutorial will go over AdSense setup and integration in full detail.
With that said, let's get started.
Before You Begin
If you haven't already, it's a good idea to setup a Google account.
If you have a Gmail address, you're already there - you'll just need to
integrate that account with your Webmaster Tools.
If the website
is a business site and your Gmail account is a personal account, you
may want to consider setting up an account just for the business. The
basic Google account is free and it will help you keep all your Google
services together in one place with one login. You can begin here.
Installation
The Google Publisher Plugin is available from the repository, so
simply install it like you would any other plugin. Once you install it
and go to the plugin's settings, you will see a screen like this:
Click on the "Get Started" button and you will be redirected to verify your site.
Click on the blue "Verify" button, and you will be directed back to your website back end screen to configure the plugin.
In the Webmaster Tools box, click on "Manage Site" and you will be redirected to the Webmaster Tools page.
You'll probably notice that there's not to see especially if your
site is new. It takes a little while for Google to start tracking your
site and give you some useful information. Google will need to begin
crawling your site before it can identify Crawl Errors.
But right away you will get an idea of some important things you need to do, like submit a Sitemap. Sitemaps are very easy to set up with plugins like Google XML Sitemaps, and there's no reason not to have one.
You will notice that all kinds of information is available here
including information on Structured Data, Data Highlighter, HTML
Improvements, and Sitelinks. I find the Search Traffic information some
of the most interesting and useful including
Search Queries are what are people searching for that sends them to your site.
Links to Your Site are incoming links from other sites. In other words,
find out what other sites are bringing in traffic to your site.
Internal Links are important for viewers to be able to find more
information that is related and helps Google learn more about what is
important on your site.
Manual Actions allow you to find out if Google thinks your site is using
spammy techniques and has actually taken manual actions to demote your
site in the search results or remove your site all together. You will
also get information here about what actions you should take to fix this
problem.
After your Webmaster Tools are verified, the plugin really just
offers a quick link to your Webmaster Tools account. You will not
actually be able to view your tools in your WordPress backend.
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