Google Webmaster Tools

**Dazman** · 06 February 2011, 06:27 AM

I am trying to figure out how to get my website further up the Google lists. I have added key words to each page as per various online tutorials, but that seems to have little or no effect. I have discovered Google Webmaster tools, which apparently show all sorts of information which could be useful, but which I am having problems trying to access. If anyone id familliar with these tools, perhaps you can help. I am not an expert web designer, and am learning bits and pieces as I go along.

At the moment I am having problems getting past the "verify ownership" (of my website) section. It gives 4 options to do so, and I don't understand any of them. Google doesn't provide any proper description on how to carry out each form of verification, it appears to just assume that you know what to do.

The 2 options that seem to fit the bill are:
"opload an html file to your server" and
""add a meta tag to your sites home page"

Can anyone provide me with an idiots guide as to how to do either of these please - or indeed how to improve my Google ranking, which is the whole object of my going through this process.

Many Thanks

**bjornkn** · 06 February 2011, 08:30 AM

It is quite simple actually.
On your home page you add a rectangle and give it the name "<head>" (<>s included, but not the ""s)
rclick and select web properties.
Select Placeholder.
Copy the Meta tag text from Google, starting with "<meta name="google-site-verification" content="wLtlePGw7..."
Paste it into the "Replace with HTML code" box.
That's all.

**JONLAKE** · 06 February 2011, 08:59 PM

Hi Dazman,

You will find info here on verifying ownership of your site as well as submitting a sitemap to Google which can help them to index your site better.

http://newbie2webdesigner.com/promot...-to-google.htm

As for the advice you need on improving rank in the search engines, it is a long and arduous battle, so don't be discouraged. A Google rank above zero (in the first few months after publishing at least) is very difficult to achieve as it depends primarily on how many incoming rank-passing links you have to your website. Getting other webmasters to notice your site and link to it depends on your promotion strategy as well as how 'link-worthy' your site is. For detailed info on promoting your site, you could read this article...

http://newbie2webdesigner.com/promote.htm

and

http://newbie2webdesigner.com/promot...k-building.htm

Good luck!

Jonathan

**Dazman** · 08 February 2011, 06:12 PM

Thanks very much for the suggestion, which I tried yesterday. Interestingly after uploading the changes, my home page looked very strange with text and pictures all over the place. I thought I followed your instructions to the letter, but from what I have described do these symptoms mean anything to you? I uploaded a previous version of the site and all is well now.

**Dazman** · 08 February 2011, 06:14 PM

Thankyou very much for your detailed reply. I will be having a go at your suggestions and let you know how I get on.

**JONLAKE** · 08 February 2011, 08:20 PM

You're welcome Dazman!

Will appreciate the feedback once you've gone through the process. Google takes a while to index new websites fully, so hang in there. I approach the whole thing as a marathon runner... just put one foot in front of the other, and keep going. Keep building great content, promote it through the right channels and stay positive and focussed.

After a while you won't believe how far you have gone.

Jonathan

**AntonyF** · 08 February 2011, 09:18 PM

Also for what it's worth, moving away from your technical question and more to rankings, keywords has a lot less sway than they used to.

If you want Google ranking you need links. Links to your site, with useful text in those links and from relevant sites (i.e. not any old site). Search engine optimisation these days is hard. Google also places importance in social media links, so if you have a link on Twitter and lots of people repeat it.

**JONLAKE** · 08 February 2011, 10:48 PM

Antony is spot-on! A few links from relevant pages on relevant quality sites, using relevant anchor text are worth more than a thousand from unrelated, low quality link-farm type sites. The only sustainable way to climb the ranks in Google is to encourage natural link-building by making your pages link-worthy.

Strive to establish your site as an authority in its field and other webmasters will link to it. They will only do this if your site benefits their readers and the link ads value to their site. After all, they are vouching for you by lending a bit of their site's reputation, and will only risk doing this if they have full confidence in the value of your content.

The same can be said with social media link-building... people love sharing valuable information with others, but will only be willing to stake their reputation on referrals for top quality content.

So goal no. 1 is to produce top quality content, and then to expose your target audience to it through promotion. This should naturally generate relevant incoming links and the snowball will be set in motion.

Easier said than done, but that is the only method that truly works long-term.