Google Webmaster Tools: Know your keywords

by Shauna Nicholson on March 1, 2010

in SEO

Google Webmaster: Keywords
Google Webmaster tools let you know what top keywords your website is ranked for. For example, when someone searches “Online marketing Detroit,” my site is the second listed. This tool is free.

This is helpful in better understanding how your website is optimized for search engine visibility. There is no voodoo in search engine optimization (SEO), there is only techniques and metrics.

Log into your webmaster tools frequently, as Google’s search engine algorithms (how it determines where you’re ranked) changes often.

Be Sociable, Share!

Tagged as: free, Google, Google Webmaster, keywords, SEO, SEO tools

  • http://www.astamm.com Alan Stamm

    Actually, when this someone searches ‘online marketing Detroit,’ your site is listed first – - six items above Detroit Media Partnership, the downtown newspaper publishing branch of two mega-million-dollar corporations.

    Wear *that* metric proudly, Digital Strategist!

    Cool as that is, and at risk of deflating the bright balloon slightly, doesn’t the “personal search” aspect of Google’s algorithm affect results when we click in from our usual IP address? I wish that weren’t the case, actually, because it would mean my clients’ distributed content is organically optimized — and doesn’t just appear on first-screen results from my hardware and theirs.

    A comprehensive article by Steven Levy in the latest Wired (‘How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web’) seems to reinforce this belief:

    “The data people generate when they search — what results they click on, what words they replace in the query when they’re unsatisfied, how their queries match with their physical locations — turns out to be an invaluable resource in discovering new signals and improving the relevance of results. The most direct example of this process is what Google calls personalized search — a feature that uses someone’s search history and location as signals to determine what kind of results they’ll find useful.”
    http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_google_algorithm/all/1

    Obviously, this doesn’t diminish the value of webmaster tools and the importance of regular monitoring.

    “No voodoo,” indeed – - though clients benefit and we learn from this :”alchemy” you do . . . and you do so well!

  • http://www.astamm.com Alan Stamm

    Actually, when this someone searches ‘online marketing Detroit,’ your site is listed first – - six items above Detroit Media Partnership, the downtown newspaper publishing branch of two mega-million-dollar corporations.

    Wear *that* metric proudly, Digital Strategist!

    Cool as that is, and at risk of deflating the bright balloon slightly, doesn’t the “personal search” aspect of Google’s algorithm affect results when we click in from our usual IP address? I wish that weren’t the case, actually, because it would mean my clients’ distributed content is organically optimized — and doesn’t just appear on first-screen results from my hardware and theirs.

    A comprehensive article by Steven Levy in the latest Wired (‘How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web’) seems to reinforce this belief:

    “The data people generate when they search — what results they click on, what words they replace in the query when they’re unsatisfied, how their queries match with their physical locations — turns out to be an invaluable resource in discovering new signals and improving the relevance of results. The most direct example of this process is what Google calls personalized search — a feature that uses someone’s search history and location as signals to determine what kind of results they’ll find useful.”
    http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/02/ff_google_algorithm/all/1

    Obviously, this doesn’t diminish the value of webmaster tools and the importance of regular monitoring.

    “No voodoo,” indeed – - though clients benefit and we learn from this :”alchemy” you do . . . and you do so well!

  • http://www.shaunanicholson.com Shauna Nicholson

    The personal search thing is a very good point. The webmaster tools, however, do not accommodate for this.

    The new #1 ranking is a new development! What great news!

  • http://www.shaunanicholson.com Shauna Nicholson

    The personal search thing is a very good point. The webmaster tools, however, do not accommodate for this.

    The new #1 ranking is a new development! What great news!

  • http://www.37designs.com Ross Johnson

    While I agree that there is no voodoo I would say it is part science and part art. You can have a perfectly optimized site with well selected keywords but if you haven’t found a way to build trust and authority through external factors your not going to rank for anything.

  • http://www.37designs.com Ross Johnson

    While I agree that there is no voodoo I would say it is part science and part art. You can have a perfectly optimized site with well selected keywords but if you haven’t found a way to build trust and authority through external factors your not going to rank for anything.

Previous post:

Next post: