My Friend Google

I MUST have been living under a ROCK.  You know how you do things one way all the time, everytime?  You put your head down and barrel through life trying to get to the end of the day, the end of a project or the end of a job so you can pick up and start all over again.  Or, at least sometimes I do.

Anyway, I used to specific ways of doing keyword research, checking my site statistics and recording information.  Last week my sister, who has her ear to the ground at More In Store Marketing, gave me a tip about the Webmaster tools at Google.  Apparently she’s been using these tools for some time and thought I was also.

I’m in LOVE.  Now I can add my site, get indexed, submit my sitemap, find out how many links, what keywords Google is reading, what the saturation is, learn the errors the Google bot is reading so they can be fixed, find out when the bot was there (as in how many HOURS ago), BLOCK the Google bot to decrease the likelihood a page or site is indexed and found, how many people subscribe to the feed (blog) using Google reader . . . and on and on.  Combined with Google Analytics I have reduced my surfing for information to two sites and they both belong to Google.

I literally cut my evaluation time in half!

So… I’ve been living under a rock.  Just because something has worked before and is working now doesn’t mean it’s the BEST way of doing things.  Keep an eye out for what’s changing.

Sign into your Google account now and click on the “Webmaster”  link.  You’ll have access to a plethora of support mechanisms that work seamlessly with Analytics.