5 Ways Google Will Help You With Your
Traffic
by: Tinu
AbayomiPaul
If you’ve ever
had a severe drop in your Google rankings in search results, you may
think of Google more of an enemy than an ally.
But if you knew
what I do, you’d realize that there are tools provided by the search
engine that help you learn more about your traffic, and may even help
drive visitors to your site.
Here are five
ways that Google provides free traffic assistance.
#1 - Google will
Help Your Pages Get Discovered with Google Sitemaps
https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login
Google Sitemaps
is a program that gives you the opportunity to present your site’s
pages to Google in XML or text. Google will then come by and spider the
pages, getting you indexed faster.
Take note that
this doesn’t necessarily mean that your pages will be listed for your
favorite keywords, only that discovery will take place a lot faster
than with manual submission. Google Sitemaps will also give you some
basic site stats if you verify your site, such as the top keywords for
discovery, errors it found when crawling, and the types of documents at
your site.
If you find
compiling your sitemap for Google in the correct format difficult, try
the SOFTplus GSiteCrawler Google Sitemap generator. It’s my favorite
Sitemap generator, free and easy to use.
#2 - Google Will
Talk To You and Your Webmaster In His or Her Native Tongue or Plain
English with the Webmaster Section
http://www.google.com/webmasters/
The Google
Information Page for Webmasters should be your first stop when you want
to know more about anything that has to do with your site and its
relationship to Google and any of its many flavors of search such as
Froogle. Particularly for new site owners or operators, checking this
page first has saved many from needless anxiety.
Most of the
basic information is in straightforward language, with links to details
for geeks like me.
#3 - Google will
Tell You What It Knows with Web Page Information
If you type
info:yoursite.com into Google, Google will tell show you a page that
has your link at the top of the page, with a short description, and the
following phrase “Google can show you the following information for
this URL”.
This special
page compiles several queries about your site including pages that
contain your URL (all the pages Google knows of that are linked to
you).
#4 - Google will
Help You Analyze Your Traffic with Google Analytics
http://www.google.com/analytics/
After a recent
purchase of Urchin Stats, a free online version has been made
available, and re-branded as Google Analytics. This cookie-based
invisible visitor tracker can give you information that go a bit beyond
standard stats such as bounce rates, visitor loyalty, keyword discovery
results for a single day, click paths through your site, and page views
per visit.
With the ability
to analyze your traffic, you can help learn where the holes in your
site are, and how to keep them on your site for longer periods of time,
as well as better ways to steer a visit towards a specific action, such
as a subscription. Results come in flavors for the executive and the
search marketer alike.
There’s
currently a waiting list to use Google Analytics due to popular demand.
#5 - Google Will
Advise On Getting the Most from Your Traffic with Conversion University
http://www.google.com/analytics/conversionuniversity.html
Google Analytics
also has two content sections that are available to all, called
Conversion University. While the articles are decidedly slanted towards
AdWords users, a prudent read yields many clues that can be applied to
preparing for visitors who arrive through organic search discovery. One
reference area is called “Driving Traffic”, the other “Converting
Visitors.”
At the end of
the day, the process by which your site gets ranked in Google search
engine results is a computation of a complex algorithm, which means
Google - the search engine - really isn’t capable of being your best
friend or your worst enemy.
Meanwhile,
Google - the company - also provides access to resources that will help
give your site a fighting chance.
