Add Google Webmaster Tools to Your Blogger Blog

Josh Sommers · #1 02-09-2008, 10:52 PM

Using SEO To Be Perceived As The Expert
So your goal is to project upon your sites visitors that you are the recognized authority in your industry. How better than to have your site rank number one for a top keyword in that industry. But hold on, one step at a time! Lets talk tracking. We need to be able to track our websites progress as we make changes and market. Lets get stated with one of my favorite tools to add to any site, Google Webmaster Tools (oh, and its totally free.)

Why Blogger?
I will be applying Google Webmaster Tools to a Blogger blog in this example for two reasons. One, it's easy, and two if you want more information about Blogger and getting your own blog I have tons of resources that will get you up and running in no time. This tutorial can be applied to any website, not just Blogger. You need this added to your site, make it a "tracking" requirement!

You can get 118 Blogger video training lessons at Magic With Blogs

Lets get started!
So my goal here is to be able to see some detailed information directly from Google about my blog. For example:

1) Keywords I'm currently ranking for.
2) Keywords that are being clicked through.
3) View errors Google encounters when crawling my blog/website.
4) See how often Google is crawling my blog/website.
5) View incoming and outgoing links to my blog/website.
6) Force Google to add or remove www. from my blog/website SERP listings.
7) Apply the "advanced image search" feature to my blog.
and much more...

First off, backup your Blogger template or website before we get started.
(You should be doing this anyway!

)

Secondly go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

If you are signing in for the first time with your Google account click continue as noted in the graphic below.

Now we need to tell Google about our site.

1) To begin, type the URL of your blog/website where noted in the graphic below (callout 1.) Example: Advanced Blogger Statistics Setup
2) Next, click "Next" (callout 2.)

Next we need to verify our site. This is so that we can view statistics about our blog/website.

So next up we need to verify. Click "Verify Your Site" as noted in the graphic below.

Now we need to choose a verification method. We do not have FTP/File access (with Blogger) so we are going to need to verify using a Meta tag. If you do have access you can use the other method, but for this example we will be adding a meta tag to our home page.

So change (callout #1 in the graphic below) "Choose Verification Method..." to "Add a Meta tag."

Ok, now you should see a Meta tag we need to add to verify our blog/website with Google (See the graphic below.) Save the tag as we will need it in a few steps. My tag is (yours will be different):

Code:

<meta name="verify-v1" content="02Qb3slyGY1m7fG7Hq5WEr4MfTr3BE1wzKfFPvepS6M=" />

Blogger Specific Stuff
Alright, now we need to open a new window and navigate over to our Edit HTML section of our blog. (DO NOT CLOSE THE PREVIOUS WINDOW, OPEN A NEW ONE. Yes, you can get back to it, but just leave it open for this tutorial

)

1) Go to http://www.blogger.com/
2) Sign-in and go to your blogs control panel.
3) Click on "Template" (Callout 1 in the graphic below)
4) Then click "Edit HTML" (Callout 2 in the graphic below)

Now that we have both our verification code saved from before, and we are in the blogger "Edit HTML" section of the blog we wish to get more information on, we can place the verification code.

1) Find the "<head>" tag in your template. (Callout 1 from the graphic below)
2) Place the code you copied from Webmaster Tools directly below the <head> tag. (Callout 2 from the graphic below)
3) Scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Save Template"

Now with the Verification code properly placed and saved we can complete the verification process.

Go back to the Webmaster Tools window (you left it open right?) and click the verify button as noted in the graphic below.

Congratulations!
Your site is now verified and you can use Google Webmaster Tools to see advanced information about your blog.

williamrock · #2 10-31-2008, 10:17 AM

Josh, once again great article....

This is important for every website regardless of using a blog or your company website.

Rule of thumb: "If you have a website you should register it with Google Webmaster Tools"

The benefits are endless and can open up question to improvement that you would never have thought of, at the same time giving the site owner more control over how Google indexes your site.

Note: Just by doing this does not guarantee that you will be ranked in the Google Index but it does give your business a better chance of being found, at the same time you will receive valuable information allowing you to identify problems with your site, such as pages not being able to be crawled, a robots.txt file excluding all spiders, etc.

Again, thx for the great info... This will help many business owners.

florenciaoliver · #3 11-06-2008, 07:48 PM

Thanks for explaining it in such detail!
now all I have to do is learn what to do with it.. but I guess I'll learn as I go along!

thanks!
Flor

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version Email this Page	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
118 Free Google Blogger Videos Now Available	Bob Sommers	Focus on Members	1	04-19-2008 09:36 PM

Add Google Webmaster Tools to Your Blogger Blog

Similar Threads