Google Webmaster Tools: definition and use in SEO

Through our SEO Agency Optimize 360

Google Webmaster Tools, now known as Google Search Consoleis an essential tool for SEO professionals.

It offers a range of functions for analysing, improving and being informed about the performance of websites in search results Google.

In this article, we're going to explain the definition, usefulness and main objectives of Google Webmaster Tools in SEO.

How Google Webmaster Tools works in general

To use Google Webmaster Toolsyou must first add and validate your website on the platform. This validation verifies that you are the legitimate owner of the added site and ensures that the information does not fall into the wrong hands.

The first step in adding a site is to choose one of the following validation methods:

Upload a file HTML specific to your server
Addition of a META tag in the HEAD section of your site
Use of the domain provider (offered according to the domain name)

Once you have completed this stage, you will have access to the various reports, tools and functions offered by Google Webmaster Tools.

Objectives and uses of Google Webmaster Tools in SEO

The main objective of Google Webmaster Tools in SEO is to optimise the natural referencing of websites. To achieve this, the tool offers a range of features for analysing, monitoring and improving your website's visibility in Google search results.

1. Performance and traffic analysis

Google Webmaster Tools allows you to track the progress of your pages in search results by displaying various indicators such as :

- Total number of prints
- Clicks and click-through rate (CTR)
- The average position of your pages

All you have to do is go to the "Performance" section, which displays a dashboard with all this information.

2. Managing inbound and outbound links

A key element of natural referencing is the quality and quantity of links pointing to your website. It is therefore essential to monitor these links to improve their quality if necessary.

It's also important to take into account the sites that regularly refer to your content, so that you can create partnerships or share their content on your social networks.

Finally, Google Webmaster Tools makes it possible to check the external links referring to sites of poor quality and, if necessary, to remove them.

3. Error detection and management

Errors, such as broken links or 404 errors (page not found), can harm your SEO and reduce the number of visitors to your website.user experience. Google Webmaster Tools provides a detailed report on these errors, enabling them to be resolved quickly.

4. Submission of the XML site plan

One of the essential aspects of SEO is to help indexing robots Google to understand the structure of your website. To do this, it is important to submit a " sitemap "Google Webmaster Tools, which lists all the pages on your site and their hierarchy.

This helps the spiders to index your pages more efficiently and gives you greater visibility.

5. Controlling duplicate content

Le duplicate content is often detrimental to natural referencing and can sometimes be difficult to detect. Google Webmaster Tools offers the possibility of checking and rectifying this type of problem by displaying similar "title" and "description" tags in the search results.

Additional Google Webmaster Tools features

Although we have covered the main features of Google Webmaster Tools above, it is worth mentioning some additional features that are no less important:

Test your site's mobile display
Configure language and geographic targeting parameters
Identify key words most frequently used to access your site
Measuring loading speed pages
Receive alerts in the event of critical problems (hacking, indexing errors, etc.)

To sum up, using Google Webmaster Tools is essential if you want to keep track of your website's natural search engine optimisation. Through its various functions and reports, it provides an overall view of your site's performance in the search results and enables you to quickly identify any problems that may be hindering its ranking.

Familiarity with this tool is therefore a considerable asset for professionals wishing to improve their visibility and positioning on search engines such as Google.