Google launches important new tools for Webmasters

Google launches important new tools for Webmasters
7 October 2011 | | Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation

Google made a couple of relatively important but low key announcements this week that were of interest to Webmasters looking to drive more traffic to the sites they manage.

A Site Health feature has been added to Webmaster Tools which, in a nutshell, highlights the problems your site may have – which makes it a lot easier to analyse why your website may not be performing to it”s potential. Marketing Agencies (like us!) who manage multiple websites can also take advantage of Google”s site health ranking feature which lists websites with the most issues at the top allowing them to be resolved quickly.

In addition to launching a premium version of Google Analytics which my colleague Faye has blogged about, Google also announced the launch of Real-Time analytics so webmasters can now see what traffic is driven to your as it happens which can be a huge help in optimising your online promotional strategies.

Webmaster Tools – Site Health

Explaining the new feature in Google”s official blog, Susan Moskwa stated that “We consistently hear from webmasters that they have to prioritize their time. Some manage dozens or hundreds of clients’ sites; others run their own business and may only have an hour to spend on website maintenance in between managing finances and inventory. To help you prioritize your efforts, Webmaster Tools is introducing the idea of “site health,” and we’ve redesigned the Webmaster Tools home page to highlight your sites with health problems. This should allow you to easily see what needs your attention the most, without having to click through all of the reports in Webmaster Tools for every site you manage.”

Here is an example of what the new home page looks like:

You can see that sites with health problems are shown at the top of the list. (If you prefer, you can always switch back to listing your sites alphabetically.) To see the specific issues we detected on a site, click the site health icon  or the “Check site health” link next to that site:

 

Google real time analytics

Essentially, it can help you do what you”re already doing with the data you get from Google Analytics and do it faster.

 

“One way that I like to use these reports is to measure the immediate impact of social media. Whenever we put out a new blog post, we also send out a tweet,” says John Jersin of Google”s Analytics team. “With Real-Time, I can see the immediate impact to my site traffic.”

“For example, last week we posted about the latest episode of Web Analytics TV and also tweeted about the post,” he adds. “By campaign tagging the links we shared, we could see how much traffic each channel is driving to the blog as it happened. We could also see when we stopped receiving visits from the tweet, which helps know when to reengage.”

He says he also uses real-time analytics to make sure campaign tracking is correctly implemented before launching a new campaign.

The new real-time reports are only available in the new version of Google Analytics. You can find a link to the new version at the top of Google Analytics if you”re not already using it. So far, only a few users have access to the reports, but they will be available for all in the coming weeks.

“One way that I like to use these reports is to measure the immediate impact of social media. Whenever we put out a new blog post, we also send out a tweet,” says John Jersin of Google”s Analytics team. “With Real-Time, I can see the immediate impact to my site traffic.”

“For example, last week we posted about the latest episode of Web Analytics TV and also tweeted about the post,” he adds. “By campaign tagging the links we shared, we could see how much traffic each channel is driving to the blog as it happened. We could also see when we stopped receiving visits from the tweet, which helps know when to reengage.”

He says he also uses real-time analytics to make sure campaign tracking is correctly implemented before launching a new campaign.

The new real-time reports are only available in the new version of Google Analytics. You can find a link to the new version at the top of Google Analytics if you”re not already using it. So far, only a few users have access to the reports, but they will be available for all in the coming weeks.

 

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