How To Use Google Webmaster Tools
If you want the major search engines, Google, Bing (which runs Yahoo search too) to rank your site efficiently, then you need to use their respective webmaster tools (WMT’s); Google WMT’s and Bing WMT’s to submit your site, add an xml sitemap telling them where your pages are and what importance to give them.
In addition webmaster tools will highlight and areas of your site that require attention, including search traffic keywords, dead links, coding errors, duplicate content etc.
If you want your website to rank well then you need to pay attention to all these areas as if any one of them gives an error, your site will fall in the rankings, costing you traffic and sales.
Each webmaster tools account will inform you of any issues that your site has that may be preventing it from ranking well.
Webmaster tools accounts are easy to set up, and adding and verifying your websites is straightforward, you just need ftp access to your site so that you can either add a metatag to your home page, or add a verification file to the root directory in order to prove your ownership of the site.
Once you have done that, you will have access to backlink information, site errors and much more that will easily allow you to maintain your sites performance.
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