Google Webmaster Tools (GWMT) can provide website owners with valuable data regarding their sites. In this article, we'll outline best practices for using GWMT to increase performance and SEO of your website.

GWMT can alert you about many major website problems such as 404s, server errors, unfollowed links and malware warnings as well as help secure sitelinks.

1. Log in

Beautiful websites and amazing content are great, but search engines won't see it unless they can crawl and index your pages. That's where Google Webmaster Tools comes in handy.

Start by creating a Google Account which will give you access to various Google services including Search Console. Next, verify ownership of your website using any one of these methods listed here.

Once logged in, you'll be able to view an overall overview of your search performance. In addition, you can grant access to other users - like SEO agencies or developers - without sharing personal login credentials - making this solution especially valuable if managing multiple websites simultaneously.

2. Sitemaps

Sitemaps are files that inform Google about what pages exist on your website. You can add one to GSC by selecting "Sitemaps" in the left menu, with two types of sitemaps being: page sitemaps containing only links to pages, and image and video sitemaps featuring loc> tags to identify their locations, as well as lastmod, changefreq, and priority tags to indicate how often a page has been updated.

Establishing a sitemap is straightforward, though you will require knowledge of HTML coding. Please bear in mind that it may take some time for Google to index and rank new sitemaps; nonetheless, this is an effective way of getting Google aware of all your URLs. Click here or head to our website to explore SEO .

3. Crawl errors

Crawl errors are a source of great frustration for SEOs. Simply put, they occur when Googlebot visits an inaccessible URL on your site due to deletion or failure to redirect an old link to its new location.

These errors need to be rectified quickly as they could impact search engine rankings and may indicate canonical URL issues or duplicate content issues that need addressing immediately.

Access denied and not followed errors are generally lower-priority issues, but should still be investigated thoroughly. If you're uncertain as to the source of these errors, try using Fetch as Google or Lynx text browser as Google would to view your site before making changes accordingly. Also make sure that you regularly review messages so as not to miss any key issues that require immediate attention.

4. Search queries

Search Queries provides valuable insight into how Google perceives your website. It shows which searches bring people to it and gives an indication of which keywords may need more emphasis.

Google Webmaster Tools will notify you if it detects issues accessing or ranking issues with your site, such as malware alerts, unnatural link warnings or page errors such as duplicate content. These messages could include malware alerts, unnatural link warnings or duplicate content errors that can harm rankings. 

Webmaster Tools is a valuable, free and valuable tool from Google that gives you insight into their perception of your website, useful metrics, data and metrics, as well as being activated so you can take full advantage of all it can provide. Make sure it is set up and activated properly so you can take full advantage of everything it has to offer!

5. Reports

Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) provides an excellent way to gather various metrics about your own website. While Google Analytics takes an outside-in approach, GWT examines from within.

Search Queries report is particularly helpful since Google now hides many keywords as "not provided."

Index Status Report in Google Web Tool (GWT). This reports how many URLs have been indexed by Google and can help identify issues such as duplicate content or canonical URLs that may be hindering your SEO performance. By becoming familiar with GWT beforehand, you'll save yourself headaches later. GWT is free and can save yourself plenty of unnecessary headaches!