5 Ways Google Will Help

You With Your Traffic

by:

Tinu AbayomiPaul

If you've ever had a severe drop in your Google rankings in search

results, you may think of Google more of an enemy than an ally.

But if you knew what I do, you'd realize that there are tools provided

by the search engine that help you learn more about your traffic, and may

even help drive visitors to your site.

Here are five ways that Google provides free traffic assistance.

#1 - Google will Help Your Pages Get Discovered with Google Sitemaps

https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login

Google Sitemaps is a program that gives you the opportunity to present

your site's pages to Google in XML or text. Google will then come by and

spider the pages, getting you indexed faster.

Take note that this doesn't necessarily mean that your pages will be

listed for your favorite keywords, only that discovery will take place a

lot faster than with manual submission. Google Sitemaps will also give you

some basic site stats if you verify your site, such as the top keywords

for discovery, errors it found when crawling, and the types of documents

at your site.

If you find compiling your sitemap for Google in the correct format

difficult, try the SOFTplus GSiteCrawler Google Sitemap generator. It's my

favorite Sitemap generator, free and easy to use.

#2 - Google Will Talk To You and Your Webmaster In His or Her Native

Tongue or Plain English with the Webmaster Section

http://www.google.com/webmasters/

The Google Information Page for Webmasters should be your first stop

when you want to know more about anything that has to do with your site

and its relationship to Google and any of its many flavors of search such

as Froogle. Particularly for new site owners or operators, checking this

page first has saved many from needless anxiety.

Most of the basic information is in straightforward language, with

links to details for geeks like me.

#3 - Google will Tell You What It Knows with Web Page Information

If you type info:yoursite.com into Google, Google will tell show you a

page that has your link at the top of the page, with a short description,

and the following phrase "Google can show you the following information

for this URL".

This special page compiles several queries about your site including

pages that contain your URL (all the pages Google knows of that are linked

to you).

#4 - Google will Help You Analyze Your Traffic with Google Analytics

http://www.google.com/analytics/

After a recent purchase of Urchin Stats, a free online version has been

made available, and re-branded as Google Analytics. This cookie-based

invisible visitor tracker can give you information that go a bit beyond

standard stats such as bounce rates, visitor loyalty, keyword discovery

results for a single day, click paths through your site, and page views

per visit.

With the ability to analyze your traffic, you can help learn where the

holes in your site are, and how to keep them on your site for longer

periods of time, as well as better ways to steer a visit towards a

specific action, such as a subscription. Results come in flavors for the

executive and the search marketer alike.

There's currently a waiting list to use Google Analytics due to popular

demand.

#5 - Google Will Advise On Getting the Most from Your Traffic with

Conversion University

http://www.google.com/analytics/conversionuniversity.html

Google Analytics also has two content sections that are available to

all, called Conversion University. While the articles are decidedly

slanted towards AdWords users, a prudent read yields many clues that can

be applied to preparing for visitors who arrive through organic search

discovery. One reference area is called "Driving Traffic", the other

"Converting Visitors."

At the end of the day, the process by which your site gets ranked in

Google search engine results is a computation of a complex algorithm,

which means Google - the search engine - really isn't capable of being

your best friend or your worst enemy.

Meanwhile, Google - the company - also provides access to resources

that will help give your site a fighting chance.