Webmaster Tools

Free webmaster tools are offered by all three of the major search engines. Google, Yahoo and Bing all provide the tools as a free service to help get your website listed in search results, find errors on your site, and provide traffic analytics to name a few.

Recently Yahoo merged their Yahoo Site Explorer into Bing Webmaster Tools so everything you do on Bing is reflected in Yahoo.

The first thing you need to do is open Webmaster Tools accounts at Google and Bing and validate your website ownership.

• Google Webmaster Central
• Bing Webmaster Tools

I also recommend claiming your site at Alexa.com Alexa is not a search engine per se, it is a web information company used by advertisers and marketers along with some webmaster tools. Alexa is also a great site for your business citation.

Once you have verified your site ownership, use the webmaster resources available in each site to check for problems or errors within your website. Make necessary corrections before doing anything else.

Now that you have fine tuned your website and submitted to all the search engines it's time to get a business listing for your site.

• Google Places for Business
• Yahoo Local Listings
• Bing Business Portal

Last, but not least, it's time to measure the success of your website. Google analytics offers valuable insights into your website traffic. Another free website analytics tool is Stat Counter, similar to Google analytics but with some different variables, I use both.

• Google Analytics
• Stat Counter

If you do these few things you will be way ahead of your competition. I am amazed at how many businesses do not take advantage of these free resources.

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