Everyone wants more traffic to their site, they just don’t know how to get it. What they don’t realize is how easy this goal is to accomplish.

Right at the fingertips of every person with internet access and a website is something to help: Google Webmaster Tools.

Read on to learn the seven main benefits of spending some time with Google Webmaster:

Benefit #1: See the search phrases people use on Google to reach your site.

What it does: Google Webmaster Tools allow you to pinpoint which words and phrases people are using to find information, products or services that you (or someone like you) have to offer.

Why it’s important: In order to find out how to best reach your target customers, you have to know what (or how) they search for information.

How it helps grow your business: It gives you the necessary information to optimize your website content according to what potential customers or clients are looking for. If they put in certain phrases, you can incorporate those phrases into your website to better lead people straight to you.

Benefit #2: See how Google interprets what your site is about (content keywords)

What it does: Shows how your website appears in search engines. For example, there is the title description of your site, which tells Google—who in turn tells its visitors—what your site is about in just a few words.

Why it’s important: Google is the world’s biggest search engine. How it interprets your site matters. Having strong keywords and descriptions are essential to getting people to you.  If your site contains
“quality” content (see this page for some of Google’s ideas on what that actually means), your content will attract more visitors and entice Google’s  web crawlers to latch onto your site.

How it helps grow your business:  Powerful, relevant and popular keywords and descriptions will make your site easy for visitors to find on Google.

Benefit #3: See how many pages your site has.

What it does: Google analyzes your individual website pages to determine page value. This value is intended to give you an idea of which page in your site contributed more to your site’s revenue.

Why it’s important: Google needs to know which pages exist individually because each page has unique content with unique goals aiming for different results.

For example, your home page is intended to capture emails from visitors and get them to click to other pages on your website, such as your Store page. (This is very important if you have an e-commerce site with multiple sales funnel pages). Your blog page, however, is intended to get visitors to engage you or to follow you on social media.

How it helps grow your business: Calculating which pages are getting hits (unique pageviews) and which salespages are successful with ecommerce transactions helps you determine what’s working and what isn’t so you can make the necessary adjustments.

Benefit #4: See which sites are linking back to yours.

What it does: Shows the names and URLS of websites that are driving traffic to your site.

Why it’s important: Knowing where your traffic is coming from allows you to narrow your marketing focus to the places and people who are finding and sharing your content the most.

How it helps grow your business: You get increased sales through more targeted traffic and partnering with current (and potential) sites that will send you traffic.

Benefit #5: Shows if there are crawl errors on your website.

What it does: Provides details on the main issues preventing Google (i.e. Googlebot) from accessing your entire site URL or that returns an HTTP error code.

Why it’s important: If Google cannot crawl your site, it cannot perform any other webmaster functions, like finding sites linking back to yours or search phrases. If this doesn’t happen, the search engine cannot make your site easy to find by potential customers.

How it helps grow your business: Once site and URL errors are identified, they can be fixed and your site can then be optimized to attract more first-time (and repeat) visitors.

Benefit #6: Mobile responsive score

What it does: This mobile-friendly test makes it easier for you see if your website is, well, mobile-friendly. All you have to do is plug your website address into the search bar and the Google tool will tell you if your site appears well on mobile devices.

Why it’s important: More people are using mobile devices than ever before, searching Google from their phones or pads. That means your website has to be easy to view and navigate on these mobile devices to secure repeat visitors and sales conversions.

How it helps grow your business: The more convenient it is for people to find, view, navigate and make purchases with a mobile device or app, the more sales conversions will happen, increasing your business’ revenue.

Benefit #7: Measuring Page Speed

What it does:  The Page Speed Test analyzes the performance of web pages and gives specific suggestions for making them faster. Note: PageSpeed Service will be turned off on August 3, 2015. Website owners interested in the service will then be directed to Google’s free open source software.

Why it’s important:  Page speed is critical for sales conversions. If a page takes “forever” to load up on someone’s computer or mobile device it can make the difference between visitors who stay on your page and those who go elsewhere. Slow pages can leave the impression that your site (and business) is old and outdated (and even laden with viruses). With human beings, buying impulses are just that—impulses—so your website needs to be ready to engage those impulses with fast and easy clicking.

How it helps grow your business: Decreasing your website’s load and response time can lead to an increase in sales—doubling conversion rates, resulting in more returning visitors. It can also help you avoid having to pour unnecessary financial resources into bigger, faster servers.

Have you tried Google WebMaster Tools yet? How has it helped your business? Can we help you understand how to grow your business? Let us know here.