Here is another quick update on Google Webmaster Tools.

They recently enlarged their data in the “links to your site” report.  Finally, Google seems to be showing a healthy list of all the links that point to your own website.

This improvement means that Google Webmaster tools will become one of the goto tools for measuring how many links point to your website.  One nice feature is that they also break the links down by which page they link into, so you can get a better sense of your “deep linking” strategies.

Read yesterday’s article about the exciting “search queries” report that talks about improved data in that report too.

Google has recently improved its Webmaster Tools by improving its “Search Queries” report which lists:

• The top search queries for which your site appeared in search results
• The number of impressions that query received
• The number of clicks each query received
• The Click Through Rate (CTR) of each query
• The Average Position of each query

It starts by showing a nice graph of impressions vs clicks:

And then really gets amazing by showing details of clickthru rates and rankings, query by query:

Three reasons why this is important:

1. Google now provides authoritative data of where you rank for each keyword phrase.  It actually averages the position if you showed up in multiple spots and it shows which pages showed up in each spot.   No more guessing!
2. By producing the Click Thru Rate (CTR) for search results, Google may actually be revolutionizing the SEO industry.  We can now see how often a high ranking by itself doesn’t convert impressions into clicks. Finally, SEO companies like Blizzard Internet can impress upon customers the value of writing compelling titles and descriptions (which increase CTR), the value of worrying about sitelinks, the value of coming up in multiple spots.  To put it bluntly, we can focus on clicks from Google instead of rankings.  Looking at the data, it is clear that a high ranking doesn’t automatically lead to a click
3. Google is demonstrating it knows the CTR of specific queries and websites.  I believe this is the first step to a major change in Google’s algorithm.  My prediction is that soon you will move up or down partly based upon your CTR.  Better start improving those CTRs if you want to keep the top spot!

It should come as no surprise that CTR could become part of the algorithm.  Google has ranked PPC in AdWords for a long time based upon click-thru rates… why not move that into its organic algorithm?  I think it is gonna happen!

Want more evidence?  Google also has a load-time monitor in its webmaster tools, and your load time is now part of the organic ranking algorithm.  Google knows that websites that load fast are more enjoyable by its users… so it bumps them up a bit.  If I were Google, I would start lowering websites that have below average CTRs for specific queries… they are a waste of search engine real estate.

I recommend you start investing in improving your CTRs of your important keyword phrases… start by writing and testing better titles and descriptions.  Stop stuffing keywords in there.

Want to know what is next?  Bounce rates! Google knows if users do a search, click on your site, and bounce back!  Another sign that you don’t deserve to rank for that keyword phrase.  BTW, this factor is also already in Google’s Adwords algorithm.  I bet we are talking about that in the next year.

Google Alerts are updates that are emailed to you when Google finds a certain phrase, name, brand, or URL that you want to keep an eye on.

How does it work? Here is an example:

Say that you want to know if someone writes a review or simply mentions your your company, The Best Hotel in the World.  Simply go to Google.com/alerts and set up an alert for “The Best Hotel in the World” and Google will send you alerts as often as you choose with the links to where your phrase appeared.

Below is a screen shot of a few of my alerts including “Blizzard Internet Marketing” (set up to alert me when the phrase appears) and “Glenwood Springs Internet Marketing” (set up to send once a day with the newest results).

I also want to know when articles that I have written have been found by Google (and just out of curiosity, who else has my name) so I have set up an alert for myself.

Try it out, you will be surprised what you find and your friends will think that you are a master of the internet!

LinkDiagnosis is a free tool that gives you an in-depth analysis of links pointed at your website. It requires a quick Fire Fox plug-in but is worth the minute of extra work.

Type in your URL and it crawls then exports a Link Diagnosis Report including:

• Your incoming links
• The anchor text those links use
• What page the link is coming from
• Total back links
• Estimated strength of the length
• Page rank of the page that the link is coming from

Try it and find out who is linking to you and if the link is valuable.

Check out Blizzard’s other favorite tools in our toolbox.

Do you have questions about what to learn more about the power of links? Get Blizzard’s on-demand webinars including:
All About Google VI – Link Popularity
All About Google VII – Getting Good Links

The Microsoft Demographic Prediction Tool predicts the age and gender of your website or of a specific keyword phrase.  Its insights into your audience could help you target your website more effectively.  Just enter your website (and press URL button) and press Go.

Blizzardinternet.com is mostly male and in the 25-50  range.  No surprises:

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ClickTale is a totally unique web analytics program because it actually videos your website visitors as they interact with your website. Careful, these movies can be addictive and entertaining! ClickTale also produces usable visitor analytics data related to where people look on your webpages and what links they click on.

Use ClickTale to make post-click marketing decisions … which is when you study your user behavior and change your website to increase conversions. The “eye tracking” (or clicking and scrolling) research it provides in the form of heatmaps is very insightful.

ClickTale has a free version that will let you try it out.  We recommend the $99 per month version that should do everything you want, and more!

Blizzard is an affiliate of ClickTale, we signed up after seeing just how exciting a piece of software it is.  Try CrazyEgg too for nice click heatmapping.

Yahoo Site Explorer is an oldie but a goodie.  It is a tool that has been around for years.

Yahoo Site Explorer is the best free tool on the Internet for finding ALL (or at least as many as possible) backlinks that point to your website… or a competitor’s.  It includes the good, bad and the ugly!

Here is a quick 3 minute video to show you how to find all those websites that link to you:

If you are want to learn more about how to analyze a linking website to determine how good the link and listing really is, make sure you watch our All About Google VI: How Link Popularity Works webinar.