Google Webmaster Tutorial
Google Webmaster is a tool that assists you in managing Google's indexing of your site, and improving the traffic to your website. This is an advanced lesson for those who would like to make use of this option. SynthaSite has made it possible for you to take advantage of Google Webmaster's website optimization tools. The following lesson will give you step-by-step instructions on how to verify your site and submit a Sitemap to Google Webmaster.
Step 1: Verifying Your Site with Google Webmaster
Before attempting to verify your site with Google Webmaster, your site should be published. You will need the URL of your site in order to submit it for verifiction. If your site is not published yet and you need instructions on how to publish it, please see our tutorial: Build Your First Website: Lesson 3 - Publishing Your Site
Once your site is published, and you have the URL, head on over to Google Webmaster to submit your site! First you will need to sign up for an account by filling in a form provided by Google Webmaster.
Once you have an account and have logged in, you will see a dashboard with a field that prompts you to add a site. You should fill in the URL of your site here.
Important: Fill in the URL of your published site, not the your preview URL (the long URL you see when you preview your site from the SynthaSite site builder). The URL of my test site is http://verify.synthasite.com. Type in the URL of YOUR site. When you are done, click "Add Site".
The next screen will give you an option to verify your site. Click on the "Verify your site" link:
You will receive a message that your site is not verified and you will be asked to select a verification method. Click on the drop down arrow to the right of the "choose a verification" box. You will receive a message that your site has not been verified and you will be asked to select a verification method. Click on the drop down arrow next to the "choose a verification method" box and click "add a metatag":
On the next screen you will see a long metatag. This is the tricky part! You need to copy the correct portion in order to successfully add the code to your site. The bit you need is between the quotation marks. See the portion of the code that I have highlighted on the screenshot below:
Now that you have the verification code it is time to apply this code to your site. Open your site in the SynthaSite site builder and click on the "Properties" sidebar. (Make sure you haven't selected any widgets to ensure that the page properties and not the widget properties are displayed.) Paste the code in the box marked "Google Webmaster Code"
Once you have pasted the code and updated (republished) your site, return to the Google Webmaster screen and click the "verify" button.
Step 2: Submitting a Sitemap to Google Webmaster
When you publish your site, SynthaSite generates a Sitemap on your behalf. You can submit this Sitemap to Google Webmaster in order to give Google more information about your site. For more information on why you should submit a Sitemap, click here: What's a Sitemap. Here is how you can find the Sitemap for your published site. It is your domain name, followed by: "/sitemap.xml." So the URL of my Sitemap for my test site would be: http://verify.synthasite.com/sitemap.xml
In Google Webmaster:
1) Click on the "Sitemaps" link in the menu on the left of your dashboard.
2) Click on the "Add Sitemap" link
3) Click on the drop down arrow next to the "choose type" box and select the "Add General Sitemap" option
You will then be given an option to submit a Sitemap using three options. Select the third one and type in "sitemap.xml" in the box provided.
Congratulations! You have now verified your site with Google Webmaster tools and submitted a sitemap. Once Google crawls your site you will be able to log into your Google Webmaster account for data that will help you optimize your site for search engines.
