New Google Webmaster Central Facelift - Small Business Friendly

Google Webmaster Central, the great resource Google launched in August 2006 to assist webmasters better understand their crawling and indexing of websites, has received a facelift which makes it easier for the less techie website owners to navigate through the free service.

According to the release post last week:

And so today, we're unveiling a new look on the Webmaster Central landing page at http://www.google.com/webmasters. You'll still find all of the tools and resources you've come to love like our Webmaster Blog and discussion group -- but now, in addition to these, we've added a few more you might enjoy and find useful.

Now before anyone gets too excited about "new" tools, I must admit - there's really nothing new, but it does make it easier to find their range of tools and services. This is especially helpful for small business owners and "non webmaster" site owners, as the older interface could have been daunting for less technical minded types.

For website owners that are looking to increase their website traffic through Google organic listing, the webmaster central is a great resource, especially useful after you've been listed in Google's search index. (If you're looking to get your website listed in Google quickly, G-Boost guarantees Google listing in only 7 days)

The new tools additions as they put it are:

Analyze your visitors. Google Analytics is a free tool for webmasters to better understand their visitor traffic in order to improve site content. With metrics including the amount of time spent on each page and the percentage of new vs. returning visits to a page, webmasters can tailor their site's content around pages that resonate most with visitors.

Add custom search to your pages. Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) is a great way for webmasters to incorporate search into their site and help their site visitors find what they're looking for CSE gives webmasters access to a XML API, allowing greater control over the search results look and feel, so you can keep visitors on your site focused only on your content.

Leverage Google's Developer Tools. Google Code has tons of Google APIs and developer tools to help webmasters put technologies like Google Maps and AJAX Search on their websites.

Add gadgets to your webpage. Google Gadgets for your Webpage are a quick and easy way for webmasters to enhance their sites with content-rich gadgets, free from the Google Gadget directory. Adding gadgets to your webpage can make your site more interactive and useful to visitors, making sure they keep coming back.

Now I've advocated the value of Google Webmaster Central many times before, and now more than ever, I encourage website owners to go and explore the service. Tools such as analytics (essential for any website), custom search and even the gadgets are great for website owners of all levels of expertise.

Posted by Rene LeMerle at 12:50 PM GMT