"My new best friend: Google webmaster tools"

The problem with having a day job that is separate from your freelance job is that I miss out on a lot of things. One thing I have been virtually running away from over the past year has now become a valuable resource for me, and it's a resource I strongly recommend any webmaster use.

Of course I'm talking about my new best friend: Google webmaster tools.

For those webmasters/bloggers who aren't aware: Google provides some interesting tools - directly from their website - that allow webmasters access to information such as: what the Google bot sees when it crawls your website for Google, how many links are coming into your website (and where they direct to), and a few other little treats.

I'll admit it: I've been an idiot or the past year, all because I felt like I didn't need to use the webmaster tools Google provides. I was so very wrong.

The reason it's valuable to you as a webmaster or blogger to use the tools Google provides for you is because Google reports EXACTLY what Google knows about your website. If there is a problem with a page on your site or blog and Google can't put that page in the search results, you're missing out on traffic and potential revenue/sales/subscribers; but with the webmaster tools, you can actually see if any page on your website is broken.

With the webmaster tools you can get a report card (sort of) from Google about your website on a daily basis. It's incredible! And did I mention that Google provides the tools to all webmasters for free? It takes one minute to sign up and verify your website (either by uploading a file to your server, or typing in a META tag).

Don't be an idiot like I have been over the past year, sign up to use Google's webmaster tools. Trust me: you will realize how important it is to do this within five minutes of signing up.