Accounts to Set Up for Your SEO Campaign
While some may think SEO is a simple task based on the promises of first page ranks from anonymous email accounts… the truth is it takes a significant amount of time and effort to run a successful SEO campaign.
If you’re just getting started, you have your work cut out for you learning about backlinks, indexing, meta tags, keyword research and more. Before you get started with anything however, there are a few accounts to set up. These accounts help establish your site in the eyes of search engines and provide you the insights you’ll need to make actionable decisions in the future.
The three accounts are:
- Google Analytics – A free service from Google which provides ‘analytics’ showing visitor counts, sources, keywords used, content viewed and other user behavior on your website.
- Google Search Console – This is your portal into insights on your sites placement in google search results. It shows you how many times you were seen and clicked on. It also provides insights into which backlinks google finds for your site and which keywords you rank for. One feature to take advantage of is the sitemap submission. This allows you to provide an xml sitemap of your site to help Google index content on your site and determine a hierarchy.
- Bing Webmaster Tools – Similar to Google search console above, but it features data for Bing and Yahoo.
How to Grant Someone Access to These Accounts
If you have a client with pre-existing accounts, or if you’re beginning to work with an SEO agency, here are the steps to grant them access to these accounts:
Google Analytics
- Go to https://analytics.google.com/
analytics/web/ and login if prompted - Once logged in, ensure the appropriate website’s account is showing in the drop down top left side of the screen (should default to it if you only have one site).
- On the left hand side click “admin”
- Under the “account” column select “user management”
- Add the email you’d like to grant access to with access to “edit” “read & analyze” and “collaborate”. Note that with these settings they’re not able to modify users on the account, remove your access, etc.
Google Search Console
- Go to https://search.google.com/
search-console and login if prompted - On the left hand side you should see a dropdown at the top. Ensure the correct website is selected.
- Scroll down on the left and select “settings”
- Click “users and permissions”
- “add users” top right
- add the email you’d like to grant access to.
Bing Webmaster Tools
- Go to https://www.bing.com/
toolbox/webmaster and login if prompted - Once logged in you should be taken to a page which lists all of the domains you’ve verified. Click on your website.
- On the left hand side, under “configure my site” click “users”
- Add the email you’d like to grant access to with access to read/modify
I hope that helps you get started. Please comment below if there are any questions.