Webmaster_Tools_graphicIf you are a new comer to Google Webmaster Tools or haven’t even given it a test drive yet, you ought to know that there are a number of very useful tools that can help you with your site’s SEO.

I mean what better place to go than to the horse’s mouth for tips on how to better optimize your pages to rank well in Google than, well, Google!

Rather than bombard you with the entire suite of tools, here are 4 of the most useful ones to get you going!

4 Great Google Webmaster Tools reports to inform your SEO

HTML improvements – The report shows how well your site does behind the scenes. Details like if you have missing, improper or duplicate title tags, descriptions or even content are definitely things you’ll want a heads-up on. HTML Improvements can help you do exactly that, make improvements!

Search Queries – Probably the most useful report, Search Queries returns loads of data including impressions, clicks, click-thru-rate, keyword terms searched, image and video SEO and a lot more. The keyword section only goes back for 30 days, but it gives you some data you can plug into other tools.

Crawl errors – The Crawl Errors report will show you which of your pages aren’t resolving to their requested URL. This normally shows up in the form of a 404 Page not found error. It’s very helpful to have this information, as it may be a simple matter of fixing a URL, link or redirecting.

Links to your site – Knowing which websites are linking to your pages, and your most popular pages is very good site intel to possess. It’s not unusual to be totally surprised by what shows up here, as pages you didn’t know were doing this well often present themselves.

Google Webmaster tools are a very useful tool for telling you what you need to be concerned with and fixing on your site. It ought to be your first stop, even though you may eventually use a more sophisticated paid tool to dive deeper.