Webmentor Ireland

Irish website owners frequently outsource their SEO and advertising needs to third party companies without retaining any control of their Google Account and the data generated.

If you don't have the login/password to the Google Account that controls access to free products such as Adwords, Analytics, Places, Sitemap, Adsense, etc then you will never be able to edit the data, change your company details or make any meaningful decisions about SEO without the data that these products generate.

Link all your Google products to ONE Google Account

It's VITAL that any/all of these products used for your website/blog be linked to the same ONE Google account (ie yours) -

• Adwords (advertising via Google)
• Adsense (accepting ads on your website from other advertisers)
• Analytics (detailed statistics of visitors to your website, which can be optionally linked to your Adwords)
• Google Places (previously known as Local Business – ie map of your business which comes up in search results)
• Webmaster Tools (includes sitemap - a useful tool to see how your website ranks organically)
• Etc (eg Feedburner, Google Checkout, Blogger and more...)

Why all the Google Products you use for your website/blog MUST be linked to ONE Google Account

Scenario 1: You change your Business Address/Phone Number

If there is a Google Places account linked to your website, then your company phone number/address is displayed in the local business map on search. To access Google Places, you need the user/pass to the Google Account that first set it up. Do you have that access? Did you set it up? Do you know who did?

Scenario 2: You want your Ads to show a link to Google Places Map

Simple, just link your Google Adwords + Google Places products. To do that, you'll need to be able to log in to both ADWORDS + PLACES. Do you have Google Account access to both these products?

If I set up a Google Account NOW, can I transfer my Analytics, and Places into it?

Ans: No. (But see some creative fixes others have used here: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Analytics/thread?tid=4b0ea7079f43d4ff&hl=en)

Even if you have the login to the Google Account(s) that set these up Analytics and Places, transfer to another account is not currently possible. Google may change that policy in time to come. Your best bet may be to set up new products in one Google account and forego your data from the other products.

Set up your own Google Account (or Getting it right from Day One)

Setting up a Google Account is easy – all you need is an email address - any email address it doesn't have to be gmail. Just go to google.ie and click on Sign In. At the bottom of the page, it says "Don't have a Google Account?" – you can register there. Once you're registered and activated (they send you an email, click the link to activate your account), you can then sign in using the main Sign In form. Once you're signed in, click Settings and choose Google Account Settings.

From here you can add any number of Google Products to your account, and the first two most businesses will add are:

1. Analytics (constant stream of statistics on website traffic, popular pages, visitor stats etc)
2. Google Places (the map that's produced on google search showing your business place/locations/offers etc)

Now that you have the username and password to your ONE Google Account, you can access and control all the products in it, you can also add/edit products as the need arises. All these products should be associated with ONE website.

The Bottom Line

ONE Google Account->ONE Website->Many Google products (Adwords, Places, Analytics, etc)