Webmentor's How To Guides

Webmentor's How To Guides are written in plain english so that ordinary business folk can understand important stuff about their websites.

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Set up a Google Account BEFORE you Outsource SEO and Adwords

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, Maps, Webmaster Tools, 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.

DON'T MAKE THIS MISTAKE!

Your first step to retaining independent control is to set up ONE Google account (yours!) which will control ALL the products affecting SEO and advertising for your website.

Link all your Google apps/products to ONE Google Account

It's VITAL that all your google apps and 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+ Local (previously known as Places for 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/online store MUST be linked to ONE Google Account

Scenario 1: You change your Business Address/Phone Number

You have changed your contact details but notice that a map comes up while searching google that displays your old contact details. To change those details you'll need the user/pass to the Google Account that first set up your local business listing. Do you have that access? Did you set it up? Do you know who did?

Scenario 2: You want your Ads to display your location on google maps

Simple, just link your Google Adwords and Google+ Local map for business. To do that, you'll need to be able to log in to both ADWORDS + LOCAL. Do you have login/password access to both these products?

Wouldn't it just be easier if your ONE Google account sets up and controls all the products? Let's face it, if you've used different providers to set up different products for you over the years, then there are any number of different Google Accounts, all belonging to different providers, that you don't have access to. And no, Google can't help you if you don't have the login details.

If I set up a new Google Account, can I transfer Analytics and other Google Apps/Products into it?

Ans: Kinda. They're working on adding this functionality across all their products/apps. But you'll still have to have username/login access to claim the app/product as belonging to you. (Keep an eye on the Google Business Forum for updates on this.)

Someone else set up an Analytics account for my website. How do I get it back?

You probably won't be able to, unless they are co-operating with you. Set up your own Google Account if you haven't got one already. Then give them the email address of this account (NOT the password). Ask them to add you as an administrator to the account that has your website property/profiles. You can now log in to your own Google account and get access to your Analytics from there. Chances are they won't do this for you because with administrative rights you can see all the other websites in their account and you would have the power to delete them. At most they'll give you read-only access so you'll be able to access your own analytics reports only. If you really need out from under them, then read the next section and be prepared to lose your historical data and start over with a new analytics account that you own and control.

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. Find where 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 by going to google.ie and clicking on the Sign In link. Once you're signed in, click Accounts, then Products.

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+ Local (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 your own websites/apps. Within each of the products you use, you can assign users to these products if you need them to do work for you. You can delete these users whenever you need to. The following 2 links show you how you would do this using Google Analytics.

Adding and removing users in Google Analytics

Understanding Account Administration in Google Analytics (technical)

The Bottom Line

ONE Google Account for your websites/apps->Many Google products (Adwords, Local, Analytics, etc)