I just finished watching a video that shared some updates on what's happening at the major search engines lately. Since webmasters are always interested in learning more about search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, I thought it would be good to share a neat trick using Google's webmaster tools.

The first time I heard about Google webmaster tools, it was known as Google sitemaps. That was very little that we can do with it, except upload a sitemap so that a new site can be included in Google's index quicker. After toying with it for a couple of days, I find it a hassle to generate those sitemaps. If a website is destined to grow, that would mean taking up more time submitting those sitemaps. Strapped for time as it is, I figured it would be better to just concentrate on building more content for my websites.

It's still hard for me to refer to Google's new toys with a new name but I guess it's a much more suitable name, now that so many new tools have been added. To begin using the tool, login to the control panel using a valid Google username. If you do not possess one, just sign up at the site google.com/webmasters. After logging in, enter the URL that you would like to obtain more information about. You'll be required to verify that you own the site. To do so, you can either add a META tag or upload a HTML file. Verification is instant and you'll see your verification status as Verified if it's successful.

Upon verification, all kinds of interesting tidbits about your site will be available. The one that interests me most is the page analysis (Statistics > Page Analysis). This allows any webmaster to view information about external links. In other words, Google learns about a website's general theme from external text links. You'll be able to see all the keywords that other people have used in the text links that link to your site.

Many webmasters have already discovered the "secret" that anchor texts should be used in text links. Anchor texts look something like Anchor texts. There are many ways to obtain keyword targetted external links. One popular way is to submit to web directories.

In many instances, web directories allow webmasters to submit their sites for free. Some web directories become more established and may charge a small fee for a site submission. However, fees are usually one-time payment and are better deals compared to text links that require monthly subscription.

So, take a look around the webmaster community and spot SEO friendly web directories and start submitting some links. Your competitor may be doing exactly the same thing and I don't know about you but I hate to lose. See you at the number 1 spot!