This is just a tip and anyone that has more info please and/or experience with these tools plase add your comments.

A great tool to verify your website with google and to check your site map with google after you have uploaded it with the site mapper or if you have manually created a sitemap is google webmaster tools.

Google webmaster tools is handy in too many ways to go into here. I would advice anyone interested to go the website and read up on what you can do with it. It may seem complicated at first for a beginner but with time you get the hang of it.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/

I mainly use it to get the site verification code, place the verification code in the meta tags and then verify the site. You can review your sitemap there or if you have created it manually submit it there. If there is a mistake in the sitemap google master tools will help you correct it by stating what the mistake is.

Another good tool from Google is the link below, specially when you are trying to find the right keywords for you meta tags. You do not need to sign up to adwords to work with this. Just do not click on the add on the left.
Here you can test various keywords and combinations of keywords for seach volume etc. A lot of Seo people use this tool.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Many, many many thanks for posting this!

I just went to town incorporating the suggested keywords, set a robots.txt to block some directories I'd as soon not get searched (too late in one case, but hey), and verified my sitemaps were working fine. This stuff is great!

Only problem is it'll take hours (or even days) before some of this takes effect.

Spinny, glad it has been of use to you.

I have a question on using the adwords tool: it generated a lot of potential keywords for me (or what seemed like a lot to me). Is it beneficial to include all of them in your keyword field, or is using so many keywords considered bad form?

Spinny, please do not use all the keywords that the tool generates.

You should keep your keywords to about 5 to 10 keywords most related to your business and of course to your page text.

So for instance if you are a printer and you use the keyword business cards and find that the approximate search volume for busness card is 150.000.000 that means there are that many other business using the same keyword.

On the othter hand you may find on the list that color buisness cards have an approximate search value of 125.000 this means you have less competition for that keyword then for just business cards.

This can help you in deciding which are the best keywords for you to use. Of course if you get a too low search value on a keyword you really do not want to use it either.

I hope I am making sense, if not let me know and I will see if I can find a good reference for you for this.

Also did I give you this link.. it is a great one for testing your title tag, description tag, meta tag, etc. I use it all the time to check websites I have created.

http://www.rankingtoday.com/seo/site-checkup.php

Another amazingly useful link. Thank you!