Google Search Console is a tool that allows you to track and troubleshoot your website’s performance in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Setting Up Google Search Console
Google Search Console may have already been set up on your website by your web developers. If this is the case, similar to Google Analytics (GA), your web developers can add you to the account rather than starting a new one.
Add a new property
If you need to set up a new account, head to Google Search Console and click start. Then, click add a new property. Here you will be able to insert the domain for the website you want to add.
Verifying your account
Google Search Console requires domain ownership verification in order to get your account up and running. You can do this in many different ways including adding an HTML file to your website in the form of an HTML tag, using GA or Google Tag Manager (GTM) or adding the details to your DNS record.
Once Google has verified your ownership of the domain, the account will be running.
Tools offered
Much like GA, Google Search Console has many different tools you can use to discover information about your site and traffic.
Crawling
One of the most important elements of Search Console is that it will identify whether your site is able to be fully crawled by Google. If your site cannot be crawled efficiently it will mean that there will be less chance of the website showing up in SERPs.
Indexing problems
Search Console provides valuable information regarding which pages on your site have been indexed and whether there have been any problems whilst Google has been indexing the pages.
If you have issues with a meta description changing or a profile page that has been deleted still showing up in the SERPs, you can ask Google to reindex the site to try and resolve the issues faster.
To do this, if you look at the top of the search console you will see ‘Inspect any URL’. Input the URL you want to be indexed here and click enter. You will then see ‘Request Indexing’, and if you click this button it will prompt Google to reindex the page sooner then it may otherwise have done so.
Google Search Traffic
Google search traffic will show how often your site appears in Google search results as well as the search queries for which your site is appearing.
Get Alerts of Issues on your Site
If issues occur on your website you will receive email alerts to inform you so they can be fixed promptly.
Link Data
Google search console shows you lots of data regarding the external and internal linking on your website.
Troubleshoot Different Issues
Using Google Search Console’s experience tab, you can take a look at mobile usability, page experience and core web vitals.
Submitting a Sitemap
To help Google Search Console with the indexing of your website you can submit a sitemap. This will ensure Google knows to crawl all the pages of your website.
Final Thoughts
Whether you’re a business owner, SEO specialist or web developer, Google Search Console is a valuable tool that can help you understand how Google views your site. It offers many interesting features and insights for both developers and administrators to improve the performance of their websites.
