Google Search Console is a powerful tool when it comes to SEO performance; there are many different reports you can utilise to help identify areas for improvement and increase the website’s performance.
Reviewing Google Search Queries
Google search queries shows you the different key phrases people search into Google to find your website.
You can analyse the performance of search queries in Search Console. This tool will show you the traffic for each page so you can compare year on year and see any pages that may be dropping in traffic. This will allow you to see which pages on your website need improvements.
Using Google Search Queries for Keyword Research
You can use this information to look into keywords that people are searching to find you and make sure you have the correct pages set up and optimised on your website for ranking in search engines. For example, if people have been searching ‘settlement agreements’ and finding your employment page, you could think about creating a separate subpage for settlement agreements to optimise for this key phrase.
Submitting Pages to Crawl
After publishing a new page on your website you can submit it to Search Console to crawl. This will help to speed up the process of Google crawling and ranking your page in its search engine results pages (SERPs).
Checking for HTTPs URLs
Google recommends using HTTPS URLs, the HTTPS report in Google Search Console will show you how many of your URLs are HTTPS vs HTTP. Utilising HTTPS enhances your website by safeguarding users’ security and privacy. This, in turn, improves your page SEO as Google recognises that your website is optimised for the user.
Crawl Errors
Google Search Console has reports that identify crawl errors on your website so you can easily see issues that need fixing.
Sometimes developers can add elements such as canonical tags and forget to remove them. The crawl errors can pick these up in your HTML. Crawl errors can identify elements like duplicate content, 404s, ‘noindex’ tags, redirects, and ‘canonical tags’ that may have been forgotten about.
Broken Links (404 Errors)
Broken links occur on your website if an external or internal page has been removed. Google Search Console will produce a report so you can easily see which link is broken and you can go in and fix them. It is best practice for SEO to go through and add any redirects from internally removed pages to prevent someone from clicking on one of your pages in Google and ending up on a 404 page.
Optimising your website for Mobile Search
Google Search Console has reports that identify issues with the pages on your website for mobile. This allows you to see errors with the mobile versions of your website like load time, responsiveness, certain elements fighting into pages and font sizes. The tool will tell you what needs to be corrected on your site, making it easy to provide a better mobile experience for your visitors.
Final Thoughts
Leveraging Google Search Queries through tools like Search Console provides invaluable insights into the performance of your website’s keywords and pages. By analysing search traffic trends and identifying areas for improvement, such as optimising for specific key phrases or addressing crawl errors and broken links, you can enhance your website’s visibility and user experience.
Additionally, prioritising HTTPS URLs, submitting new pages for crawling, and optimising for mobile search further contribute to improving your website’s overall SEO performance and ensuring its effectiveness in reaching and engaging with your target audience.
