You might have worked your fingers to the bone to set up your business website.Perhaps you added high-end products to allure your target audience. Maybe you also included quality blog content to intrigue your website visitors.The site is set, the theme looks perfect, and that captivating exit-intent popup and the discount offer is cherry on the top.But are you keeping track of your masterpiece? Do you know how your website is performing? If you don’t all your hard work may be for nothing.Fortunately, Google Search Console has your back. It’s a free, effective tool to track your website performance, making sure your masterpiece doesn’t go to waste.
What is Google Search Console?
As the name implies, Google Search Console (GSC) is a web service offered by Google. It helps you keep an eye on your website performance.This, in turn, helps you maintain your business site and troubleshoot problems.As a whip-smart business owner, you'll probably prefer setting up your business website to keep up with the digitalisation age.Unfortunately, having an online presence doesn't guarantee you success.Data reveals that around 71% of small business owners have a website. SEO stats also highlight that Google processes around 63,000 searches per second.That’s a big number! Realistically speaking, your site won't appear in every search.To know where you stand as a website owner, you need to gain insight into your site's performance and ranking in search results.Regardless of your business type, it will help you in the long run. GSC helps you do just that: get valuable insights, fix crawl errors, review security problems, and much more.Simply put, you gain access to a set of features that help you create a digital footprint.So, being among 71% of website owners alone won't pay off. You need to use Google Search Console to ensure that your SEO work is tracked, maintained, and boosted where necessary.
What is Google Search Console used for?
Whether you run your website or are an SEO specialist handling someone else's, the GSC tool comes in handy.At a glance, you can use Google Search Console for:
- Finding and fixing crawling and indexing errors
- Troubleshoot common problems like Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and mobile-friendliness.
- Find out which websites link to yours and rectify your backlink strategy.
- Reviewing manual actions and security issues
- Communicating precise information to Google. As such, it outlines accurate data to your target audience, including time, date, location, etc.
- Discovering how often your site appears among those 63,000 searchers.
- Knowing which search results help you gain traffic to your website
Setting up Google Search Console
To begin with, you need to create an account in Google Search Console.
Login to GSC
If you already have a Gmail or Google account, the search engine will automatically log you in.However, if you have multiple people managing your business, you may want to give them access to your GSC data.In that case, you'd need to add your business members as users/owners of your website. You also have the option to set varying permissions depending on your team member's skill level and requirements.
Choose property type
After logging in, you’ll have to select a property type. Here, you have the option to choose from the following:
Domain
The domain property type includes both HTTPS and HTTP protocols for your site. Additionally, it also has subdomains like "www."This property type is most suitable as it lets Google recognise multiple versions of your site. We can explain this with an example.miscdigitalmarketing.com and www.miscdigitalmarketing.com appear indistinguishable domains.The fact is, they aren’t!Each domain indicates a varying server. Yes, the URLs look similar enough; they are two different domains.But wait, when you enter miscdigitalmarketing.com in the search bar, you land at www.miscdigitalmarketing.com. What is this science?This is simply because the website has set the preferred domain to the latter one. You need to inform Google Search Console about the domain you prefer. If you don’t, it will treat non-www and www versions as separate, splitting engagement and page views into two. That’s definitely a big no-no.
URL Prefix
Note that URL prefixes only include URLs under certain protocols and addresses. In other words, if you enter "https://www.misdigitalmarketing.com," GSC won't match "http://www.miscdigitalmarketing.com."When using the prefix property type, you have the choice to verify ownership. Here's how you can do that:
- Add an HTML tag to a specific page on your website.
- Upload an HTML file to your website.
- Use Google Tag Manager container snippet or Google Analytics tracking code.
Your marketing strategy might push you to use the GSC URL prefix property type as it allows you to keep an eye on varying website segments.You also may want to monitor your site performance separately if you have a separate mobile website.
Verify your property
After choosing your URL and property type, you must verify website ownership. Though there are seven distinct ways you can do that, we'll explain the easiest four below.
Adding Google Analytics code
If you already track your website performance with Google Analytics, you can use it to verify your website.
- Check your site's HTML code to ensure the Google Analytics tracking code is within the <Head> section. It shouldn't be in the <Body> section.
- If you do not find it in the <Head> section, you'd need to move it there.
- Next, visit the GSC dashboard, and choose "Manage site."
- Follow it up by clicking "Verify site."
- Choose the Google Analytics code option below the "Alternative" or "Recommended method" and select the Google Analytics code option.
- Proceed with the provided instructions.
Uploading HTML file
You also have the choice to upload the HTML file to the root directory of your website. You can do this by completing the following:
- Visit GSC dashboard > Manage site > Verify the site.
- Click the HTML file upload option right below the "Recommended method" tab.
- If, however, you cannot see one listed, you can visit the "Alternative method."
- Proceed with on-screen instructions to download and upload the HTML file to the desired location.
- Avoid changing the file's information. Otherwise, Google would not verify your website.
- As soon as the file gets uploaded, return to the GSC, select "Verify," and you're good to go!
Adding a HTML tag
Do you have prior experience with HTML coding? It’s your lucky day!
- Visit the GSC dashboard and click "Manage Property" followed by "Verify this property."
- You'll see an HTML tag under "Alternative" or "Recommended method" click on it.
- As soon as you select the HTML tag, you'll receive a code for your website verification.
- Copy this code and paste it in the <Head> section.
- Make sure you save and publish the code.
- To view the source code, consider visiting your website homepage. You'll see the code in the <Head> section.
- Now revert to GSC and choose "Verify."
- As soon as Google finds the code, you'll receive confirmation.
Using Domain Name Provider
Domain Name Provider is yet another way to verify your website. If you own a large website, this option is your best bet. Why? Because it demonstrates that all the subdomains linked to your primary domain belong to you.
- Visit GSC dashboard
- Choose "Manage site" and then "Verify this site."
- Right below the "Alternative" or "Recommended method," you'll see the Domain name provider; click on it.
- You'll be presented with a list of prominent domain name providers; you can choose the preferred one.
- You can also select "other" and follow the on-screen instructions, and that's it!
Link Google Analytics to Google Search Console
Lastly, you need to link GA to GSC. Here's how you can do that.
- Visit the GSC dashboard and choose the website you want to connect to GA.
- In the top right corner, choose the gear icon and select Google Analytics Property.
- A list of Google Analytics accounts linked with your Google account will appear.
- Choose the correct account and save it.
Mission accomplished!You are now ready to use GSC to access valuable insights and optimise your website faster than you can say ‘Google Search Console’.
Google Search Console Features
After following all of the set-up processes, it’s time to learn about how exactly Google Search Console can track your performance and boost your site.We'll explore several GSC features below.
Performance Tab
The performance tab lets you see what keywords and pages your site ranks for in Google.Fun fact - the older GSC version only allowed you to check the data from the last 90 days. With the current GSC version, however, you can view website data of up to 16 months! This can easily help you see what’s working, what isn’t, and what’s changed in the meantime.
Clicks
Your website appeared in the search results – that’s a good start. Now it’s time to determine if your target audience is actually clicking through to your site.Clicks in the performance tab is your golden ticket.If your website receives a few clicks, you're probably not standing out in the search results. Is your page title not captivating enough? What about your meta description? Determining these variables can be the difference between a low and high click rate.
Impressions
Do you even appear in the search results? If yes, how often?You can see that in the "Impressions" tab. You also get to know what keyword your website ranks for.On top of that, the tab also allows you to check what page ranks for that specific keyword. Are these the pages you actually wanted to rank for a certain keyword? If yes, I am impressed.If not, you can try optimizing the page you'd want to rank.
Average Position
The average position tab lets you see the average ranking for a particular page or a keyword in the time you chose.Yes, the position isn't too valid because people get varying search results. Google understands better which search results suit each visitor.
CTR (Click-through Rate)
How many people saw your website in search results and clicked it? That's exactly what the average CTR tells you.It goes without saying that the higher you rank on Google, the higher your CTR is likely to be.
Index Coverage
The number of pages in the Google index and what technical issues are causing difficulty for Google indexing your pages optimally is what you can know through the "Index Coverage" tab.
URL Inspection
This tab lets you analyze particular URLs. Besides, you can find information like how Google crawled your page and when and how it appeared when it crawled the page. You can also discover errors - when Google doesn't crawl properly.However, this tab has more technical stuff that might not intrigue you as a beginner.
Enhancement Tabs
The Enhancement tab lets you improve the way your website performs. It includes beneficial information about mobile usability, speed, AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) usage, and more to help reach rich results in the search engine results pages.
Manual Actions & Security Issues
Manual Actions is a tab you'd properly rarely visit. If Google penalises your website, you can find relevant information there.Several things can contribute to these penalties, including:
- Your site gets hacked (Heaven forbid!)
- Spam
- You have unnatural links.
- You're masking something from Google (You probably can't get away with that one!)
Lastly, the security issues tab displays a security problem related to your website.
So, now what?
The best things are hardly free, not even the air in your packet of chips - you paid for the whole thing!
Lucky for you, Google Search Console is completely free. Not using a tool such as GSC is an oversight that can lead to lacking key performance factors that you can use to measure your site’s success.If you’re looking for that extra edge in your business, whether it’s site optimization or control of your Google Search Console, we’ve got you covered. Get a free proposal with us today to see how we can transform your site.
