Google Search Console is a powerful, free tool that helps website owners, marketers, and SEO professionals monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot their websites’ presence in Google search results.
The platform provides valuable insights, including how Google views your site, how well it is performing in search results, and potential issues that may affect your site’s visibility.
Here are our top tips for using it like a pro:
- Verify your website: To access the wealth of information provided by Google Search Console, you must first verify your website. This ensures you’re the authorised owner or manager of the site. You can verify your website using various methods, such as uploading an HTML file, adding a meta tag, or connecting to your Google Analytics account.
- Submit a sitemap: A sitemap is an XML file that lists all the URLs of your website. Submitting a sitemap helps Google understand your site’s structure, making it easier to crawl and index. If your site runs on a content management system like WordPress, you can use plugins to generate and update sitemaps automatically.
- Monitor indexing status: Google Search Console’s reporting provides an overview of your site’s indexing status. This includes pages that have been successfully indexed, pages with errors, and pages excluded from indexing for various reasons. Regularly monitoring this report can help you identify and fix any indexing issues that may affect your site’s visibility in search results.
- Track keyword performance: The Performance report in Google Search Console shows the keywords your site ranks for, their average positions, click-through rates, and impressions. By monitoring these metrics, you can identify which keywords drive the most traffic to your site and focus your SEO efforts on optimising them more.
- Optimise mobile usability: Google prioritizes mobile-friendly sites in search results. The Mobile Usability report in Google Search Console identifies any issues that might affect your site’s mobile-friendliness, such as small font sizes or clickable elements too close together. Addressing these issues should improve your site’s mobile experience and search ranking.
- Fix broken links: Broken links can negatively impact your site’s user experience and search ranking. Google Search Console’s Crawl Errors report highlights any broken internal or external links on your site.
- Monitor security issues: Google Search Console alerts you to any security issues that could harm your site and its users, such as malware or phishing attacks. Addressing these issues promptly can help protect your site’s reputation and maintain its search ranking.
- Utilise rich results: Also known as structured data, these provide more detailed information in search results. Reporting in Google Search Console shows whether your site is eligible for rich results and any errors you need to fix. Implementing structured data can enhance your site’s visibility and click-through rate in search results.
- Set up email alerts: You can stay informed about your site’s performance and issues by setting up email alerts in Google Search Console. This way, you’ll receive notifications for new issues, coverage status updates, or significant changes in your site’s search performance.
- Analyse external and internal links: Google Search Console’s Links report shows you the external websites linking to your site and your site’s internal linking structure. Analyzing these links can help you identify popular content, build a better internal linking strategy, and uncover potential link-building opportunities for your site.
- Use filters for deeper insights: Google Search Console allows you to apply filters to the Performance report for more in-depth analysis. You can filter data by date range, search type (web, image, video), device (desktop, mobile, tablet), and even by specific queries or pages. Using filters can help you identify trends and uncover more opportunities for optimisation.
- Monitor Core Web Vitals: Core Web Vitals is a set of metrics that measure the user experience of your website. They include Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). The Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console helps you identify technical issues in your website that could impact performance and the user experience.
- Leverage the URL Inspection tool: The URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console provides insights into how Google sees a specific page on your website. You can use it to check if a URL is indexed, identify any crawling or indexing issues, view the page’s rendered HTML, and even test live URLs for real-time feedback. This tool is particularly useful for diagnosing and fixing issues on individual pages.
- Keep track of manual actions: If your site violates Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, it may be subject to manual actions that can negatively impact its search rankings. The Manual Actions report in Google Search Console informs you of any such instances and guides you on how to resolve the issues and submit a reconsideration request.
- Connect with other Google tools: Integrating Google Search Console with other Google tools, such as Google Analytics and Google Data Studio, can provide you with a more comprehensive view of your website’s performance. By connecting these tools, you can combine and visualize data from various sources, making it easier to analyze trends and develop effective strategies to improve your site’s search presence.
By implementing these tips, you’ll be able to take full advantage of Google Search Console’s capabilities and further enhance your website’s performance in search results. Stay proactive, monitor your site’s performance regularly, and adapt your strategies to stay ahead of the competition.
Check out our blog post: Google Digital Garage: Good for Your Business?