What is Google Search Console?
Google Search Console is a tool for tracking your website’s performance. You can do this with Google Analytics, but GSC is also an option. The tool is free to use. With GSC, you can view all kinds of data about your website. Here’s more information about key features in Google Search Console:
Achievements
When you click on "Performance," you'll see metrics such as the total number of clicks and impressions, the average CTR (click-through rate), and your website's average position. The click-through rate is the percentage of impressions that resulted in a click. The average position shows where your website ranks on average in the search results.
You can also see what search terms were used to find your website, which pages visitors land on, what devices people use to search, and other information about users.
URL inspection
For this option, you can enter a specific URL. You will then see whether that page has been indexed or not. If it hasn't been indexed yet, you can request indexing.
Indexing
- Pages In this section, you can see exactly which pages are being indexed and which are not. You can also see the reason why indexing failed. Examples include pages with a 404 error or a redirect.
- Sitemap A sitemap provides a clear overview of all the internal links on your website.
- Removals Here you can specify URLs that you don’t want to appear in search results. These might include old pages or sample pages. When you submit a new removal request, the page will be blocked for approximately six months. You can always reverse the removal, and the page will reappear in search results.
Functionality
- Page Performance Here you'll find an overview of the user experience for website visitors. This data is specific to each URL. It's possible that no data is available for your website because it was just added to GSC, or because there isn't enough data for GSC to generate a report.
- Site Health This report shows you how your pages are performing based on actual data. Again, there may not always be enough data for GCS to generate a report.
- Mobile Usability This section shows whether pages are easy to use on mobile devices. If not, it explains why.
Links
Here you can see which external links point to your website. This allows you to see which websites link to your site and what the anchor text is. You’ll also find your internal links here. Naturally, your most important pages should have the most links. This helps Google understand which pages are the highest priority.
What are the benefits of GSC?
After explaining the features of Google Search Console, we’d like to tell you why this tool is so useful. It helps improve your website’s visibility:
1. You can check how easily your website appears in Google search results
This way, you can see which pages visitors land on when they come to your website through organic traffic. This can provide valuable insights. You’ll know which pages to prioritize, where to include key keywords, and where to place the most important information for your visitors. You’ll learn more about your website visitors—for example, what their search query was or which page they landed on. You’ll also see which websites are linking to yours and how your internal link structure is performing.
2. You can resolve issues related to searchability
Google Search Console provides information about issues related to your website. You can identify technical errors that affect the discoverability of your pages. You can also request that new pages be indexed.
3. You'll receive notifications about new errors
When you enable this option, Google Search Console will notify you whenever a new error is detected. You can adjust this in your user settings, under email preferences.
Google Search Console Set up for your website: how do you do that?
Step 1 is to log in to Google Search Console using your Google account. Once there, enter your website’s URL.
You need to verify your website with Google Search Console. You can choose from several verification methods (if you select "URL prefix"). Here’s what you need to do for each verification method:
- HTML file
- HTML tag
- Google Analytics
- Google Tag Manager
- Domain name provider
Once the verification process is complete, you’ll immediately have access to the data for your website. Now you can start optimizing your site’s search engine visibility. You can do this yourself, but if you’re not sure how or don’t have much time, we’d be happy to do it for you!
