Getting your website to rank highly on Google can sometimes feel like an impossible mission.
Luckily, you don’t have to go it alone as Google Search Console is here to lend a helping hand. While you still need to put in the work to complete any recommendations, Google Search Console can at least point you in the right direction.
As SEO experts here at Imaginaire, Google Search Console is one of the many tools we use for our clients to ensure their website is ticking over nicely.
In this post, we’ll give you a brief overview of Google Search Console to help you understand its value.
What Is Google Search Console?
Google Search Console is a free Google tool that allows you to access a wealth of information about your website, including anything that may be harming its search engine performance.
A large spectrum of data can be tracked in Google Search Console, from the rankings of your pages to how fast your website loads on different devices.
While it’s important to monitor the performance of your website outside of Google Search Console, the data displayed in your dashboard offers the main highlights that Google thinks are most important to know.
Do I Need Google Search Console?
That all depends on whether you want to understand how your website is performing in the eyes of the world’s biggest search engine!
When you link your website with Google Search Console, it will immediately start tracking data. You can log in at any time to view this data, but Google will also email you regularly with a summary of your website’s performance.
Beyond telling you what’s working about your website, Google Search Console can show important notices about why your content isn’t showing on Google, either because it can’t be indexed or because it has been removed. In the worst-case scenario, your website might even have some penalties against it (i.e. due to black hat SEO techniques).
Unless your website is linked with Google Search Console and you regularly check in with any updates, you might miss important aspects which need addressing.
Since Google Search Console is also free to use, it makes sense to use it!
What Can Google Search Console Tell Me About My Website?
So long as your website has been correctly linked with Google Search Console and you have access to the account, you can view endless insights about your website.
This includes:
- Average CTR
- Average position
- Core web vitals
- Devices
- External links
- Manual actions
- Page indexing
- Recommendations
- Removals
- Search Appearance
- Security issues
- Top countries
- Top linking sites
- Top linking text
- Top pages
- Top search queries
- Total clicks
- Total impressions
- Video indexing
There are several main tabs on the left hand panel to toggle between all of the information. On the main overview page, you can also click ‘Search Console Insights’ to see a highlight reel of your best-performing content for the month.
All of the data available in Google Search Console can also be exported so that you can analyse, interpret or present the data as you wish.
How To Use Google Search Console
You can breathe a sigh of relief here, because unlike Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console is fairly easy to get your head around. That said, it definitely helps to have SEO or web development expertise to be able to understand what the data is trying to tell you.
To be able to use Google Search Console, you’ll need to connect your website with your account.
From there, you can log in and toggle between the different information categories. Most of the time, you don’t really need to ‘do’ anything in Google Search Console other than study the data.
However, if you are alerted to issues such as pages not indexing, 404 errors or even Google penalties, then you will need to take manual actions on your website to fix this. Once the fix has been implemented, you may need to go back into Google Search Console and request a check on the fix.
Other than that, using Google Search Console mostly comes down to keeping an eye on the data by regularly checking it. Any information can then be fed back to your marketing team, particularly anyone working on your SEO or content marketing.
Need Help With Google Search Console? Discover Our SEO Services
When it comes to understanding Google Search Console and really using it to its potential, we’re only just getting started!
SEO services provided by Imaginaire can ensure that all of your metrics are being tracked, including those found in Google Search Console.
To find out more about how our SEO experts can help, please drop us a message or give us a call on 0115 697 1158.
By
Imaginaire
