How to Use Google Console to increase your online visibility
Google Search Console, formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools, is a free web service provided by Google that allows website owners, webmasters, and SEO professionals to monitor and manage how their website appears in Google's search results. It provides a range of tools and reports to help you understand how Googlebot, Google's web crawler, interacts with your website and how your site performs in Google Search. Here's an overview of how to use Google Search Console:
Getting Started with Google Search Console:
- Verify Ownership: To use Google Search Console for your website, you need to verify that you own or have access to the website. Google offers several verification methods, including uploading an HTML file to your website, adding a DNS TXT record, or using Google Analytics.
- Add Your Website: After verification, log in to Google Search Console and add your website property. You can add multiple properties, including different versions of your site (HTTP, HTTPS, www, non-www).
Using Google Search Console:
Once your website is added to Google Search Console, you can access various tools and reports:
- Performance Report:
- This report provides insights into how your site is performing in Google Search. It includes data on clicks, impressions, click-through rates (CTR), and average positions for your pages in search results.
- Coverage Report:
- This report shows the indexing status of your website's pages. It highlights any errors or issues that may prevent Google from indexing certain pages.
- URL Inspection Tool:
- You can use this tool to check the indexation status of a specific URL on your website. It provides information on whether the URL is indexed, when it was last crawled, and any issues encountered during indexing.
- Sitemaps:
- You can submit XML sitemaps to Google Search Console. Sitemaps help Google discover and index your site's pages more efficiently.
- Mobile Usability:
- This report identifies mobile usability issues on your site, helping you ensure that your website is mobile-friendly.
- Security Issues:
- Google Search Console alerts you to any security issues or manual actions taken against your website, such as penalties for violating Google's guidelines.
- Enhancements:
- This section provides insights into structured data (schema markup) and other enhancements that can improve how your website's pages are displayed in search results.
- Links:
- The "Links" section shows information about external and internal links to your site. You can see which sites link to your content and which pages on your site have the most links.
- Core Web Vitals:
- Google Search Console provides data on your website's Core Web Vitals, which are important for user experience and search ranking.
- Manual Actions:
- If Google detects any issues with your site that violate its quality guidelines, it may take manual actions against your site. This report provides information about these actions and how to resolve them.
Google Search Console is a valuable tool for website owners and SEO professionals to monitor, optimize, and troubleshoot their websites' presence in Google Search. Regularly checking and using the reports and tools can help improve your site's visibility and performance in search results.