Get Found on Google: A Beginner’s Guide to Google Search Console

If you’re hitting your head against a wall because you feel as if you’ve done everything to get your website on Google’s front page, we are here to tell you that it’s not as hard as you’re making it. With the right tools and applications, you can easily see where your website is failing and get found on Google instantly.

If you’ve never heard of Google Search Console or have no idea how it works, we suggest you take a crash course and begin using it for your website. In the meantime, here is our guide for Google Search Console. 

What is Google Search Console?

One of the nicest things about Google is that they offer a wide variety of portfolio tools. These tools can be very important to webmasters, people who own sites, and marketers. 

Some of these tools are the well-known Gmail and Google Drive applications that you can find easily through any Google account. On the other end of these applications are Google Analytics and Ads. These apps are usually used by webmasters and marketers to get more traffic to their sites and to raise site awareness.

The Google Search Console falls into this category of Google apps. It’s a free Google tool that the company claims anyone can use. Google has noted that Google Search Console is perfect for business owners, administrators, and SEO specialists. 

Overall, the main reason for Google Search Console is so you can get an idea of how Google sees your website. This application allows you to track and monitor your website’s presence in Google’s search results. These insights can help you improve your site performance and give you a general idea of how the search engine is picking up on your website.

What Does the Search Console Help With?

The search console will not automatically make your website rank high on Google searches. It will give you the tools and stats needed to see how your website is performing in order to improve it.

You will be able to track vital site data through the application. It will help you analyze your search performance and see how your pages appear in search queries. It will also show you what searches will bring up results related to your website and how often.

This application is also great for optimizing content. With this tool, you will be able to easily issue IDs to different pages or pieces of content within your site. From here you can troubleshoot and solve any issues that arise fast. After fixing issues, you can then ask Google to index your content again through the same platform.

Google Search Console will also help you when indexing problems arise. You can set up alerts that will help you respond to spam, indexing, or other issues that you see as pressing. This will help you catch problems before they damage your site and its performance.

One of the best ways Google Search Console helps your website is by helping to enhance it. The platform makes it a breeze to bring new elements and features to your site and also helps to ensure they are functioning properly. 

How Do I Add Google Search Console to My Website?

Now that you know the benefits of using Google Search Console, it’s time to add it to your website. This will take a few steps, but afterwards you’ll be wondering how you ever ran a website without it.

The first thing you’ll need to do is log into your Google account and head on over to the Google Search Console page. When arriving on the search console homepage you will be asked to select what property type your site is:

– Domain Property: You will select this when you want Google to track all URLs across all subdomains of your website. 

– URL Prefix Property: You will select this when you want Google to track the data for a single URL.

Of course, choosing the right property for you depends on what you need it to track. If you’re a business, you will most likely be selecting the domain property option to track all subsites on your site. 

After selecting your property, you will then need to verify it. You will need to verify your property by DNS. Google will prompt you how to do so, you will just need to follow their instructions. After verification, you can begin tracking your website through Google Search Console. 

What Features Will Google Search Console Provide?

Now that you’ve set up Google Search Console for your website, and you’re getting used to the interface, you might be wondering what features the search console will provide you. The first thing you need to know is that the search console tracks queries. These queries are made when people search a phrase in the Google search engine.

Google will then track the number of clicks, impressions, click-through rates, and the average position of your website. Below we have broken down these terms:

– Clicks: Clicks are tracked by the number of users that select your website from the Google search page.

– Impressions: Impressions are tracked by the number of times your site appears on a Google SERP. This is usually the overall number for the impressions it gets on a single query.

– Click-Through Rate: The click-through rate is measured by the percentage of searches that see an impression of your webpage and that actually click on it. This rate is calculated by placing it against your impressions. If you see ten impressions, and get one click, the click-through rate is 10%.

– Average Position: The average position is where on a SERP your content will actually appear on different searches. This will let you see if your website is on the first page of a search and its position in the line-up. 

Remember to Use Reports to Your Advantage

To help you better analyze the data Google will track, they have implemented reports that you can pull anytime to oversee the data of your site. These reports can be generated from your homepage and help you to get a better idea of how your website is doing. 

Overview Report

One of the best ways to look at your data is through the overview report. This is one report that will give you an overview of all the information Google Search Console tracks and will let you see where your website is exceeding and falling short.

Index Sitemaps

If you submit an index sitemap to Google it can better help the search engine to understand and crawl your website. If your website is large, or it’s new and doesn’t have many backlinks, you might want to consider providing Google Search Console with an index sitemap.

Also, it’s good to point out that if your webpages don’t have any internal links, it will be hard for Google to find them. This sitemap will help Google see your pages, even if you don’t have any internal links on them.

In this report, you will be able to look at and view the sitemaps you’ve submitted to Google. It will show you statistics and any errors that may have come up when processing the site map.

Performance Report

Another helpful report you can pull is the performance report. In this report, you can view data such as results by device, country, and URL. This will help you to see differences in ranking and give you a better idea of how the site is doing on Google.

The Enhancements Section

In this section of Google Search Console, you will be able to manage structured data on your website in one place. If you’re not aware of what structured data is, it’s the content you add to your site to get rich results on Google and other front pages.

In this report, problems will be indicated, which means you will be able to see and identify an issue before it turns into a big problem. The enhancements section can help identify issues with the following:

– Sitelinks Search Boxes

– Event

– Recipe

– FAQ

– Q&A Page

– Fact Check

– Product

– Logo

– Job Posting

– How-to

Index Coverage Report

The index coverage report is another that can be pulled to better help you with your website’s performance. If you’re adding new content to your site, or looking at data on a daily basis, this will be the most helpful report.

In this report, you will be able to see every index status for every webpage on your site. This will help you see if pages aren’t indexed, which means Google won’t even consider putting them on their site. 

Manual Actions Report

In this report, you will find further information for manual actions taken against your site. Manual actions will appear in the overview report but can be further looked into here.

This report will tell you what the manual action was taken against your website is and give you tips on how to resolve the issue. The details of the manual action will be listed so you have a better idea of how to resolve it. 

Links Report

Link building is one of the most important parts of SEO and having a vital link profile is very important to Google. Ideally, you will want relevant links from popular websites to appear on your site.

This report helps you to keep track of the links that appear on your website all in one place. It will also provide you with the internal link structure of your website so you can better determine if your link building has been effective. 

Mobile Usability Report

In today’s age, any website that can be viewed on a computer should also flawlessly appear on a mobile device. This report will help you see how mobile-friendly your website is, and help you to determine if some further website design is needed. If there are any errors or issues on your mobile pages, Google will alert you in this report.

AMP Report

The AMP and mobile usability reports go hand in hand because they are linked together. This is because AMP is an important element when it comes to making your website user-friendly for those who browse on mobile devices. This will show you how many AMP pages Google has indexed for your website and helps you to see pages that Google couldn’t properly index. 

How Will This Help Me Get Found on Google?

When looking at all this data, it will be easy for you to see where your website does well and where it’s failing. After identifying the problems, you will be able to make adjustments and improvements that will hopefully help your website appear higher in searches and even on Google’s front page.

By using Google Search Console, you can have all the stats of your site in one place. This will make it better for you to view the lifeline of your site and see what areas need improvement to better enhance your SEO.

In addition to using Google Search Console to help your website’s SEO, you should also be reviewing the reports regularly. The reports provided to you by Google will help you to see where your site is failing and what issues are arising. This will help to make your SEO stronger and get ahead of any big issues that may arise. 

Now It’s Time to Join Google Search Console

We have given you a detailed guide to what Google Search Console is and the tools it provides to help you make your site SEO. Google Search Console is a powerful tool that will help you to see your website’s vitals and improve it accordingly, helping you to get found on Google in no time. 

For more marketing tips and information be sure to check out our website here.