Spearheading the battle for local search is Google’s Search Console (GSC), an amazing tool that makes you visible in search engine results pages (SERPs) and
provides an in-depth analysis of web traffic being routed directly to your business. Here’s some great news, GSC does all this for free.
If your website marks your presence in cyberspace, GSC boosts viewership and increases traffic, conversions, and sales. In this tutorial, Charles Pascal, SEO strategist at ABCO Technology explains how you benefit from GSC, how you integrate it with your website, and what you do with its reports to strategize the domain dominance
of your brand.
What is Google Search Console (GSC)?
Created by Google, the Google
Webmaster Tools
(GWT) initially targeted webmasters. Offered by Google as a free of cost service, GWT transformed into its present form, the
Google Search Console
(GSC). It’s the cutting edge tool widely used by an exponentially diversifying group of digital marketing professionals, web designers, app developers,
SEO specialists, and business entrepreneurs.
For the uninitiated, GSC tells you everything that you wish to know about your website and the people who visit it daily. For example, how much web traffic
you’re attracting, what are people searching for in your site, the kind of platform (mobile, app, desktop) people are using to find you, and more importantly,
what makes your site popular.
Then GSC takes you on a subterranean dive to find and fix errors, design sitemaps, and check file integrity.
Precisely what does Google Search Console do for you? These are the benefits.
- Search engine visibility improves
Ever experienced the sinking sensation of having completed everything demanded of you for creating a great website, but people who matter can’t locate you in
a simple search?
Search Console
makes Google aware that you’re online.
- The virtual image remains current and updated
When you’ve fixed broken links and coding issues, Search Console helps you update the changes in such a manner that Google’s
search
carries an accurate snapshot of your site minus its flaws.
- Keywords are better optimized to attract traffic
Wouldn’t you agree that knowing what draws people to your website can help you shape a better
user experience?
Search Console opens a window to the keywords and key phrases that people frequently use to access your website. Armed with this knowledge, you can optimize
your site to respond better to specific keywords.
- Safety from cyber threats
Can you expect to grow your business without adequate protection against external threats? Search Console helps you build efficient defenses against malware
and spam, securing your growing business against cyber threats.
- Content figures prominently in rich results
It’s not enough to merely figure in a search result. How effectively are your pages making it into Google rich results? These are the cards and snippets
that carry tons of information like ratings, reviews, and just about any information that results in better user experience for people searching for you.
Search console gives you a status report on how your content is figuring in rich results so you can remedy a deficit if detected.
- Your site becomes better equipped for AMP compliance
You’re probably aware that mobile friendliness has become a search engine ranking parameter. This means that the faster your pages load, the more user-friendly
you’re known to be. The solution is to adopt accelerated mobile pages (AMP), and Search Console helpfully flags you out in the areas where you’re not
compliant.
- Backlink analysis
The backlinks, the websites that are linking back to your website gives Google an indication of the popularity of your site; how worthy you are of citation.
With Search Console, you get an overview of all the websites linking to you, and you get a deeper insight into what motivates and sustains your popularity.
- The site becomes faster and more responsive to mobile users
If searchers are abandoning your website because of slow loading speeds or any other glitch, Search Console alerts you so you can take remedial steps and
become mobile-friendly.
- Google indexing keeps pace with real-time website changes
Significant changes that you make on the website could take weeks or months to figure in the Google Search Index if you sit tight and do nothing. With
search console, you can edit, change, and modify your website endlessly, and ensure the changes are indexed by Google instantaneously. By now you have an excellent idea why Google Search Console has become the must-have tool for optimizing your website pages for improved search results. This also helps
ensure that your business grows in tandem with the traffic that you’re attracting and converting.
Your eight step guide on how to use Google Search Console
- How to set up your unique Google Search Console account
Assuming that you’re entirely new to GSC, your immediate priority is to add the tool and get your site verified by Google. By doing this, you’ll be ensuring
that Google classifies you unambiguously as the owner of the site, whether you’re a webmaster, or merely an authorized user.
This simple precaution is necessary because you’ll be privy to an incredibly rich source of information that Google wouldn’t like unauthorized users to
have access to.
You can use your existing Google account (or create a new one) to access Google Search Console. It helps if you’re already using Google Analytics because
the same details can be used to login to GSC. Your next step is to open the console and click on “Add property”.
By adding your website URL into the adjacent box, you get an umbilical connection to the console so you can start using its incredible array of features.
Take care to add the prefix “https” or “www” so Google loads the right data.
- How to enable Google to verify your site ownership
Option one
How to add an HTML tag to help Google verify ownership
Once you have established your presence, Google will want to verify your site. At this stage, it helps to have some experience of working in HTML. It will
be easier to handle the files you’re uploading; you’ll have a better appreciation of how the website’s size influences the Google crawl rate, and gain
a clearer understanding of the Google programs already running on your website.
If all this sounds like rocket science, don’t worry, we’ll be hand-holding you through the process.
Your next step is to open your homepage code and paste the search console provided HTML tag within the <Head> section of your site’s HTML code.
The newly pasted code can coexist with any other code in the <Head> section; it’s of no consequence.
An issue arises if you don’t see the <Head> section, in which case you’ll need to create the section to embed the Search Console generated code so that
Google can verify your site.
Save your work and come back to the homepage to view the source code; the console verification code should be clearly visible in the <Head> section confirming
that you have done the embedding correctly.
Your next step is to navigate back to the console dashboard and click “Verify”.
At this stage, you’ll see either of two messages – A screen confirming that Google has verified the site, or pop up listing onsite errors that need to
be rectified before completing verification. By following these steps, Google will be confirming your ownership of the site. It’s important to remember
that once the Google Search Console code has been embedded onsite and verified, any attempt to tamper or remove the code will have the effect of undoing
all the good work, leaving your site in limbo.