Navigate each section of Google Search Console and review your website. Set up Google Search Console and get all website information related to links and indexing. It can drive and increase traffic to your site. Block spam links using the Google disavow tool. The insights provided allows you to see how Google views your site. Use structured data to improve your CTR. Evaluate search term queries and keywords using the performance and coverage reports. The URL Submission tool shows crawlers at work and calls for improvements by fixing errors. robots.txt tool singles out blocked URLs. Identify security – spam or malware issues. Google notifies any manual penalties that are imposed. Submit your sitemap and remove from search engine results, those content that is not fit for display. Use GSC to monitor and enhance website rankings. Boost UX with AMP, Page Speed, and mobile usability optimization to enhance your SEO efforts.
Google Search Console: Get started
Verification
Verify your website using any of the following methods – Google Analytics [tracking code must be attached in the head section of your website’s homepage]. -HTML file [Download the HTML file and upload it on your website]. -HTML Tag [Copy the HTML tag and paste it on your home page in the head section]. –Google Tag Manager [ You must have ‘view’, ‘edit’, and ‘manage’ permission for your Google Tag Manager account. Attach the code in the body tag section]. –Domain Name Provider [Go to your domain provider account such as GoDaddy, Hostgator, etc. Copy the txt record provided into the DNS configuration of your website) fig 1. To start go to Google Support and select your property – website. This will take you to the page display of the above methods for verification of your site. Click the down arrow at the side of the box display of any verification method you choose and follow the prompt. After you have finished, click the ‘Verify’ button.
Settings
Click on the settings tab fig 2 after you have successfully verified your website ownership. Find a green check mark display stating ‘You are a verified owner’.
Overview
Click the overview tab fig 3 and the page towards the right show the display boxes – Performance, Coverage, and Enhancements. When you click Open Report tab in the Performance display box the Performance report page can be viewed.
Google Search Console:Performance
Search Analytics features provide you a category wise break down fig 4 for Queries, Pages, Countries, Device, Search type, Data being searched by people visiting the website.
Clicks
The number of clicks indicates the frequency with which people click on your website in search results. The page performance is enhanced with optimized title and meta description that attract people to click. Obviously, pages ranked on the first page of search results will draw more clicks than that which ranks on second, third… pages of search results.
Impressions
Impressions is the number of times your website or other URL is visible in the organic search results and seen by the users. The title above is Google Analytics – UTM parameters. The URL pointed to by this link registers an impression when people open the page containing this result.
Average CTR
CTR for other than generic keywords will be high. From the below fig note that for the query ‘UTM canvas’ the total clicks is 1, Total impression is 77, Average CTR is 1.3% and Average position is 16.4. To improve the CTR the steps taken should be to re-write e a good meta description and a title tag.
Average position
Average position of 16 in above result means the page URL https://sapcanvas.com/google-analytics-utm-parameters/ appears in the 2nd page in the 6th row (one search page displays 10 results) of the search results when searched by typing the query ‘UTM canvas’.
Queries
People reach your site by typing a query in the browser.
Google Search Console provides these queries (called keywords) eg UTM canvas fig 7 that brings people to your site. By clicking the keyword eg UTM canvas from the list, you can find out more details of that particular keyword. Find details like people from which country chose that keyword, what devices they use, clicks, impressions, CTRs, etc.
Search Type: Web | Image | Video
Date range: Filter the time period such as last 28 days | last 3 months | last 12 months, etc and make comparisons with the previous period
Query: Enter the query or keyword(s) UTM canvas and compare between other keywords.
Page: Enter the URLs – containing/ not containing/ is exactly the keyword. https://sapcanvas.com/google-analytics-utm-parameters/ (fig 8)
Country: check the country eg South Korea and compare between countries
Device: check whether the device is Desktop|Mobile|Tablet and compare between devices
Pages
View details of web pages fig 9 that bring the most traffic to your website. In the dashboard see the popular pages ranked in descending order in terms of clicks, impressions, CTR, and position.
Countries
Target the right audience with geographical details by selecting ‘Country’ fig 10 that will provide the number of clicks for that particular location.
Devices
Most of the people visit websites from their smartphones. Mobile-friendly websites ensure the website to appear the same for both desktop and mobile applications. View the clicks, impression, CTR, and position for Desktop, Mobile and Tablet fig 11.
Search Appearance
Click on comparison of tools and reports and go through the new and old search console as many of the old features fig 12 have started appearing in the new Google Search Console.
Structured Data
Structured data is the additional information provided to search engines for understanding what a page is all about. eg If you sell services, you can improve your search listings with customer reviews & testimonials, solution provider, and availability. The information can all become visible in the search results. Use schema.org to embed structured data on web pages for use by search engines in any form eg: JSON-LD, RDFa or Microdata.
Individual Enhancement reports
Rich Cards is a feature in the old Google Search Console. It
International targeting under search traffic in the old search console can be used to target audiences related to location and language.
Data Highlighter
Data Highlighter features fig 13 improve SEO & CTR and is Googles’ tool to implement structured data with Schema.org. eCommerce websites or blogs with content, reviews, events, product data, etc should use this feature. Use Data highlighter by clicking on the old version (as the same is not supported in the new Googe Search Console) from the sidebar. This will take you to Search Appearance (old dashboard). Select the structured data option and click ‘Data Highlighter’ and next click ‘Start Highlighting’ and follow the prompt. With data highlighter tag data about future events such as a sales promotion scheme. Google will display this event in an appealing manner in search results.
HTML Improvements
Meta Description HTML Improvements is no more seen in the New Google Search Console.
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
Go to AMP and click on Open AMP Report to view data. To make any changes use the
Mobile Usability
In this section see the usability issues fig 14 you have for your mobile website or mobile pages. Ensure your mobile site is user friendly so that users can engage with your content on the go.
Sitelinks Searchbox
Google is not clear about how websites qualify for
URL Inspection
Add your URL eg: ‘7-steps-to-getting-started-with-google-analytics’ fig 16 in the search bar. Google Search Console will display a report as seen above.
Google Search Console: Index
The Google Index reports supplies data on how your content performs in Google search results.
Index: Coverage
The coverage display page shows all the indexed pages. The pages excluded in your sitemap is shown fig 17. It provides a summary of all page URLs of your website that Google bots crawl and index together with the issues they encounter. URLs marked as ‘no index’ have issues. Other issues are crawl issues, server error, redirects, blocking by robots.txt, 404, etc. It was referred to as Index Status in the old Google Search Console.
Blocked Resources
The Blocked Resources report show what Google has blocked on your website based on the directives in your robots.txt file. Use the ‘URL Inspection Tool’ that has replaced ‘Fetch as Google Tool’. Check the page URLs whether they have been rendered correctly.
Remove URLs
The removal of URLs that represent thin and duplicate content can be temporarily removed for 90 days fig 18. Add the URLs to the ‘Remove URL Tool’ in Google Search Console which processes it in about a days time.
Sitemaps
Submit the two sitemaps fig 19 & 20 generated by Yoast SEO of WordPress website enable search engine spiders
Yoast SEO plugin generates the sitemap code for WordPress websites fig 20.
Submit this site map code URL path in Google Search Console.
Google Search Console: Security & Manual Actions
Hacking is a nuisance in the digital world for those websites with a poor firewall security setup. It poses a threat to eCommerce websites where credentials and other personal / credit card details get exposed. View security checks in your search console by clicking on security issues. A green checkmark gets displayed for no issues detected.
Click on Manual Actions that Google can apply and how you can fix it fig23.
Links
View the list of websites fig 24 that includes links on their websites back to yours. Note the list of pages your website has links from other websites.