Let’s cut to the chase. If your website isn’t at the top of the Google search results page when your audience searches keywords related to your business, your traffic, conversion rate, and profitability are going to suffer.
When was the last time you clicked to the second page of your search results? When’s the last time you even scrolled down past the third or fourth result?
It’s safe to say that if you are not working on your search engine optimization (SEO) so that you can reach a top spot, you will not get many people to visit your website.
While boosting your SEO can often be easier said than done, there are many resources you can use to improve your SEO and rank highly for your business’ keywords.
One of the most helpful tools you can use to reach this goal is Google Search Console.
What is Google Search Console?
Formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools, Google Search Console is a free tool offered by Google that helps users monitor and adjust how their site is performing on Google Search.
With Search Console, you can measure your search traffic, check your search rankings and indexing, identify issues that may be affecting your SEO, and optimize your website so that your website will rise to the top of relevant searches.
Who should use Google Search Console?
Anyone with a website! Google Search Console is free for anyone who has a website and wants to improve their website’s performance.
The people who will benefit most from this service are ones looking for any or all of the following ways to:
- Measure their organic traffic
- Increase their organic traffic
- Improve their SEO
- Receive alerts about unusual activity on their website
- Optimize their website for mobile and desktop user
- Make data-driven decisions or their business
- Check their current indexing status
- Request re-indexing after resolving issues on their website
- View key metrics like click-through rates and organic search results
- Troubleshoot potential problems hindering their SEO
- See which external sites link to their website
Google Search Console is a useful tool for business owners, SEO specialists, and website developers alike. If you have a website that you want consumers to visit, Search Console is for you.
How to use Google Search Console
Google Search Console is straightforward and easy to use, even for beginners. Even if you’re just starting to explore SEO and how it can impact your business, you will be able to use this service.
Here are the steps you need to take to get started:
1. Sign up
Because this is a free service, all you need to sign up for Google Search Console is your URL (for every domain it supports) and a way to verify that you own the website.
2. Check your email
If you want to take a more hands-off approach, all you have to do after signing up for Google Search Console is check your email regularly. You will receive an email if any unusual activity happens on your website, there are any problems when Google site crawlers try to index your site, or if there are any strange patterns regarding your click-through rates.
3. Explore tools based on your specific needs
If you want to take advantage of all that Google Search Console has to offer, you can explore the tools they provide.
Here are a few tools you might find useful:
- You can ask Google to reindex your website after you’ve made a change by updating your sitemap.
- You can block specific pages from being indexed by Google.
- You can see whether your website was hacked by viewing the Security Issues report.
- You can view your website’s Performance report to see how well it is performing on Google Search.
- You can analyze metrics about your website’s usability for both desktop and mobile users.
All of these tools and more can be accessed through your Google Search Console Dashboard. Simply log in and click on the reports or tools that will be most helpful for you and your website development.
Wave goodbye to worrying about being at the bottom of Google search results pages and losing your target audience to other ecommerce sites with better SEO. With Search Console, you can improve your SEO and make sure your website is optimized for success.