If you have a website or work in the digital environment, you will have heard of Google Search Console, a free tool from the internet giant that helps us measure and optimize our efforts in SEO positioning.
Today we come to explain step by step how to start it up and how to use it correctly to get the most out of it. We want to explain everything you need to know about the Search Console so you can improve your position on Google results pages and other search engines.
Install Google Search Console on your website
Being a free tool from Google, you can imagine that the installation process will be very easy. Even so, you will need some basic technical knowledge to be able to carry it out in addition to being able to access your web hosting service and have permissions to add DNS records.
Step 1: Registration on the Platform
To register in Google Search Console you will only have to have a Google account in any of its other services, be it Google Ads, Google Analytics, Gmail, Google Tag Manager, Adsense, etc.
We always recommend centralizing all the tools you are going to use in the same account. This will save you time in the future as you will be able to connect the different services easily and there will be no conflicts and confusion due to the permissions required for the different actions.
Step 2: Add your website
You will see that your web page can be added in two different ways that have
Domain Ownership
The domain properties include all of its protocols, subdomains, and subpaths. This means that if you indicate your page as “example.com”, Google Search will go through all the pages hosted on that domain, with and without “www.” in front and with the two protocols “http://” and “https://”.
It requires us to verify this domain through DNS records, but it is usually our preferred way of doing it as it allows us to make sure that we have the information of the entire web page and we do not leave any domain.
URL prefix property
This way of adding your web page to Search Console is especially useful if you want to follow only part of your site or if you want to separate. What will be done here is that all the pages that you start with the URL that you have entered will be followed. In this case, both the protocol and the presence of “www.” are taken into account.
We do not recommend this method, since in a large percentage of cases you end up losing data from some of the pages of your website.
Step 3: Domain Verification
You will simply need to follow the instructions that appear on the screen to verify that you really are the owner of the website with the tracking code that Google Search Console will provide you. If you have the domain registered with Google Domains, this process will be done automatically. Otherwise, you will need 5 minutes to set it up at your web host.
Understand the data of our SEO positioning
Once you have everything installed and configured, it’s time to wait a few days, until Google indexes the web page, and go see the performance data of the site.
The data that you will see in the first place is the one that appears in the control panel and is an overview of your web positioning when we talk about Google searches. It is important to note that you will not be offered information about your performance in other search engines such as Bing or Yahoo.
Impressions
It is a digital marketing metric that tells us how many times we have appeared in search results or, in other words, how many times our page has been seen in the SERPs. By itself, it is not a relevant indicator, since we have to analyze it together with other metrics such as clicks or conversions.
clicks
It tells us how many of the people who have seen our page in search results have clicked on it and gone to our website. From here and from the impressions, we will calculate our CTR or click through rate.
CTR
It is the division of clicks by impressions and tells us the percentage of people who see our page in search engine results and click on it. A low CTR is a red flag as it means there is a mismatch between what people are searching for and how we appear in search results.
It is important to note that our appearance in the SERPs and having quality content on our website are not directly related. That is why content marketing campaigns take both things into account when working on On-Page SEO.
Middle Position
Indicate for each search and keyword or keyword the position in which we appear in the search engines. Typically impressions for a keyword will be proportional to position, as the top results get the most traffic. In fact, the first page of Google concentrates approximately 96% of user clicks . And within that 96%, 34% leave in the first organic result.
That is why it is important to work on the company’s SEO strategy for search engine positioning that is relevant to the organization. If you don’t know how to do it, we’ll explain how a specialized marketing agency can help you.
Core Vitals and Mobile Usability
Another great feature of Google Search Console is the ability to analyze the loading times and performance of our web pages to ensure an optimal user experience.
Why do we mention this? Because in May 2021 the Google algorithm will take these metrics into account when indexing web pages and positioning them in Google . So the digital marketing strategy will have to include the technical part related to the Vital Websites so as not to lose positions in the SERPs.
Now you know how to install Google Search Console on your website and how to understand and use the different metrics that this Google tool can offer us. But, if you prefer, our specialists can take care of your Off-Page and On-Page SEO strategy so that you can focus on other aspects of your business.
