Google Search Console is a very useful tool from Google that helps you to see which keywords you appear in Google's search results. You can also see where you rank in Google search results. Thanks to Google Search Console, you can get a good overview of the keywords you appear on and those you don't.
Why is Google Search Console so good?
Google Search Console is very useful in many ways as it helps you keep track of how you are performing in Google's search results with different landing pages and keywords. For example, you can see how many people have seen your page (exposures) in Google's search results and how many people have clicked through (clicks) to your website, as well as your average ranking on Google for a specific keyword.
In the images below, you can first see what it looks like when you click on a specific keyword that you appear on Google. In the image below, you can see what page a person landed on when they Googled "marketing plan" in our case. We can see how many people have seen our page in the search results (exposures) and how many of them have chosen to click through (CTR = Click through rate) into our website.
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A good thing to keep in mind is that Google Search Console presents its results with a two-day delay and that it is possible to see historical data going back 16 months.There is currently real-time data from Google Search Console in beta version but it is not 100% reliable yet.
What can I use Google Search Console for?
- Google Search Console helps you see how your website appears on Google.
- You can see what kind of traffic the website gets from Google search results.
- You will find out what opportunities are available to improve your search engine optimisation (SEO)
- You can deal with different types of security issues and so-called penalties from Google.
- You can request faster indexing for different pages through manual handling.
- You can submit an XML sitemap through Google Search Console so that Google can more easily read the content of your website.
See which keywords a particular page appears on via google searches. Often, more keywords show up that you didn't think you'd be indexed for.
If you haven't set up Google Search Console yet, here's how you can add your domain to Google Search Console.
More great features in Google Search Console!
Google Search Console has lots of different features to help you make your website even better equipped to be seen on Google. The most important features are:
- Overview: the overview in Google Search Console shows you which pages are indexed (i.e. visible on Google) and which are no longer visible, as well as various alerts and errors on these pages. You can also see why a page has been removed because, for example, they no longer exist or the page has a Canonical URL, which is a way of showing Google that similar URLs are actually one and the same URL. This is particularly important for websites that, for example, have content and different products that are accessible from a variety of URLs. A Canonical URL ensures that duplicate content (the same content found in several different locations) does not affect your ranking (i.e. your position on Google) and that your linking works in relation to the correct page on your website.
- Results: the results section of Google Search Console gives you an overview and picture of how your website has performed in Google's search results over time. You can choose to see time ranges from 7 days up to 16 months. 16 months backwards is the maximum. Eventually, you will also be able to see in real time what people are searching for to get to your website.You can see the number of clicks, number of exposures (number of times you have appeared in Google search results), CTR (Click-Through-Rate) and average position in Google search results. You can also see analytics on how organic traffic is performing in terms of your landing pages, device type and country of origin. In other words, there are many elements to look at.
- Sitemaps: a sitemap is a map of all the pages that exist on a website (domain). When you add a sitemap, you tell Google which pages are on your domain. All websites should have a sitemap to make it easier for Google to find the right subpages on your website. In this section of Google Search Console, you can add the address of your website's sitemap. This is a very important and useful feature.
- Usability on mobile devices: when it comes to ease of use, this is very important to Google. This is because, as mentioned earlier, they always put users first. You as a company should always do the same. Then you can see how your website performs both on mobile, on the tablet and on the desktop. It could be that for example the text is too small or that the buttons are too small or that items are too close together. These are very important things to keep an eye on.
- Speed: In this section you can see how fast your website is. Again, Google puts users first. If you have a website that loads fast, Google will reward this as it will mean that users get their information faster. If your website is slow, it will mean that users will go back and choose another website in the search results. This is therefore also very important to keep an eye on in Google Search Console.
- Links: in Google Search Console, you get a list of all external and internal links that Google has found and that are linked to your website. This part of Google Search Console can be used to improve the internal linking of your website.
- AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages): AMP is an add-on feature that is designed to help display pages on a website and make them load even faster. Since many websites today are filled with heavy graphic elements, videos, ads, etc., it sometimes takes a long time for some pages to load.Using AMP, you can choose to make certain pages load faster. For example, pages with a lot of text are particularly good to use this for. One thing to keep in mind is that with AMP the pages will be very stripped down as some parts of the design are removed. Below you can see in the picture how it looks if you have AMP enabled on a page in the search results.
- Manual actions:Under manual actions in Google Search Console, you can see if your website violates Google's guidelines in any way. This can lead to a "manual action" and you being removed from the search results. On this page you can see if there are any manual actions that have been performed and if you need to correct anything.
- Security issues:Google always takes security very seriously and you can check Google Search Console to see if there are any security issues on your website. Of course, it's also worth keeping a close eye on.
In summary, we have now reviewed the most important parts of Google Search Console and how it works. If you want to learn even more about Google's own analytics tools, I recommend you download our quick Google Guide by clicking below:
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