Sometimes it can be frustrating to optimize a website. You might be meeting all the SEO requirements and not showing up in search anyway. You may have no idea why Google punishes your content. But you don’t have to be guessing. That’s why there’s a Google Search Console.

What is the Google Search Console?

We know that having a website takes a lot of work. In addition to building it, you have to maintain it. It is not enough to upload content and not just to pigeon the SEO boxes. It is necessary to check that the keywords we use are the best possible, repair broken or problematic links, make sure that our server is responding as we expect... Keeping up with each of the needs of our site can be exhausting. And failing in some way can cost our online relevance very dearly.

Google Search Console is a platform that allows you to monitor all aspects of your website. It helps you measure your site’s performance and search traffic. It also helps you point out problems and offer possible solutions. Using these features you will be able to know in-depth what is failing on your website. also what is working. This will help you repeat what is going well.

There are many tools like this, some are even paid. But this particular platform has one big advantage over the others: the data it throws is directly from Google’s perspective. That is, they are official data of the search engine. And, in addition, it is free.

Google Search Console is especially useful for marketers. Well, it provides real data on how well the site is doing. Of course, if you are an entrepreneur who is building his page independently, you are your marketing person. It is therefore in your interest to learn how to use this platform. Once you are familiar with it you will be able to take advantage of it and make your site stand out among the search options.

Google Search Console Tools

Google Search Console is not difficult to use. You don’t need to know how to program, it’s no more complicated than accessing any website. Just know what the different tools are for and become familiar with reading and analyzing data. Although, for some, registering the page can be a complicated process.

Start using Google Search Console

When you log into the Google Search Console, there is a brief presentation and immediately the Get Started button. It will ask you to add a property. This refers to your website. You can register it with your domain or with the URL prefix. Google will need to verify that it’s really your site. That’s where things get a little complicated. Let’s see how it is done in either case:

• Domain: In this case, you will have to copy the link to your website by omitting http, in this way: example.com. Once you have done so you must log in with your domain provider and enter the DNS settings. There you will copy the code provided by Google.
• URL: With this mode, there are more options. Once you copy the URL of your site you can choose to check with HTML tag. This is a great option if you’re using Word Press for your site. You’ll need to go to your site, go to appearance, and select theme editor. You’re not going to touch anything in the code, you’re just going to look for the header, using the search bar. At the end of the header area, they will paste the HTML tag provided by the Google Search Console.

And that’s it. If you’re a more visual person, you can watch this tutorial. It’s not difficult. If you are not a programmer don’t let the code and specialized terms discourage you.

What can I check?

The platform offers several tools that yield different types of data. What do I mean by this? This platform reviews different aspects of your site. Depending on what you want to review, you will resort to different tabs.

On the other hand, much of what Google Search Console shows is data that you need to analyze. I mean, Google won’t give you a report telling you if a certain click-through percentage is good or bad. You will need to buy yourself if the clicks are above average, for example. Also, you will be able to reach some conclusions on your own. For example, a page might not be among the first search results, but it’s still getting a lot of traffic. That indicates that the above options did not correctly satisfy the user’s search, but yours did, which means that your content is good.

On the home page, you’ll have graphs showing performance, coverage, and improvements. These are three main axes on how Google perceives your website. In general terms, the first refers to clicks, how many people enter your page. The second is a bug report. The third, are suggestions from Google to fix the errors it detects.

In addition, on the left side, in the menu, there is much more. There you will find tools to explore your site thoroughly. You will be able to review the internal and external links, have reports of consultations, pages, countries, devices, appearance in mobile, dates... You can also check page by page of your site to check its performance and errors.

Google Search Console, marks each page with a different label. If all is well marked as valid. If not, there are three possibilities:

• Error: This means that the page presents a problem that cannot be viewed correctly. It may be a typical 404 error, in which the server is down.
• Valid with Warnings: In this case, we point out problems that the page has as links to non-secure pages. Once you fix these problems, Google values you higher.
• Excluded: This is a kind of limbo. It means that Google is not indexing these pages. It usually points to the reason for this.

Most of the time Google Search Console can help you solve the problems that your pages present. Although he can’t always determine exactly what’s wrong. It is almost always solved by optimizing the content, updating it, maybe it is advisable to lengthen a post a bit... It is rarely something irreparable.

How to use this data to your advantage?

Having control over your website’s performance will improve your SEO ranking. The data released by the Google Search Console helps you keep your website in good shape. Fixing what Google points to as a flaw will make you aware. Just signing up will make your site more interesting to Google. It’s like it helps you get their attention.

It is not enough to believe that we meet all the SEO requirements if we do not make a thorough review. Knowing the quality of the external links we use, of the keywords, or the server speed will help us to have a site with good SEO. This is the power of information.

Of course, knowing exactly what’s not working with your site is very helpful. It is different just to know that we do not appear in searches without knowing why, to have a problem detector to improve. But that’s not all, there’s more data that Google Search Console provides that can help us optimize SEO.

Just as it points out errors and performance, it also indicates other search questions. First: what searches your visitors are finding you with. This lets you know if your keywords are working by checking impressions. At the same time, Google Search Console can help you find keywords related to your topics.

Already using Google Search Console? What do you like most about the platform? Tell me in the comments.

If you want to learn more about SEO, keep on reading:

• SEO FAQs – All You Need To Know
• 3 Key Points To Position Your Website In Search Engines