A Complete Guide to the Google Search Console (GSC)

What is GSC?

Google Search Console is a free platform provided by Google to SEO experts or web experts to observe traffic and maintain their site performance. It allows SEO teams to monitor the impressions on their website and troubleshoot the presence of their website on Google Search Result Pages. According to Google suggestions, it is a useful platform for business owners, web developers, SEO experts, IT or website administrators, or anyone with a website to monitor. It also provides insight about how Google perceives the website and optimizes its visibility in search engines.

Some Technical Jargon of the Google Search Console

GSC is a technical tool; beginners may require some training or a few learning sessions to use the Google search console. There are tons of graphs, tabs, labels, and filters that might be confusing for beginners; this guide will help you get through them. Let’s get familiar with some technical terms and how they can be useful

Impressions

Impression is defined as the number of times your website has appeared in Google search engine result pages (SERP) when a relevant query or keyword is searched by the user. If your website page appears in search results and the user doesn’t click on it, it will still be counted as an impression. Impressions are important for determining the visibility of the webpage of your website in SEPRs.

Click

Click is defined as how many times users have clicked on the link to the webpage of your website after viewing it in Google search engine result pages. Once a user has clicked on the link to a web page, it is counted as one click. Now suppose what happens if a user clicks a link of a page, hits a back button, then clicks the very same link again. Would it be counted as two clicks? No, it still counts as one click. If the user chooses to click a different link after they hit the back button, that’s two clicks. Clicks are important because they give insight about how much traffic can website capture from SERPs.

Click Through Rate (CTR)

Click through rate is defined as the ratio of clicks to impressions on a web page of a website. To calculate the CTR, simply divide the clicks by impressions and multiply the answer by 100. A higher CTR suggests that your website is engaging and your listings are relevant. A lower CTR suggests that your website is less engaging, and you need to improve the listing of your website. For example, if your web page shows up in 40 searches and generates 20 clicks, your CTR will be 50%.

Average Position:

Average position is defined as the position your website achieved averagely in response to a specific keyword or query run by a user. IT can also be defined as the average ranking of your website in SEPRs.A lower average position means your website is ranking higher in Google search results for different keywords and queries.A higher average position means your website is ranking lower in Google search results for different keywords and queries. 

All the above-mentioned metrics can help webmasters and SEO experts improve their SEO strategies and identify how to get on Google search result pages. 

Filters in the Google Search Console

Once you understand some basic technical terminologies used in the Google search console, let’s now have a look at the basic filters to get you familiar with them:

Search Type Filter

A search type filter allows you to analyze your data based on different types depending on the niche of your business and from where your website gets most of its traffic. There are four search types: filter web, images, videos and news. Refer to the below image.

You can also compare two different types of data. Go to the Compare tab shown in the above image and choose the two types you want to compare. 

Device Filter

The Google search engine provides the option to filter the data on the basis of devices preferred by your audience. You can analyze the performance of your website across different devices by using this filter. Use the comparison tab to see comparisons between two devices. There are three types of devices listed on this filter i.e. tablet, desktop and mobile. Refer to the image below:

Page Filter

You can filter your data by web pages too. If you want to filter the data of a certain URL, you can use this filter. You can analyze the top-performing web pages of your website, compare the performance between pages of your website, etc..

Country Filter

The Google search console allows you to filter data on the basis of geographical locations. You can use this filter to filter data based on different countries. This is also useful for identifying the region that best suits your business.

Search Appearance Filter

A search appearance filter gives you data insights specific to different types of search result formats or features. Some examples are Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), Rich Snippets, etc.

Date Filter 

You can use predefined filters of the Google Search Console date range, such as Last 7 days, Last 28 days, Last 3 months, Last 6 months, Last 12 months, Last 16 months, or Full range. You can also customize date filters according to your requirements by choosing the start and end dates of your own choice. Refer to the below image.

Some features in GSC also allow you to compare data between two date ranges. For example, you can compare the last 7 days with previous 7 days

Query Filter

A query filter is important if you want to search for keywords or queries that rank your website higher. You can find out the keyword people use to land on your website. You can customize your queries as per your requirements.

How to Index the Website on Google

Registering the website with Google is important for website owners because it permits search engines to crawl through the website, analyze it and pages and index them. Let’s first understand what indexing is.

What is Indexing

Indexing is the process which is used by search engines to analyze the content of your website. Search engines collect the information from your website, analyze it, and store the information as an index. It index a website to understand the purpose of business and what value it provides to its targeted audience. Search engines analyze the content of the website and index it, so that it can appear in relevant searches. Indexing is the reason websites appear on Google search result pages when a user searches for a relevant keyword. 

To Index your Website on Google

Indexing your website on Google simply means Google crawlers are able to discover our website, crawl through it, and index your web pages. To improve your chances of getting your website indexed and visible on Google Search Engine by following the steps below

Step 1: Setup Google Search Console for your Website

Let’s see how you can set up a console for your website.

1. Login to your Google account.
2. Go to the Google Webmaster Tools.
3. Click on Add a Property.
4. Choose a website from the dropdown; now enter the exact URL of your website; it is better to copy it from the browser bar.
5. If your website supports both https:// and http://, do not forget to add both as separate websites.
6. Click on Continue.
7. Choose a way to verify your website (domain name provider, HTML tags, etc.). 

Once you have registered your website with Google successfully, you can now set your preferred domain, which can be www or without www. To set a preferred domain, go to Settings in GSC.

Step 2: Site Map

Although sitemap is not a compulsory document, it is highly recommended to submit one to make it easier for Google to understand your website structure, crawl through site pages, and index them. To generate a sitemap you can use content management systems, like WordPress, that use plugins to automatically generate sitemaps. Once you have a sitemap ready, submit it to Google.

Step 3: Ensure Crawling and Accessibility

Make sure your website is available and accessible to Google crawlers. Ensure that there are no crawl issues or errors that may prevent Google from accessing your website. You can use GSC tools that pick out crawl errors. Also, check for any blockers that may be blocking your web pages from appearing in search engines.

Step 4: Optimize your Website

Use SEO practices to optimize your website. Google search engines rank optimized websites only. Some techniques for search engine optimization are to add relevant content, images, and videos; use meta tags, headers, and title tags; and make sure your website has a low bounce rate. Focus on website responsiveness for different devices, especially mobile-friendly ones.

Step 5: Promote your Website

Promote your website on different social media platforms. Also, share the link to your website on other credible and reputable sites to create backlinks. You can also invest in paid promotion to improve impressions, clicks, CTR, and engagement on your website. More organic traffic engages with your website, the higher the chance of getting ranked on the Google search engine.

Step 6: Analyze your Website Data

Continuously monitor the performance of your website and use data analysis tools to analyze your traffic. Improve regularly as per Google standards. Check the indexing status of your site and any errors that can affect its visibility. 

Conclusion

The Google search console offers a wide range of features to analyze the traffic to the website. It helps businesses create visibility on search engines, optimize their websites, monitor their site performance, and much more. The correct usage of this service can do wonders for your business. It not only boosts sales for businesses but also provides insights to SEO experts and webmasters on how they can get high rankings in search engine result pages. From index coverage to performance reports, from user engagement to indexing your website The Google search console helps its users determine how their websites are viewed by search engine algorithms. Business owners, SEO experts, content strategists, webmasters, and web developers must learn how to effectively use GSC to maximize their profits and the visibility of their businesses.