The way people get to you – in Google.

In the past known as Webmaster Tools

The tool that tracks how people find your site

Accurate, Smart, Data-Driven

How to accomplish more with Google Search Console in 3 steps

Find out which words get ‘search impressions’, and why is this important?
Now that we know which words drive impressions, what do we do next?
OK, so now we are starting to optimise your content – what are the next steps?

How they find you, with search

Why you WANT or rather NEED Google Search Console

As the name implies, this is a ‘console’ or ‘dashboard’ related to ‘search’ – it provides ‘search data’ but that’s not all.

As well as providing Organic Search Data (queries, and their volumes typed into Google) it also tells you which pages were presented, and if the searcher clicked in or not.

We like to this of this as 1 half of a double edged sword, Search Console is ‘outside the house – what is going on, what did people ask Google to find us’ – the other side is Analytics, which is ‘inside the house’

Much like Analytics, this tool ties into the source of truth – you get access to the terms that were associated with your page – when your page was present as the search result – or the answer.

LEARN MORE!

See the bigger picture

Which words get ‘search impressions’, and why is this important?

When you set up Google Search Console, what you are really doing is asking Google to provide advice on those times when it recommended you as the answer to a question. Remember we log into Google and we make a statment, or ask a question, these are called ‘queries’ – they are made up of keywords – Search console records the queries, and the pages that it recommended as an answer. It remembers how many times your page was shown as the answer, this ‘showing’ is called an ‘Impression’.

Once you start taking notice of these impressions and queries – then you can start to sculpt your content to be a better answer, or to answer a completely different question.

They advise when your site is broken*

Search Console is concerned about ‘user experience’ if the experience is broken then then the user wont like the site, and Google wont get the traffic, so Google will notify you via search console if something is broken.

Pull Search Console into Analytics

All of the Google Advertising platform tools are valuable, they all offer something unique. There are other tools on the market that do these things, but rarely are they free, and rarely are they as transparent with their reporting. Search console lets you see the backlinks that count, it lets you see where you are positioned in the internet, and what you need to change to get ahead of the curve.

Find the data worth working on.

Google Search Console offers tools and reports that are extremely helpful when reviewing stats for the following activities:

It helps to confirm that Google can both locate and crawl (and hopefully index) the pages and resources on your website.
If something is broken, it can help fix indexing problems as well as assist in submitting re-indexing requests for new or updated content.
It is the source of truth when analysing Google Search traffic data. It shows you which ‘query’ was submitted to Google – and how often your site shows up in Google Search (these are called impressions) as a response to that given ‘query’.
Following that, it also shows you which ‘queries’ resulted in clicks.
Then it provides a CTR or Click Through Rate as a result – this shows you which ‘queries’ that got ‘impressions’ resulted in a ‘click’ – but more importantly, it also shows you which page this is all related to.
GSC shows you notifications when Google comes across indexing, spam, or other black hat concerns on your website.
It will show you which are the most important sites that link to your website.
It helps with troubleshooting AMP problems, mobile usability, and other Search features.