Google Search Console (previously Google Webmaster Tools) is a free tool that allows anyone with a website to track how Google sees its site and improve its organic ranking. For this, we should add our website to Google Search Console. This involves looking at your referring domains, mobile site performance, rich search results, and the queries and pages with the most traffic.

We are the best SEO agency in Chennai. Anyone with a website, on the other hand, may and should dip their toes in these waters. Whether you’re a business owner, SEO specialist, marketer, site administrator, web developer, or app maker, Google Search Console will be useful, according to Google.

The first time I opened GSC, I was completely overwhelmed. I couldn’t figure out a lot of the labels (index coverage?!), hidden filters, and perplexing graphics. Naturally, the more I used it, the clearer it got.

But, if you’d rather bypass the learning curve (and who wouldn’t?); I’m going to share all I’ve learned about using Google Search Console like a pro.

Steps to Add your Website to Google Search Console

1. Go to your Google account and sign in. If it’s a company website, be sure you’re using your business (not personal) account.

2. Go to Google Webmaster Tools and fill out the form.

3. Select “Add a property” from the drop-down menu.

4. Select “Website” from the drop-down menu and type in your website’s URL. Make sure you type the URL exactly as it appears in the browser bar.

5. Select “Continue” from the drop-down menu.

6. Decide how you’ll prove you own your website (HTML file upload, domain name provider, HTML tag, GA tracking code, or GTM container snippet).

7. Add both http:// and https:// as different sites if your site supports both. Each domain must also be added (for example, thehavro.com, blog.thehavro.com, and www.thehavro.com).

Verifying Your Site on GSC

Because GSC gives you access to sensitive data about a site or app’s performance (as well as control over how Google crawls that site or app!), you must first authenticate that you own that site or app.

Control over a specific property is granted to a specific user through verification. Each GSC property must have at least one confirmed owner.

It’s also worth noting that authenticating your property has no bearing on its PageRank or how well it performs in Google searches. Of course, you can utilize GSC data to plan how to improve your ranks, but simply adding your website to GSC will not improve your rankings.

GSC Verification Methods

1. Upload an HTML file for verification to a specific area on your website.

2. Domain registrar: Log in to your domain registrar (such as GoDaddy, eNom, or networksolutions.com) and use GSC to authenticate your site, or add a DNS TXT or CNAME record.

3. HTML tag: Add a tag to a chunk of HTML code on a given page.

4. Google Analytics tracking code: Copy the Google Analytics tracking code from your website. (To use this option, you must have “edit” permission in GA.)

5. Container snippet code for Google Tag Manager: Copy the GTM container snippet code for your website.

Google-hosted sites, such as Blogger and Sites pages, are checked automatically.

GSC Users, Owners, and Permissions

There are two types of GSC roles. I know you’re eager to get to the good stuff (cough, data), but it’s critical that you get this correctly.

1. Owner: In GSC, an owner has complete ownership over their properties. They have the ability to add and remove other users, modify settings, view all data, and utilize all tools. The property verification process has been completed by a verified owner, and a delegated owner has been added by a verified one. (Delegated owners have the ability to add other delegated owners.)

2. User: A user has access to all data and can do various operations, but they are unable to add new users. Full users have access to the majority of data and can take some actions, whereas restricted users can just observe the majority of data.

Consider who should be granted which permissions. Giving everyone complete control might be harmful; you don’t want someone to modify a critical setting by accident. Give your team members as much authority as they require, but no more.

Our technical SEO manager Victor Pan, for example, is a recognized owner at Havro. Because I’m an SEO content strategist, I use GSC frequently but don’t need to modify any settings, so I’m a delegated owner. Full users are members of our blogging team who use GSC to assess blog and post-performance.

A third position is that of an associate. A Google Analytics property can be linked to a Search Console account, allowing you to see GSC data in GA reports. GA reports are also available in two sections of Google Search Console: links to your site and Sitelinks.

A GA property can only be linked to one GSC site and the other way around. If you own the GA property, you can use these methods to link it to the GSC site.

The steps for adding and removing owners and users in Search Console are detailed below.

Do You Need a Sitemap?

To appear in Google search results, you don’t need a sitemap. Google claims that most of your pages will be found by its web crawlers if your site is properly ordered (i.e., pages are logically connected to one another).

However, there are four instances where a sitemap will help your site’s crawl-ability:

1. it’s quite large. The greater the number of pages you have, the more likely Google-bot is to overlook any modifications or additions.

2. There are a lot of “isolated” pages. A web crawler has a harder time finding a page with few inbound links from other pages.

3. it’s brand new. Because newer sites have fewer backlinks (links from other websites), they are harder to find.

4. It incorporates rich media elements and/or appears in Google News. In these circumstances, your sitemap aids Google in formatting and displaying your site in search results.

Submit your sitemap using the GSC sitemaps tool once you’ve completed it.

Report on GSC Sitemaps

Your sitemap will display in the Sitemaps report once Google has processed and indexed it. You can see how many URLs Google has crawled as well as the last time your sitemap was visited.

GSC Dimensions and Metrics

Before utilizing GSC, you need to be aware of a few terminologies.

What is a Google Search Console query, and how do I use it?

This is a Google SERP search word that resulted in impressions of your web page. Search Console is the only place where you can obtain query data, not Google Analytics.

What exactly is an impression?

An impression is created every time a link URL appears in a search result. For the impression to count, the user does not need to scroll down to see your search result.

What’s a click?

When a user selects a link that redirects them away from Google Search, it counts as one click. If a user clicks a link, then backs up and clicks the same link again, it counts as one click. If they subsequently click another link, that’s a total of two clicks.

It is not counted as a click when a user clicks a link within Google Search that launches a new inquiry.

This also excludes Google AdWords results.

What’s average position?

This is the average ranking of your page(s) for a query or query. Assume that our SEO tool guide is rated #2 in the category of “SEO software” and #4 in the category of “keyword tools.” The average position of this URL is 3. (Assuming we were only ranking for one thing).