Here are the irrefutable reasons your business big and small should be using Google Search Console:

 1. Improve Your Search Results

Everything in Console is geared towards getting you better organic search results. Including security, Speed, Performance, and URL inspections and Indexation. The better performing your website is the better the quality score which is one of the factors affecting your SEO and SERPS (Search Engine Results Page).

 2. Learn  How Google is Crawling and Indexing Your Website

• Googlebot aka ‘spiders’ will crawl your indexed pages your new and updated website pages. As they crawl they use internal links to find new pages. You can instruct google what to index and not index including new pages, no follow pages, and broken or outdated pages. 
• Google renders your pages with the key info and its tracked through its search index.
• Your sitemap is the most important indicator of your most important pages to be scanned and indexed b Google. If you don’t have a sitemap, you are way behind the 8-ball.
• Frequent scanning and indexing of your website improve your search results.

3. Fix Your Website Errors

From time to time your website will come up with errors. Broken links, pages, Pages not found, etc. As Google is scanning your site it will pick up these errors and penalise you in the SERPS.

Find your URL search errors and correct them asap, then send for in for a Google review.

4.  Submit Your Updated Content

Google loves updated content. They want to know that you are improving the relevance and quality of your pages. Providing new pages and updates on content will encourage spiders to crawl and index your website more often and vitally improved your quality score.

5. Monitor Your Search Performance

The Performance Report can give you an excellent overview of the best-performing aspects of your website by Queries, Pages, Countries, Devices, Search appearance (structure data aka snippets), and by date.

Choose from a multiple of filters at the top bar for specific types of content and even compare specific types of content.

Search appearance will show you any featured rich snippets like Product, Rich results, videos, etc.

6. Reports That Mean Something

Click the top right EXPORT function for a selection of reports to export for use. Expand any link, report and issue to see for a more detailed investigation, fix and then request a review.

 Overview:

This is an overview report of the most important aspects of your website health. It will give you a strong indication of where to deep dive into content, indexing and performance errors. It's a glance-over report which will expand further to the full reports on the side navigation bar.

It includes:

• Performance Report - preview of the full report below.
• Coverage - which pages on your site have been indexed and any URLs that have issues while they were being scanned.
• Enhancements  - showing your rich snippet results. If you have managed to obtain any Google support snippets results they will show here. (Error, Warning, Complete).

Performance

• An expansion upon the Performance report in the overview.

• View in-depth areas and filters including Queries, Pages, Country, Devices, Search appearance and Dates.

 Index Reports -

URL Inspection Tool

• Check if and what page has been indexed.

• Request indexing if the content has changed.

• Check for errors on the page (Google will recrawl).

Sitemaps

• Upload a new sitemap, add additional pages (up to 20,000) for big news sites.

• See submitted site maps (discovered URLs total).

• Status “success” for uploading.

• Change of address tool (site move with URL changes).

Removals

• Your report on submitted Temporary, Outdated content, and Safesearch filtering status.

• When you need to urgently remove content pages from search.

• Includes URL, Type of request, Requested date and Status.

Enhancements -

These reports show structure data (structured snippets )health in the main areas of Core Web Vitals, Mobile Usability, Breadcrumbs, Products, Sitelinks Searchbox. They list key errors and improvements. Feature snippets usually answer the searchers question right away in the snippet box and means more brand exposure in the search results.

Manual Actions and Security Issues

View if your property has any manual actions that might prevent it from appearing in Google Search and Security issues that need addressing like hacked content/malware, unwanted software, harmful downloads

Legacy Tools

Some of the older tools and reports that have been included previously that have generally been incorporated into the new Reports and Tools

Don't Forget:

Your User Settings

Make sure you have email notifications enabled. Google Console will send you periodic emails and warnings if there are vital web issues.

Links

With reports including best performing, top linking sites, and top linking text, this is one of the most underrated reports in Console. Vital to your SEO your internal/external links contribute a great deal to your quality score and SERPS. This is one of the regular reports and benchmarks you should be tracking. 

Make Sure to Check Your Settings

• Make sure you have Ownership verification completed,

• Review and revise users and permissions,

• Use the Change of Address Tool if you are redirecting to a completely new site,

• Remove a property if required (subdomains, changed domains, etc).

 You’ll have a greater depth of understanding your website and performance once you have had time to connect your Google Analytics account to your Console. It’s a fantastic tool that no marketing manager or website owner should ignore!

If your business isn’t getting the traction you think it should be and you are considering some help with SEO, Google Ads, or content marketing - then we’d love to hear from you.

Get a free assessment now