Setting up Google Search Console

Setting up Google Search Console: step by step guide

Seppe Gadeyne

Senior web developer

If you have a website, it's essential to know how to check and improve your search performance. An important tool for this is Google Search Console. In this guide, we'll show you how to set up Google Search Console and how to use it to improve your search performance.

Contents

  1. What is Google Search Console?

  2. Setting up Google Search Console in 3 steps

    1. Sign in to Google Search Console

    2. Add your website

    3. Verify domain ownership in Google Search Console

  3. How to use Google Search Console?

  4. Conclusion

What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that allows you to check and optimize your website for search engines. With this tool, you can see which search terms people are using to find your site, how much traffic you're getting from search engines, and whether there are any technical issues with your site that are affecting your search performance.

Setting up Google Search Console in 3 steps

To use Google Search Console, you'll need to set it up first. This is an easy process and can be done in just a few steps.

Sign in to Google Search Console

Go to Google Search Console and sign in with your Google account.

Setting up Google Search Console
Sign in to Google Search Console

Add your website

Enter your website's address in the "Domain" field and click the "Continue" button. Make sure to check your website's address by visiting it. The address with or without "www" is considered a different URL. Some websites have a main address with "www", while others don't.

Setting up Google Search Console
Add your website address in Google Search Console

Verify domain ownership in Google Search Console

Verify your domain ownership by adding a DNS record. You can do this through your domain name's management site or ask your website administrator for help. Once your ownership is confirmed, you can start using Google Search Console.

Setting up Google Search Console
Verify domain ownership in Google Search Console

How to use Google Search Console?

Now that Google Search Console is set up, you can use it to check and improve your search performance. Below are some important features of the tool.

Performance

In the "Performance" section, you can see how much traffic you're getting from Google, which search terms people are using to find your site, and how many clicks you're getting for each keyword. This information can help you understand which pages are popular and which search terms you should focus on to improve your search performance.

Setting up Google Search Console
Monitor the performance of your website in Google

Pages

In the "Pages" section, you can see which pages are indexed and whether there are any technical issues with your site that may be affecting your search performance. These issues may include certain pages not being found or problems with your site's internal links. By fixing these issues, you can ensure that search engines can crawl and index your site better.

Setting up Google Search Console
Why pages aren't being indexed in Google

Sitemap

You can also add a sitemap using Google Search Console. This is a file that lists all the addresses of your website pages so that search engines can easily find and index them. By adding a sitemap, you can ensure that search engines can find your site faster and better.

Setting up Google Search Console
Managing sitemaps in Google Search Console

Conclusion

By checking Google Search Console, you can stay in control of how your website performs in search engines. You can solve problems, discover search terms, and add a sitemap for better indexing. It's a powerful SEO tool!

Frequently asked questions

FAQ

Let's dive deeper into some frequently asked questions.

How to set up Google Search Console?

To use Google Search Console, you first need to set it up. It's a simple task that you can complete in just a few steps.

  1. Go to Google Search Console and log in with your Google account.

  2. Enter your website's address in the "Domain" field and click "Continue".

  3. Confirm your domain ownership by following the provided DNS record.

Once your ownership is confirmed, you can start using Google Search Console.

What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that allows you to monitor and optimize your website for Google's search engine. With this tool, you can see which search terms people are using to find your website, how much traffic you're getting from Google, and whether there are any technical issues with your website that may be affecting your search results.