Standing out online is harder than ever.

There are nearly 2-billion websites competing for attention (and that number climbing every day), your site needs more than just great content to make its mark. That’s where a tool like Google Search Console comes in handy.

Curious how it works?

Let’s break down what Google Search Console is and how to use it effectively.

What Is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a free tool by Google that helps you monitor, maintain and troubleshoot your website’s presence on Google search results.

Essentially, Google Search Console helps you track the performance of your website by providing data and reports on:

• Whether or not Google can find and crawl your website
• Indexing or spam issues and actions needed to be taken to re-index or fix these issues
• Your website's traffic data (i.e. how often your site shows on Google Search, which search queries show on your site, how often users are clicking through your site etc.)
• Which sites are being linked to your site

Essentially, Google Search Console gives you a simple way to monitor your website's success through Google, letting you maintain and enhance it with more clarity and control. Sounds like a great tool right?

Google Search Console vs Google Analytics

So then, what is the difference between Google Search Console and Google Analytics? And which one is better? Well, let's take a closer look.

Google Analytics

Like Google Search Console, Google Analytics gives you a way to see how your website is doing from an analytical standpoint, or it deep dives into the nitty gritty numbers of your website.

Specifically, Google Analytics lets you see things like bounce rate, how long people spend on your site on average, total visits to your site, and your visitor demographics. On top of that, Google Analytics also offers Adsense and AdWords integration. All of this gives you a sense of how your site is doing numbers-wise.

All of this data can be interpreted and used to target your brand to specific demographics, increase your traffic, and find out what’s working and what’s not. However, Google Analytics doesn’t offer much in the way of in-depth analysis. It collects the numbers, but that’s where it ends.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console, on the other hand, lets you see how well your website is doing on the Google search results.

With Google Search Console, you can see things like your site’s click-through rates, HTML errors, search queries, outside-web links, and crawl errors to name just a few things. This doesn’t tell you much about who’s visiting your site and for how long like Google Analytics. Instead, it highlights how your site shows up on Google and how much prominence is put on it, making it a fantastic tool for SEO purposes.

While Google Analytics offers you solid, objective data on site visits and the like, Google Search Console offers you a totally different type of data. It gives you suggestions on how you can improve your site’s index spot, and shows off the problem areas in your site. You can take this data and use it to make the most of your SEO campaign.

In a way, you can see Google Search Console as a way to track impressions, and Google Analytics as a way to track clicks.

So which is better? Google Search Console or Google Analytics?

The answer: both.

There isn’t a “better” option here. Both tools offer specific ways to view your site’s success with usable, accurate data. And when used together, you will be able to get the full scope of your site’s success, and using both is often the best strategy forward.

Compare the metrics from both and you’ll have a full view of how your site is doing both click-wise and impression-wise. From there, you can determine the best steps to improves your site and see how those changes affect your site.

How to Use Google Search Console for SEO

Google Search Console is incredibly easy to use. Whether you're a web-novice or a trained master, you'll have no issue getting started.

Getting Started With Google Search Console

1. To start, you will need to create an account, then from the Google Search Console homepage, log into your Search Console Account.
2. Next, click on the three lines on the top left corner of the page, until you see a drop down menu and click 'Add Property'.

   

3. Enter the URL of your site into the field, click ‘Continue’. You will be asked to verify the site as your own. Make sure you enter the ‘naked’ URL, without any HTTPS:// or / at the end of it.

   

4. You have a few options for verification. You can verify using an HTML file upload, an HTML tag, a Domain name provider, or a Google Tag Manager account. Pick your preferred method, follow the directions, and gain access to the tool — click ‘Recommended method’ for the simplest method, which involves signing in with your Google Analytics account.

   

By connection, Search Console through Google Analytics, you can access both tools from the Analytics console.

Using Google Search Console for SEO

Now for the exciting part: using Google Search Console to maximize your SEO strategy.

View Your Website's Keywords

This page shows you every single keyword your site shows up under on Google Search. It shows you how many people have seen your page through these keywords, and how many clicks each is getting. You can view the popularity of your keywords in general, by specific pages on your site, between devices, and by country.

1. Once signed into your Google Search Console account, find your ‘Property’ or your website on the left hand panel. Click on the website you want to see results for.
2. Visit the ‘Performance’ tab. The highlight of this page is your keyword rankings, or “queries.” Just click “performance” and scroll down a bit to check it out.

This page is invaluable. It lets you see what keywords are working, and gives you some insight into keywords you might want to add.

View Your Website's Links

You can also check out backlinks to your site through the "Links" tab. This lets you see what other sites are linking to you, and specifically what pages they're linking. This gives you further insight into the type of content others enjoy from your site.

1. On the side panel, scroll down to 'Links'. And you can see how many links your website has - both internal, external and backlinks.

Check Your Interactions

The first thing you'll see on the "performance" page is a graph with some numbers above it.

The graph shows the performance of your site over time. Click on a point in the graph to show the total number of clicks and impressions your site got during that time. You can also see your average CTR, or click-through-rate, which is the number of clicks divided by impressions.

Clicking the graph also shows exactly which keywords attracted visitors during the given period. This is another great way to see what's working, and flex your strategy around the data.

View Your Ranking

The fourth number above the performance graph is 'Average position.' This tells you where your page shows up in Google based on a given keyword. You can filter this by page to see how specific pages rank for specific keywords.

So, if your position number reads '1,' you're ranking first on Google. The higher the number, the worse you're ranking. You can play with your keywords to try and rank higher in Google Search, and find the best keywords much easier with this tool.

Index Your Pages and Add Sitemaps

The "Coverage" page in Google Search Console shows you which pages on your site are indexed, and which aren't.

You should always check this, especially for big websites — the more pages indexed the better. If you find unindexed pages, you can index them right through Google Search Console. Just click “URL inspection,” paste the URL you want to index, Google will test it, and if there are no errors you can click “Request Indexing” to send the request.

This may take up to a few days to process and index. If there are errors, you can deal with that through Google Search Console, too.

In the “Coverage” page, click on the ‘Error’ box and then ‘Valid with warnings.’ Google Search Console gives you insight into the errors with indexing, and you can correct them from there.

Finally, you can submit a sitemap to Google Search Console to make Google crawl your site easier as you add pages. Just click the “Sitemaps” tab, enter your sitemap URL, and click “Submit.”

View Site Penalties

Google has strict quality guidelines that it uses to prioritize pages. If you break any of these guidelines, you may have a Google penalty put on your site, removing it from the index.

Under the "Security & Manual Actions" tab, click "Manual actions" to check your penalties. Search Console will tell you the specific penalty and recommend how to fix it.

Ensure Mobile Usability

By clicking the "Mobile Usability" tab, you can find any issues in your site's mobile interface. Google prioritizes indexing of mobile-friendly pages, so this is a very important page. You can see where you need to fix your mobile experience to get more clicks with this page, whether it's speeding your mobile site up or making more pages mobile friendly.

How to Identify High-Traffic Pages Using Google Search Console

Access Performance Data

Start by opening the Performance tab in Google Search Console. This section gives you a complete view of your website's search performance.

Switching to Page View

Once inside the Performance tab, switch to the Pages view. This changes the focus from search queries to individual pages, helping you assess traffic on a per-page basis.

Set an Appropriate Time Frame

Use the date filter to examine data over the past 12 months. This time frame captures seasonal trends and long-term changes, but you can adjust it to meet your analysis needs.

Monitoring CTR and Impressions in Google Search Console

Track Your CTR Regularly

• Monitor changes: Drops in CTR paired with increased impressions may suggest your site is ranking for a broader set of keywords, affecting averages.
• Optimise trends: A rise in CTR alongside declining impressions might mean you’re ranking higher for fewer queries. Ideally, both metrics should grow together for the best outcome.

Keep an Eye on Impressions

• Impressions often grow with better-optimised and expanded content.
• Targeting fewer high-converting keywords or diversifying efforts across channels can impact impression counts.

Use Key GSC Features

• Performance Report: Analyse CTR and impressions by time, pages, or queries.
• Set Alerts: Enable trend notifications to catch issues early.
• Query Insights: Identify which keywords are driving clicks and impressions, then adapt strategies to maintain visibility.

How to Use Google Search Console to Identify and Resolve AMP Errors

Navigate to the AMP Section

1. Log into your Google Search Console account.
2. In the left-hand menu, select AMP to see any AMP-related issues.

Identify Errors

1. Apply the Error filter to focus on critical issues.
2. Use the Details box to get a full breakdown of the error types and their frequency.

Prioritise Fixes

• Address errors first, starting with those affecting the most pages.
• Leave “Valid with warnings” pages for later.

Actionable Insights

• Severity & Frequency: Errors are prioritised by their impact to streamline fixes.
• Details Provided: Each error listing includes troubleshooting steps to guide your fixes.

Resolving AMP issues boosts mobile performance and improves user experience, positively influencing your search rankings.

Why Google Search Console Is a Must-Have

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