Google search console is a platform which provides complete analytical report of a web pages, performance, speed issues, add other types of site related data. It divides complete analysis into several different parts so that the owner can have a bird’s eye view of each part of the site or blog. The reports can also be downloaded to keep a record of the data and for further analysis.
Adding a domain name
It’s super easy to add your domain name to Google search console. Once you are logged in into the GSC with your Gmail account, it will automatically ask to add a property name. There you will find two alternatives.
On the left side you will see an option which allows you to add your domain just by typing the site name (domain name only). On the right side you will see the second option which allows you to add your sites URL with HTTPS: //domain name.
Further you will be asked to verify your site. You can select whichever option you want.
A user can also add multiple websites to Google search console account by using the same process.
Once you have added your site is ready and showing initial data you can start analyzing its performance.
To check the ownership, you can go to the settings tab where you will see all the details on the right panel e.g. owner name, date of addition. You will also see remove property option where you can delete the domain permanently.
Be careful while you are deleting or changing any details. Once you delete a property in Google search console you won’t be able to restore it and all the data will be gone permanently.
How to analyze Google search console
The console provides a very comprehensive statistics of a website, which takes a little time to get accustomed to. You will see graphs tables and listings which will tell you what is happening in your website.
Here are some important factors that you must focus on
Performance
The performance tab looks like this.
It displays the number of clicks and impressions and other important factors such as CTR. It gives you the graphical view of the data collected from Google search results.
Under the performance tab you will see two which are type of search and date format. By clicking on search type, you can select web media or any other option to see the relevant report. You can also play around with date formats to see the data of your site for a selected period which can be from a single day to months or even a year. You can also customize the date option.
When you Scroll down in the same performance panel, you’ll see few more options related to queries and page URL.
In the query section you can find keywords and query phrases, for which your website is appearing in the search results. You will also see clicks and impressions related to any individual query and page. You can also see the countries and locations where your website’ pages show up against different queries.
In the device tab you can see which device type people are using for searching their queries.
By studying all these areas one can easily get a total understanding of site performance.
URL Check
Here one can check the status of URL’s whether they are indexed or not. If any URL is indexed on Google and working fine, their status will be shown as following with “URL is not on Google”. To request indexing of the non-indexed pages you can click on the request indexing option on the right-hand side. If everything is alright, then Google takes a few hours to index the page.
And if there is any error or the pages are not indexed due to any reason it will be shown with “URL is on Google” with additional information like last crawl time, site map, and referring pages.
Pages
This is a very important section of Google search console where you will see all the Indexed and non-index pages. The pages with errors might be due to one of the following reasons. The data also shows the number of pages associated with any error.
- Excluded by non-index tag
- Page redirect
- 404
- Crawled not indexed.
- Discovered currently not indexed.
Most of the errors are caused by faulty plugins, SEO errors, improper images. You need to check all these errors one by one and remove them as soon as possible to get rid of them. Once you have checked and made sure that all these errors have been dealt with, then you can also go for validation, or Google will automatically remove those errors after some time.
Sitemap
Sitemap is a crucial and very interesting part of Google search console. This is where you can submit your site map and see the status of pages, posts, and categories. It keeps track of all URL’s and updates Google about the latest pages and the structure of your website.
To submit a site map for the first time, go to add a new sitemap. And follow below instructions. Once your site map is approved, you will see the status as ‘success’. It may take some time for the crawlers to go through all pages depending upon the size of the website.
Core Web Vital
Web vitals include some important factors related to page loading, image optimization and website structure.
There are three main aspects of core vitals namely LCP FID CLS. LCP defines how quickly a web page loads. FID explains the response time of a website against the user interaction. CLS defines complete shifting time that contents of any page take, especially images and other blocks.
By studying and resolving call web vital issues one can improve the site performance and its structure. That will further improve the ranking of the website on Serp. With improved performance the website will also drive more organic traffic.
