Google Search Console, formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools, is a powerful tool for webmasters and marketers to track and improve their websites’ performance in search engine results pages (SERPs). It offers various features and metrics to help you understand your website’s indexing and ranking by Google.
Now that we’ve gotten the background out of the way, let’s get into some tips on how to use Google Search Console better.
Verify and claim your website
When you start using Google Search Console for the first time, one of the things that you need to do is verify it. Verifying your site will make sure that you can access all data and functionalities of this tool. Just follow what they tell you after signing up on Search Console.
Set up email notifications
There are several issues that may happen on your site which can be notified through Google Search Console. Setting up an alert for errors or warnings by configuring email notifications would help you catch those issues faster so that they don’t negatively affect how your site appears on results page.
Monitor crawl errors
Crawl errors occur when Googlebot can’t crawl through or index certain pages on a website. This could be because of broken links or server errors which could lead to 404 error not found pages. The fix should be applied so crawl errors don’t hinder proper website indexing using the Google search console.
Use Performance Report
Using data from the indices, the Performance Report reveals how well your site performs in search results. It provides information about clicks, impressions, click-through rate (CTR), average position, and other metrics. Suggestions for enhancing visibility of sites in search results are also provided by the Performance Report.
Monitor index coverage
Index coverage shows all pages that Google has attempted to crawl and index so far. If there is any problem with these pages being indexed properly then Index Coverage report will identify it.
Submit sitemaps
To increase crawling and indexing speed of your site, you can submit sitemaps for it in Google Search Console. Sitemap is a file which lists all the URLs (pages) on your website that you want to be indexed by Google. You can use a sitemap generator tool to create a sitemap and then submit it via Google Search Console.
Use URL inspection tool
URL inspection tool will help you find out if there is any problem with indexing or other issues concerning specific URLs. URL inspection tool’s job is to provide information about index status of individual pages. For example, if you’ve recently published a page and now want to check its index status, you can do that using this feature provided by Google search console.
Monitor mobile usability
Google mostly crawls and indexes the mobile version of websites first these days because it has become really important. Your site may look great on desktop but it might be broken when someone opens it on their phone. Mobile usability report shows such faults so webmasters should definitely consider this critical report.
Google Search Console is a great tool for managing search results performance of your website. By following these tips, you’ll get the most out of Google Search Console and improve the visibility of your website in search results.
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