Feeling lost when it comes to your website's performance on Google? You're not alone! Many small business owners wonder how to get their website seen by more potential customers.
Google Search Console (GSC) is free and full of tools and reports that help you measure your site's search traffic and performance. It can also identify technical issues, and in Google's own words, "make your site shine in Google Search results".
In this guide, we explore how to get setup with Google Search Console, and show you a few of the important tools and reports to measure your performance and address any technical issues.
How to Get Started with Google Search Console?
Since you are reading this then I'll assume that you have a website already, and that website will have a domain. When you access Google Search Console for the first time you will need to connect your domain.
If possible, I would recommend using the 'Domain' property type over 'URL prefix' so that you get all the information for your domain rather than by subdomain, protocol or URL path.
Once you have entered your domain name (e.g. example.co.nz) into the input field and clicked 'continue' you will be brought to a popup to verify domain ownership via DNS record.
There are four steps to follow which will allow you to verify domain ownership.
Select Record Type.
Leave this as the recommended 'TXT', if possible.
Sign in to your domain name provider.
In this example the domain name provider is Rocketspark but you may use GoDaddy, CrazyDomains or some other provider.
Copy the TXT record into the DNS configuration for your domain.
Press Verify
Note: Depending on your provider DNS records may not update for 24 hours or more so if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
If you need help setting up your Google Search Console, we offer a low-cost setup service for this and Google Analytics. Contact us today, and we can support you.
Performance Reports in GSC
Being able to see your website's performance in Google is great especially if you have been working on improving your SEO. In the performance tab, you will be able to see four key metrics: Clicks, Impressions, Click-through-rate (CTR), and Position.
In the example below you will see the performance tab for a very popular website. At the top you see a total or average for these metrics which you will be able to click on to toggle on or off in the graph to see the trend for that metric over time.
At the bottom, you can choose between different dimensions such as queries, countries or devices. These dimensions enable you to see if there are specific areas where you are getting more or less clicks, impressions etc.
The 4 Key Metrics in Google Search Console
A 'Click' refers to when your website has been opened from a search engine results page (SERP).
'Impressions' are counted when your website is an option on a SERP but may or may not have been clicked.
'Click-through-rate' (CTR) is the percentage of impressions that become clicks. An average CTR of 2 - 5 % is considered good, if you are seeing higher than 5% that is great!
'Position' refers to the ranking position of your website in a SERP. Having an average position of less than 10 will mean you'll appear on the first page.
For Clicks, Impression and CTR the higher the number for these metrics the better, but for a high Position you will want a low number with the target being 1, or first on the SERP.
Understanding your GSC Performance Reports
When you investigate the metrics from your performance report further you will get good insights into what queries (a.k.a. keywords) and pages are performing well and which need some work.
When looking at your results you ideally want to see High Clicks and High Impressions but you may see one of these following scenarios.
Scenario 1: High Position, Low Clicks
This is often a symptom of a poor title tag and meta description. You are being seen in the search results but your webpages content might be great but it is not eye-catching enough to become a click in the search results page.
Just think about a kid in a candy store, they're not going for the candy in boring cardboard packaging, they will almost certainly go for the candy with the in-your-face packaging with bright colours and crazy characters.
So, updating your title tags and meta descriptions to be more appealing for the searcher to click on will make the most of your high position in the SERP.
Scenario 2: High Impressions, Low Clicks
Having high impressions is generally a good thing as it shows that the search engine sees you as having some authority on that topic but you may still see that you are not getting many clicks.
This may be because you are ranking poorly, a position lower than 10 will rarely get clicked on. One way to move higher up the rankings is to improve your content to match the user's search intent better, try looking at the top ranking pages for that search query to see if you have missed something that they have.
Another reason may be because the higher ranking pages have more backlinks than you. Getting more backlinks can be challenging but you can build links in many ways, including guest posting, collaborations (e.g., webinars, podcasts), or appearing in local business directories and paid advertorials.
Also, in these first two scenarios you may also be affected by the rise of zero-click searches with featured snippets and AI overviews answering the users question without them needing to click on any website at all.
Scenario 3: Low Impressions, High Clicks
Having a high click-through-rate (CTR) is always good to see when looking at your performance results. In this scenario when you see a high CTR but on queries with low impressions it is likely a branded or long-tail keyword.
These niche keywords are an important part of any SEO strategy because if you can get a stronghold on many of these low impression queries you can see an overall high total number of clicks.
Scenario 4: Low Impressions, Low Clicks, Low Position
This is the scenario where most new websites find themselves. It is a tough situation to be in but through improving your site's contents with more relevant keywords, building backlinks to improve your site's authority, and addressing technical issues on your website you will start to see these numbers increase over time.
The next few sections will show you how to identify some of the technical issues causing you to not show up in search results.
URL Inspection
This tool enables you to check a URL for a page to see if it has any issues with being indexed by Google. Here you can also request an indexing for the page if you have made any changes.
Try testing one of your URLs to see if it is indexed or not.
Uploading a sitemap.xml
Google or any other search engine will take some time to crawl your website or new webpage once it has been launched but one way to help this process along is to submit your sitemap.xml to Google Search Console.
In Google Search Console, if you navigate to the sitemaps tab under indexing you will be able to upload your sitemap. You will be prompted at the top to enter your website's sitemap URL.
If you are using a website builder you will likely have a sitemap created for you already. It can normally be found at your domain followed by /sitemap.xml (e.g. www.robbie.kiwi/sitemap.xml ← check out mine) but check with your website hosting service for the exact location. Otherwise, you will need to create your own, doing this through an XML sitemaps generator is what I would recommend, if this is the case.
Links
If you have been working on your SEO, you may have been trying to build links whether internal or external. Under the link tab, you will be able to see what links you have and how many.
This is great for validation of any backlink build exercises you have done.
At Robbie.kiwi, we include the setup of Google Search Console, and we'll take care of submitting your sitemap as soon as your website is launched.
Conclusion
Hopefully now that you understand the importance of the monitoring that Google Search Engine does, and how to understand the information it does collect on your websites search performance, you will be feeling a little more comfortable in the digital maze when it comes to your website's performance.
Now it's your turn! Log in to your Search Console account and start exploring the different tools and reports. If you feel overwhelmed or want an expert to help you get the most out of your SEO efforts, feel free to contact us for a personalised consultation.
