SEO management, as everyone knows, is a selection of working tools that allow you to effectively carry out SEO website promotion. But don't forget that this is also painstaking work on mistakes, and you should use the main webmastering tool for this purpose - Google Search Console. If your website is not indexed by search engines, it loads too slowly, there are security issues, there is no proper optimization for mobile devices, or you have doubts about whether your online platforms are working correctly, these Google Webmaster Tools will help you identify them and find the causes.
We will tell you more about how to work with it and what it offers from the SEO point of view in our article. And we will start in order - with how to add a page to the Google Search Console since this is where the work with the resource tools begins.
How to add a resource to Google Search Console
Go to the service and click the "Try it" button. It is not easy to launch the service's analytics: you need not only to add a website to Google but also to confirm the rights to it, and you can do this through a branched tree of options.
First, you need to decide whether you want to get analytics for the entire domain, or whether you need information on a specific section or URL. In the first case, you add a name without prefixes to the left field (for example, ideadigital.agency). In the second case, you use the right field and enter the full URL (for example, http://ideadigital.agency/, https://ideadigital.agency/).
What is the difference? A domain resource will be analyzed in its entirety, with all the protocol variants that are included in it. When analyzing URLs, only the data of a specific link will be processed: when analyzing http://ideadigital.agency/, data from https://ideadigital.agency/ will not be collected, and when processing a specific link https://ideadigital.agency/ru/promo/seo-odessa/, data collection will affect only it, not other subsections.
You can choose not to be limited to one option but to use both for the same resource. After entering the domains and URLs, click the "Continue" button.
Confirm website rights via DNS
In addition to entering a link to work in the Google Webmaster Tools, you need to confirm your rights to it.
Each type of addition has its own confirmation methods. Let's start by entering the domain/subdomain. To confirm the rights to the site in Google in the next window, save the proposed TXT string. Then open the DNS configurator and paste the string into it. To do this:
- Go to your domain registrar.
- Go to your personal account.
- Go to the control panel.
- Click on "Add a record".
- Click on the TXT format from the list.
- Paste the entry into the text field.
After completing all the manipulations, return to the tab where you have the Search Console open, and click "Continue". Google will not immediately provide access to your resource's DNS (however, it warns you about this), so you may have to wait a bit.
Confirm rights for URLs
If you are planning to analyze pages in Google Search Console by URL, you will be asked to verify the rights by uploading an HTML file.
How to upload an HTML file to a website?
- Download the proposed file.
- Go to the admin panel.
- Upload it in the admin panel.
- Save the changes and don't delete the file if you are going to use Search Console reports in the future.
Besides HTML, there are other options for verifying rights. Let's list them:
- Using Google Analytics (Google account verification required).
- Confirmation via Tag Manager.
- Input by analogy with domain confirmation via DNS configuration.
Each of them can be used to successfully register your resource in the Google Search Console.
Overview of the sections that an SEO specialist should work with
After you have reported a new source for analysis, all the basic sections of the Google Webmaster menu will become available to you.
They include:
- «
- Overview": compilation of all indexing data, checking micro-markup in Google, and problems in general. This is the summary analysis that collected the main data from the following sections.
- A tool for checking URLs in the Google index (previously called "View as Googlebot").
- The Performance tab. This tab is the most valuable and helps you get all the information you need for SEO.
- The index is all the analytics collected by the search engine regarding rankings and other parameters.
- Enhancements are a section of advanced results, including mobile usability, a factor that is also important for SEOs.
- "Security issues..." is another important section. Here you can get acquainted with the Google sanctions that were applied to the resource and analyze the problems that caused the sanctions.
- Previous tools and reports: Previously, the Console had a lot of useful tools and recommendations for webmasters, and they have been partially transferred to this part of the menu. We are interested in the analysis of targeting by country and the analysis of URL parameters.
- Link menu - you will learn about all the links to your website, as well as the most used anchors for them.
Let's take a closer look at the menu and tell you how to use Google Search Console for SEO optimization.
Performance.
The informative component of the Efficiency subsection is a chart that shows the dynamics over a certain period for the following indicators:
- Number of clicks.
- The number of impressions.
- The average position.
- CTR.
Each parameter is highlighted with its own color, and by clicking on the colored label above the chart, you can toggle the corresponding graph on or off. The time interval for analysis can be set in the filter panel — now it can cover up to 16 months.
Additionally, by adding a new filter, you can perform a deeper analysis of search queries, filtering by specific parameters or locations.
The full statistics for each filter parameter are highlighted below the chart, and you can easily switch between them. Thus, thanks to the statistics from the SEO point of view, you can check
- For which key queries your site or a specific part of it is most often ranked?
- What are the dynamics of positions?
- Which pages are characterized by low CTR?
- For key queries, the website is at the end of the search results.
All this will allow you to optimize queries and highlight URLs that have a low CTR.
Material on the topic: The main performance indicators in Internet marketing
URL validation
The next option we are interested in is the URL checker, which was originally called View as Googlebot.
Just paste the link you are interested in into the field and get the result:
- If the webpage is indexed, a confirmation window will appear.
- If it is not indexed (this is not uncommon when uploading new content, for example), a message appears with the relevant information, and it immediately has a button that you can use to send an indexing request to Google Search Console.
The same tool can be used to check the indexing of the mobile version, as well as to quickly index updated content.
Coverage
In the old Heart Console, this section was called "Indexing Status". It shows data about indexing in general, and the most important thing that interests us is the red graph - an indicator of indexing errors. Click on it and you will get information about what was not indexed by Google, as well as the reasons for the error.
It is also worth looking at the orange diagram: it contains pages that have warnings but were still indexed by Google. To avoid getting into this section in the future, you should monitor the problems and fix them.
The remaining tabs are indexed pages and those that are excluded from the index (for example, due to the presence of the noindex attribute).
Sitemap files
This part of the analytical toolkit is designed to analyze the sitemap. To check the Google Sitemap, you need to enter the link to the map in the field (note that your domain is already present in the line).
After analyzing the map, you will see the "Successful" status next to the sitemap file. After that, you can click on the line and view the indexing information in the window that opens.
In essence, it duplicates the "Coverage" section, but for sitemaps.
Removal section.
This section not only analyzes but also helps to temporarily remove unwanted pages from the search engine index.
If you need to remove content, replace it, or update it, but you can't do it quickly, you can use the Console's delete option to temporarily hide it from indexing, and Google Search for your site will not show it to users. The removal period is up to six months. When submitting a takedown request, you can choose one of two options:
- Temporarily remove the link - it will not be displayed in searches, and its cached version will be deleted.
- Delete from cache - the link will be available for search queries, but its cached version and description in the snippet will be deleted.
Also in this section, you can see notifications about previously created deletion requests.
Mobile-friendly
Do you want to be sure that your website is displayed accurately on mobile devices? The Mobile Friendly will help you make sure of this.
Unlike the URL Check report, this one allows you to see the number of errors in the mobile version in general.
Moreover, these errors are listed precisely, and you can fix them based on the mobile version audit data.
Security issues and measures are taken manually.
This report is very useful to download from time to time to make sure your site has not been
- Hacked;
- Infected with viruses;
- Blocked from search results due to Google sanctions.
At the same time, it shows the measures taken manually by Google employees (blocking, deletion), for example, if they found non-compliance with their quality assurance guidelines. This is one of the reasons why your site does not appear in search, and by fixing it, you will regain the lost positions.
If your site has security issues, the report will show you this. Such sites are marked with an icon when you click on the link, and Google displays a message warning your users about the danger of clicking on the link.
Targeting by country
This section is a legacy from the old version of the Console. It allows you to set your domain's regional binding if it does not have one. Here you can also check whether your site has the hreflang language tag, which notifies the search engine of the presence of multilingual content.
References
And the last section we are interested in from the SEO point of view is "Links".
It presents 4 options for viewing:
- Report on external links to your domain page.
- Report on cross-references on your website.
- Report with the most frequent link donors.
- Report on anchors.
From an optimization point of view, you can use the first report to see which content gathers the most links on external resources. You will also see which pages need to increase the number of links, including which content can be used as donors for internal links.
Material on the topic: What is link building - why is it needed and what does it affect
Conclusion.
Google Search Console is not only a universal soldier in the service of webmastering, but also an assistant for SEO managers. With its help, you can quickly "catch fleas" and increase website indexing. A clear interface and multi-factor analysis with accurate error detection will help you quickly fix what prevents your site from being at the top. You should run it regularly because the Console collects not only data on domain and page performance, but also signals about security errors, Google penalties, and non-indexed data.
