Everyone is curious whether their blog or website is getting good reach and traffic, how many of them click your article, and the impression made. A content writer’s job is not just about writing content but also tracking how it performs in search engines. Google Search engine’s intent is to deliver apt results according to the user’s query.
Google Search Console, also known as Google Webmaster Tools, is a free platform that provides data for anyone to monitor the performance of your website to improve search rankings and optimize its organic presence.
What Does Google Search Console Do?
Being a content marketer, GSC is the tool to gauge the performance of my blogs on the website. When it comes to tracking the rankings on SERP pages, the GSC tool comes in handy. It’s not just a tool for content strategists, but anyone who has a website must know they have a hold on the tool.
Using Google Search Console is a must whether you are a business owner, SEO specialist, developer, or app creator. When I started blog writing and opened GSC, I was perplexed at the intrinsicality of the interface. It had too many features – performance, indexing, experience, and enhancements.
Let’s start from scratch on how to include your website in Google Search Console.
How to Sign in to Google Search Console?
- Make sure that you are using your business account to sign in to the tool.
- Go to Google Webmaster Tools.
- Click on Add a Property.
- Choose the Website from the drop-down menu, and enter your business website’s URL.
- Click continue.
Search Console’s Overview Page
If you look at this page, you can see the important metrics, such as performance, indexing, experience, enhancements to security and manual actions, legacy tools, and reports.
The overview gives your site’s top queries on Google search. You can monitor total web clicks in the performance. The full report will give a detailed report about the performance of the search results.
The search type has four categories – web, image, video, and news. I usually select the web because that is where the traffic comes from. If you have an image and video embedded in your blog that gets a lot of traffic, you can choose this filter to get the respective results.
You can also compare the different categories and monitor the traffic from those resources.
The date has a filter and compare tab to check for the traffic according to the dates. I always have my GSC open to check for trending keywords and to check other parameters on my website.
I usually prefer checking the performance of my website every week. And also compare the data with the previous week. You can choose from a variety of dates, compare between dates, or customize the dates for the search.
After I customize and set the search type and the date range, I click on the Apply button.
If you look at the GSC dashboard, the performance report shows four metrics. The total clicks are the count of clicks that sends the user to another page outside of Google SERP, and a user clicking a page, returning back to SERP, and again clicking on the same page is also considered a click.
Clicking on a link that stays inside the Google SERP is not considered a click.
Total impressions count how many times a user sees your website in the search results. Even if your website is placed at the bottom of the SERP, and the user hasn’t scrolled to that depth of the SERP, it is counted as impressions.
Average CTR is the value derived by dividing the total clicks by impressions. The number represents how many users clicked on your website after it was displayed in the SERP.
An average CTR of over 2% is considered a good CTR for organic search and means that your website is performing well. A CTR of less than 2% indicates that your website needs improvement to increase search results’ visits.
The average position shows the number at which it appears on the SERP page. An average position in the range of 1-10 is great, as your website appears on Page 1 of the SERP. Similarly, the websites at positions from 11-20 appear at Page 2.
You can consider pages that rank until Page 3, that is, positions 21-30. Sites with average positions above 30 indicate that it requires significant improvements. All four metrics put together project meaningful data of how your website performs in SERP.
You can use Content Gap analysis to find the keywords that rank on your competitor’s website. Analyzing it and creating content for that keyword would help you to rank in a better position.
The performance report of Google Search Console doesn’t stop with the four metrics alone. When you scroll further down, you find more detailed pieces of information.
All my blogs were keyword optimized, in the sense that I chose a keyword based on the searcher’s intent. I got a glimpse of the keywords that my website ranks. The ranking keywords are listed with the total clicks, impressions, and position.
Performance on Discover
It allows you to track the performance of your web pages on Discover, explore your property’s performance on Discover, and monitor clicks, impressions, CTR, and top pages.
Indexing
Pages- here, it gives a list of pages that are indexed and those that are not indexed. I usually select the indexed pages that display the list of pages indexed by Google.
Sitemaps
A sitemap is an SEO best practice and provides information about pages, videos, and other files on your website and the relationship between them. Google reads this file to crawl your site.
Removals
You can temporarily remove pages and outdated content and set SafeSearch filters.
Experience
The Google Search Console assists you in monitoring your traffic, resolving server errors, and securing your site. Along with maintaining and adjusting your site, it can also be used for that purpose.
Search analytics data can be accessed and backed up using the Google search console API, a free tool offered by Google.
Page Experience
Page Experience is evaluated per URL. The assessment, and the report, were developed to help sites create pages that provide a better user experience for their visitors.
Core Web Vitals
The Core Web Vitals report shows URL performance grouped by status (Poor, Need Improvement, and Good).
Mobile Usability
The Mobile Usability report shows which pages in your property have usability problems when viewed on mobile devices.
The top-level view shows all pages with more than a threshold level of mobile usability issues. Click a specific issue to see issue details, including a sample list of pages affected by that issue, information about how to fix it, and a process to notify Google about your fixes.
FAQs
1. What is Google Search Console?
Google search console is a webmaster tool that helps you to monitor your site performance. It undergoes certain tests, whether your page is indexed or not, and also analyses other factors like site traffic, clicks, impression, and which position your website in Google.
2. What is an API?
The abbreviation for API is Application Programming Interface. It is communication between the various software components. Application Programs provide structured data access without requiring user interaction through this method.
3. What is Google Search Console API?
The data and reports provided by Google are limited to the user. Only 1000 rows and 16 months of historical data are available in the search performance report. Therefore, the Google search console API allows you to extract almost all the data you wish. As a result, it can be stored and used in whatever way you like.
Final Thoughts
The Google Search Console assists you in monitoring your traffic, resolving server errors, and securing your site. As well as maintaining and adjusting your site, it can also be used for that purpose. Login to the tool using your business credentials in Google and track your improvements. It is best to track it weekly and fix the SEO where improvements are required.
