GSC or Google Search Console (once known as Google Webmaster) is a free tool that helps website owners and managers understand how they are performing on the Google Search engine. Essentially, it is a screenshot of your SEM (Search Engine Marketing) score.
To help you understand – SEM is a broader term that embodies the complete digital presence. SEO agencies London and elsewhere offer their helping hand to businesses to improve their visibility in the search results pages through this holistic concept.
Now, that is just the gist of it. There are other services that the Search Console can help you with, and these are below.
The parties that should get on with Google Search Console
Right off the bat, the parties that should familiarize themselves with the tool are business owners, SEO marketers, site administrators and web developers. If you happen to be any of these, it is about time that you jump on the bandwagon and explore the tool.
Business owners
One would like to wonder as to why a business owner should use the tool? Shouldn’t they be focused on the core competencies and strategic decisions of the business? Well, even if you – as a business owner – are not using the tool, you must be aware of it. The reason is that your business is your baby, and Google Search Console can be an excellent driver for clientele and profitability. With that said, you should be familiar with the basics of site optimization and the varied features that the tool offers.
SEO marketers
SEO marketers deal with online or internet marketing. The tool traditionally comes in handy by offering help with monitoring the website traffic, enhancing your ranking, and making well-rounded decisions about the appearance of your site on Google. But, it goes way beyond. It can play an influence on technical decisions for the website. What you can do is indulge in comprehensive marketing analysis. To help you in this endeavour, Google has other tools in store for you – Google Analytics, Google Trends, and Google Ads.
Site Administrators
As a site admin, you are in charge of the health of your website. And hence, it is integral for you to be hands-on with Google Search Console. The tool comes in handy when monitoring and even resolving server errors and site loading issues. Not only that, it is your white knight in shining armour that comes to the rescue during security issues such as hacking and malware. It also helps ensure that any changes you make, whether site maintenance or adjustments, can be concurrent to the search performance.
Web Developer
Now, this may seem a bit farfetched at first. The job of web developers is associated with developing the website – a one-off endeavour. However, given the agile and adaptive business environment, it is paramount that web developers understand the mechanics of Google Search Console. GSC helps with monitoring and resolving markup issues, including errors in structured data.
What can Google Search Console do for you?
URL Inspection
The Search Console helps with URL Inspection quite effectively. It shows how the Google search engine views your website. In simple words, the URL inspection tool allows you to test the Google platform.
Say, for instance, that you have recently published a new blog or refurbished one of your web pages, the URL inspection tool comes in handy by serving as a signal for Google to crawl through that page. The tool allows you to see when Google last crawled your site. Also, it helps dissect fluctuations in the SERPs.
Performance Report
The Search Console also reveals to you the performance of search results. What is unique is that the tool offers 16 months’ worth of data. These metrics provide an excellent snapshot of your website and content performances in the SERPs. The information is expansive and can be filtered using metrics such as job posting, rich results, AMP pages, non-rich AMP results and News. What’s more, Google also has a productivity feature. Using this, you can copy, open in a new tab, or even inspect your URL through this report.
If you own or run a website, you would know that there are multiple web pages. The Google Search Console allows you to view the top-performing pages, pages with a low click-through rate, number of clicks and impressions. These last two metrics are on a per keyword basis.
To give you an example, say one of your web pages is high on impressions and low on clicks. Now, this indicates that either the title or meta description, or even both, need work. That is not all! This performance section also allows you to take a deeper dive through keyword research.
Discover Report
The discover report comes especially in handy for publishers. It allows you to gauge how users interact with your website on Google’s mobile Discover feed and the Chrome browser. The report renders a deep dive into the types of content that are performing well. Plus, you get to assess how the content compares to traditional results. The report also incorporates data on AMP stories.
Google News
Google released this subsection in January 2021. It features under the performance area. The section tracks user behaviour on Android, iOS applications and the website. What is unique about the update is that you get to see impressions, clicks and the CTRs segmented country-wise, device-wise and date-wise.
Coverage
The coverage report displays your indexed pages. It is also the Crawl Errors report as it reveals to you the broken web pages.
Parting Words
The tool is continuously transforming and improving. This goes to show that Google Search Console will become increasingly comprehensive going ahead. Also, users need not log in daily. If Google happens to spot any new issues, these get reported to the users via email.
