There is a plethora of paid tools and software that can help with your SEO strategy, each with its merits. However, there is a free tool that is often overlooked or not given the credit it deserves.
That tool is Google Search Console, which offers several excellent features to enhance your SEO efforts by providing insight into how Google views your website.
Google Search Console isn’t just one tool but a collection of tools that provide information related to search traffic, crawling data, and search engine appearance. You may have heard of it under its previous names, Google Webmaster Central or Google Webmaster Tools.
To start using Google Search Console, you’ll need to complete a few steps, such as opening a Google account if you don’t already have one and verifying your website. Verification can be done in several ways, including using SEO plugins like RankMath.
You’ll also need to configure settings, such as whether your website should display with or without “www,” how often Google should crawl your site, and adding additional users if others work on your website.
Once set up, you can begin using Google Search Console’s reporting features and leverage the insights to adjust your SEO strategy accordingly.
Here are some of those features:
Search Analytics
This feature shows the keywords Google ranks your website for and how highly it ranks for those keywords. It provides vital information about which keywords are performing well and which ones need further optimisation to climb higher in search engine results.
Many website owners are often surprised when they discover how Google views their keywords. Some assume they have optimised for specific keywords, only to find out otherwise. This data allows you to make informed changes to pages, content, and linking strategies to improve SEO performance.
Crawling Speeds
The speed at which your website loads is a critical ranking factor for Google. Slow loading times can result in lower rankings, while faster speeds can improve them. Google Search Console’s crawling stats provide data on how quickly Google’s crawlers can download pages, measured in milliseconds.
This data allows you to monitor your website’s performance over time and identify issues affecting speed, such as large image files or resource-heavy plugins. Addressing these issues can help improve your rankings.
Fetch as Google
Google doesn’t crawl every website daily or even monthly. High-traffic news sites may get crawled hourly, but smaller local businesses might only be crawled every couple of months.
If you’ve made updates to your website, you don’t have to wait for the next scheduled crawl to see the impact. Google Search Console allows you to request a crawl on demand. While there’s a monthly limit to how often you can use this feature, it’s invaluable for getting new content and SEO changes noticed more quickly.
Additional Features
Other valuable tools in Google Search Console include:
- Link Audits: Monitor both internal and external links.
- Sitemap Submission: Submit your sitemap to help Google index your website more effectively.
- Crawling Error Reports: Identify pages that Google is unable to crawl, allowing you to address issues promptly.
