How to Use Google Search Console [Video Tutorial]

 

Hey everyone, it’s Mary from SEO PowerSuite.

The all-in-one toolkit that covers every aspect of SEO.

This time let’s talk about Google Search Console.

What is Search Console?

It is a free tool from Google that helps website owners, SEO professionals and developers understand how Google views their websites and what they need to optimize to improve their visibility on search.

The tool shows how Google crawls, indexes, and serves your website.

It provides such data as mobile site performance, rich search results, the highest-traffic queries
and pages, and more.

All this can help website owners monitor and optimize Search performance.

At first sight, it may seem that Search Console contains a bunch of random search reports.
Some are useful, some could be useful if you know what you are doing, and others have no
real insights.

On the upside, Search Console pulls reliable data directly from Google and is free to use
for all website owners.

So, if you are motivated enough, and especially if you are on a budget, you can do quite a
bit of search optimization with this tool alone.

How to add your website to Google Search Console

So the first thing you should do is to add your website to Google Search Console.

Log in to Search Console or create an account, click the upper left drop-down bar, and click
Add property.

Then, enter your domain address.

You can add the entire new domain or some specific URLs depending on what you want to
Track.

Finally, you have to verify your website ownership.

If you have added a new domain, you have no other option but DNS verification.
Although the process may differ for different domain providers, Google Search Console has
provided clear instructions for any verification case.

Click the grey arrow near the Instructions for line to call the drop-down menu, choose
your provider, and follow the GSC instructions.

If you added not the whole domain but a certain URL, you have a wider choice of verification
Options:

The website verification process on Google Search Console usually goes smoothly, so you
can start auditing your website soon enough.

Still, some errors may occur.

Make sure your server responds properly and your website can be accessed.
Once you have added your website to Google Search Console, you can proceed with an SEO-audit.

How to fix indexing issues

Okay so the first thing you should check when performing any SEO audit is whether Google
can access all of the pages that you want to appear in search.

There are many reasons Google can’t access your pages, and sometimes it happens by accident.

In such cases, some of your important pages will be left without traffic, making your
SEO effort is worth nothing.

To check whether you have any indexing issues, in Google Search Console go to Index > Coverage and check the status of your website’s pages:

Pay attention to the Error and Valid with warning sections to figure out what’s wrong
with these pages and how to fix the issues.

In Search Console, the error report displays all the cases when Google hasn't managed to
index your pages because they either don’t exist or have access restrictions.

In the example you can see that the website has three types of indexing errors: Submitted
URL not found, Submitted URL marked ‘noindex’ and Redirect error.

You can click on each error to get a list of affected URLs.

From there, you can click on each URL and have it inspected by Google Search Console.
This will result in a quick report on the page’s current indexing status and possible
Problems.

Now what about the pages marked with the valid warning label?

If Google indexed your page but is not sure if it was necessary, then Search Console will
label these pages as valid with a warning.

In terms of SEO, warnings may bring you even more trouble than errors, as Google may display
the pages that you didn’t want to show.

Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt warning appears when the page is indexed by Google
despite being blocked by your robots.txt file.

How to fix this issue?

Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt: how to fix?

Decide on whether you want to block this page or not.

If you want to block it, then add the noindex tag to the page and limit access to the page
by login request Remove the page by going to Index > Removals > New request. Indexed without content means the page is indexed, but, for some reason, Google cannot
read the content, which is definitely bad for SEO.

This may happen because the page is cloaked, or the format of the page is not recognized
by Google.

To fix this issue, check the code of your page and follow Google’s tips on how to
make your website accessible for users and search engines.

I’ll leave the link to it in the description below.

A more comprehensive technical SEO audit would include checking and fixing many other issues that cannot be detected with Search Console reports.

Such issues may include broken images or videos, duplicate titles and meta descriptions, localization problems, and many others.

If you want to run a full-scale technical SEO audit of your website, then consider using
WebSite Auditor.

To run a technical SEO audit in Website Auditor, go to Site Structure > Site Audit, and the
tool will provide you with information on all the types of issues that you need to fix as well as the best practices on how to solve the problem.

Unlike with Search Console, the entire audit can be performed from a single dashboard — no
need to jump from screen to screen in search of a solution.

How to optimize user experience

When you’ve fixed indexing issues, it’s time to think about user experience and the
ways to optimize it.

Poor user experience leads to lower levels of engagement and higher bounce rates.
As user activity declines, Google may decide that your pages are becoming less relevant.
And when it happens, your positions in search start dropping.

Moreover, user experience is a ranking factor, so UX optimization is a must for your SEO
Strategy.

Luckily, Google Search Console provides us with a bunch of UX reports, so we can fix
any issues before we get in trouble.

And we will start with the Core Web Vitals report.

Ideally, Google wants all of your pages to load and become interactive in under 2.5 seconds.
You can use the report to see which of your pages can hit this benchmark successfully.

Once you open the Core Web Vitals report, Search Console will show you how many of your
pages need changes, and give you a list of discovered issues:
The algorithm for investigating all of the issues is the same: click on the issue > click
on the URL > go to PageSpeed Insights for a more detailed report and possible solutions.
There is just one small note.

Google’s page speed benchmark of 2.5 seconds is hard to reach for most websites.
In fact, the average page speed across the web is currently at 18.8 seconds.
This means you don’t have to be as fast as Google says, you just have to be slighter
faster than your competitors.

To figure out what your real benchmark is, check your competitors’ websites using PageSpeed
Insights.

I will leave the link to the tool in the description section under this video.

When it comes to mobile-usability reports, Google Search Console shows you the issues
that mobile users experience while interacting with your website.
Google Search Console briefly describes all the errors, so you can easily understand what
to fix, and how.

To get more insights, click on the issue to see the pages affected.

Then click on the URL, test your page to see all the errors, and get useful tips on how
to solve them.

Once you fix errors, click the Validate fix button to initiate validation and remove the
error from the report.

Google Search Console will usually have a number of other reports under the Enhancements
Tab.

The types of reports you see there will depend on what kind of structured data you are using
on your website.

You can see that the website we are using for this example has five types of structured
data (Breadcrumbs, FAQ, logos, products, and review snippets).

The algorithm is the same — click on the report, check out the details, and find the
right solution.

How to find underperforming keywords

Our next step is to find underperforming keywords.

Google Search Console tracks current ranking positions of your keywords.
You can use these insights to discover the keywords that are on the verge of achieving
top SERP positions and give them a little boost.

To find underperforming keywords in Search Console, go to Performance > Search results,
enable Total impressions and Average position, and scroll down to the table of queries.
Now you have to decide which positions to consider ‘underperforming’.

Some SEOs say that moving your keywords from positions 4-5 to positions 1-3 will bring
you the most benefit.

Of course, this will require comprehensive optimization of your pages due to high competition.
Others believe that moving from page two to page one is a better investment of your resources.
In this case, slightly optimizing the performance of keywords ranked 11-15 would be enough.
Set up filters to show underperforming keywords.

Click on filter > position > greater than, and set the cutoff point of either 3 or 10,
depending on your strategy.

You can also filter your keywords by impressions.

If a keyword is currently in position 5, but gets 20 impressions per month, there is little
to be gained from moving this keyword to a better position.

Click filter > impressions > greater than to eliminate keywords with very low impression
Count.

Now Search Console gives you the list of underperforming keywords with the highest potential.
Сlick a certain query and select Pages to see the pages that rank for the query.
Search Console cannot tell you what you should do to optimize the page and win better positions, but a tool like WebSite Auditor can.

Go to Content Analysis >Content Editor > Optimize existing page content, enter the URL of the
page you’re working on and its main keyword.

The tool will analyze your page against the pages of your top competitors and suggest
some ways of improving your content (optimizing content length, adding more keywords, rephrasing your headings, and creating attractive snippets).

The tool lets you edit the content of your page right in browser mode, with further possibility
to download the edited HTML file and add it to your website.

How to find underperforming snippets

Another way you can use Search Console is to figure out if some of your snippets have
lower CTR than is normal for their position.

So our next step will be finding underperforming snippets.

The thing is that each position in search results averages a certain percentage of clicks.
For example, if you rank in position one, then your click-through rate is likely to
be around 30%.

If it’s significantly below 30%, then there might be something wrong with your snippet,
and it needs urgent optimization.

First, go to advancedwebranking.com to see the CTR benchmarks for your type of SERP.
Say, if there is an ad or a featured snippet at the top of the search results page, then
they will obviously steal some of your clicks.

So the first thing to do is to check the CTR benchmarks for the SERPs you actually compete
in:
Now let’s switch to GSC.

Go to Performance > Search results, enable Average CTR, Average position, and Total impressions.

Filter impressions to eliminate low-quantity keywords, and sort the table by Position in
ascending order:

Scroll the table, paying attention to the CTRs that seem too low for their positions,
and investigate the reason.

Turn to Google and type the underperforming query.

Low click-through-rate may be the result of many factors: SERP may contain a lot of ads
or featured snippets that take most of the users’ attention and clicks, or maybe your
snippet is not as catchy as those of your competitors.

Try using structured data to turn a regular snippet into a rich one, or optimize your
title and description.

How to refresh old pages

Step 5. Refresh old pages

It’s natural for a page to lose traffic as time goes by and it becomes outdated.
To find out which pages need an update, turn to Search Console’s Search results, click
Date >Compare > Compare last 6 months to previous period.

Enable Clicks, and switch to Pages to see what pages experienced the greatest traffic
loss over the last six months.

The traffic loss may be a sign of the need for updates.
Look through the page and check if the information is still up-to-date, compare it to the competitors’ pages on the same topic, check if there are enough keywords, or maybe titles and headings require optimization.

Let’s move on.

How to audit your backlink profile

Step 6. Audit your backlink profile.

Backlinks do matter for SEO.
To check how many backlinks you have, and what websites link to you, click Links on
the left side menu of Search Console.

Then click more on the Top linked pages table in the External links section.

Sort Linking sites, and click on a line to see what domains link to your page.
The truth is that Google Search Console has too little information for you to properly
evaluate backlink quality.

There are no insights on when the backlink was created, what text is used for anchors,
and whether the backlink is dofollow or not, so the information from Search Console may hardly be used in optimizing a backlink profile.

If you want to get a high-quality backlink audit, you may use a tool like SEO SpyGlass.
The tool collects the data with its own backlink index, but connecting your Google Search Console account to SEO SpyGlass will give you a more comprehensive picture of what your backlink profile is.

Go to Backlink Profile and navigate through sections to get a good understanding of the
quality of backlinks.

See domain penalty risk to learn which backlinks should be disavowed.

Visit other tabs to diversify anchor texts, track referral traffic, and receive other
Insights.

The tool also lets you view a backlink profile of your competitors and compare it to that
of yours.

This allows you to find overlooked backlink opportunities and start an outreach campaign.
Go to Domain Comparison > enter the domains of your competitors > click Link Intersection
to see what domains link to your competitors but not yet to you.

How to find internal linking opportunities

After you finish with a backlink audit, it’s time to find internal linking opportunities.
To see which pages lack internal links, and to choose which pages require your attention
first, go to Top linked pages on the Internal links report.

Sort the links in ascending order.

Not all pages with internal links are worth additional link juice. Some are outdated, others are simply not important.

Use your own judgment to decide which pages are unfairly underlinked.

How to use Google Discover report

Another way you can use Search Console is to see if you’ve made it to Google Discover.
Google Discover is an emerging source of organic traffic, and SEOs are dying to take advantage of it.

One oddity of Google Discover is that its traffic cannot be tracked with Google Analytics.
So, if you want to check which of your pages have made it to Google Discover, you have
to use Google Search Console.

Go to Performance > Discover to view your report

What you are likely to see on the Discover report is a few spikes here and there.

That's because Discover tends to feature fresh articles on trendy topics, and those features
are quite short-lived — most pages stay up for just one to three days.

What you can do is check which of your topics got featured, spot a pattern, and add more
of these topics to your content plan.

Keep in mind that Discover is bonus traffic and it favors very specific types of content.
There is no point in obsessing over it and redesigning your entire content strategy — you
might sacrifice your main sources of traffic and end up at a net loss. Moving on.

How to check for manual actions and security issues

Step 9. Check for manual actions and security issues.

Google issues a manual action against a website in case a human reviewer determines that a
page or a website is not compliant with Google's webmaster quality guidelines.

The reasons for manual penalties may be different: your website contains spam, follows Black
Hat SEO practices, the website has unnatural backlinks, the content is thin, a page was
cloaked, and so on.

When your website receives manual penalties, some or all of your pages will be deindexed
in search.

If you experience a sudden traffic loss, the first thing to check is the Manual actions
report in Search Console.

Normally, it will look like this:
But it may also look like this, which means that you need to take actions urgently:

To investigate the issue, click on the line to see the details and take action.

Click Learn more to look at suggested steps to fix the problem.

To deal with the issue, you have to fix all the affected pages.

Partial fixing will not solve the problem.

Once you’ve fixed all the issues, click Request review, and describe what has been
Done.

A good request:

explains the exact quality issue on your website describes the steps you’ve taken to fix
the issue documents the outcome of what you’ve done Google will send you a notification when your request has been received and accepted or
Rejected.

Don’t send another request until the previous one is answered — this will not speed up
the review process.

As to security issues, they arise when your website is hacked, or could potentially harm
a user by phishing attacks or installing malware on a user’s computer.

The pages with security issues may appear in search with a warning label.
The algorithm is the same as for manual action issues.

Go to the Security issues report of Search Console, investigate the details of the issue,
fix all of them, and request a review.

How to add a sitemap of your pages

Step 10. Add a sitemap of your pages.

A sitemap is a document placed on your website to help Google navigate through the structure
of your website.

It tells Google where your pages are located and how often they should be crawled.
Sitemaps speed up the indexing process as they make it easier for Google to find the
Pages.

To add a sitemap (or several) to your website with Google Search Console, go to Sitemaps
> enter a sitemap URL > click Submit.

A sitemap file: 

must not be larger than 50 MB
must not contain more than 50,000 URLs

Note that a sitemap is not a guarantee that Google will crawl your website accordingly.
A sitemap is just a recommendation for Google, which may or may not be taken into account.

How to index new or updates pages

The last step of today’s guide sounds like this: Index new or updated pages
Forced indexing will make your page appear in search results faster than if you’d just
wait for Googlebot to find the page on its own.

So your SEO strategy will start bringing the results faster, too.

Once you update or add a page, you can ask Google to index it via Search Console.
Enter the URL into the search field of Google Search Console and click Request indexing.
Indexing may take from a few minutes to a few days.

Still, it’s faster than the organic indexing.

Over the past few years, Google Search Console has added quite a few useful features and
has grown into a fairly useful website audit tool.

It still has ways to go and falls short of commercially available SEO tools in terms
of data and convenience.

But, if you are on a budget, enough search optimization can be done using Search Console
Alone.

I hope you guys enjoyed this video and found it helpful, and if you did, give it a thumbs-up
and subscribe to our channel!

See you in the next video.Bye!