How Google Search Console Can Help Your Small Business Website
After we suggested adding Google Search Console to your GA4 dashboard, we heard a lot of “What?” and “Why?” questions. So let’s take a closer look at GSC.
We talked a bit about Google Search Console a couple of months ago when we walked through setting up a Google Analytics 4 dashboard. Like GA4, GSC is a free Google tool you can use to monitor and improve your business website. Some of the reports are similar, but GSC measures and reports your website’s data a little differently and with a different goal in mind.
The big difference is that while GA4 is all about people, GSC is all about internet bots. The GA4 dashboard gives you information about your audience. You can see how many Users have visited, how much time they spent at your site, and what they looked at while they were there. GA4 can also tell you whether they came to your website through a link on an ad or through your social media posts.
The GSC provides information on your website’s performance specifically within the Google search engine. You’ll learn which links were clicked on and for how many times, whether mobile or desktop devices were used, and what the top keyword queries were that drove traffic to your website. While these reports do measure User behavior to some extent, they are mainly concerned with how Google’s search engine sorts and serves up your website's content in response to a User’s query.
So why should you care what an internet bot reports about your website? Because it seriously affects your Search Engine Optimization efforts. Your website might be awesome for human beings, but if the bots don’t serve it up appropriately in search engines, those humans may never find it. If you are putting effort and budget into SEO, you’ll want to keep an eye on your GSC dashboard to be sure all the technical aspects are covered.
We’ll talk about your website’s technical performance next time, but first, let’s look at how you access Google Search Console. You’ll need to sign in to your Google account. (Or set up a Google account if you don’t already have one.) Google has a helpful “Start Now” button on the About GSC page that will walk you through how to add a property.
One note: You need to be very specific with the URL of your website, so check to be sure you are using the right one. You might have both http:// and https:// versions of your website, or maybe the URL of the site you want to monitor is actually “blog.mywebsite.com.” These are technically all different domains, so use the URL of the version you want to follow. You can follow more than one version, if you want, but you’ll need separate accounts for each.
Next, you’ll need to verify that you have owner rights to this site and the reports. There are several ways to verify ownership such as uploading an HTML file to the site or a Google Tag Manager snippet to the code. This can be tricky if you aren’t comfortable with the back end of your website, so you might want to get your web tech to do this for you.
Once verified, you can choose who you want to have access to the reports. In addition to you as the Owner, you might choose to add a User if you have someone doing advertising or marketing for you. This is also when you can give your GA4 dashboard access to your GSC reports.
Google starts recording data immediately once you add your property and that data is available as soon as you are verified. You’ll want to start understanding the data next, but that’s a topic for another day! If you’re having trouble getting started with Google Search Console, the Sprocket team can help. Just give us a call.
Photo by Shantanu Kumar
Kate Gingold
I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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