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See your Website Like a Search Engine with Google Search Console Overview
Much of how search engines work is a mystery, but you can reveal some clues about your website with the Google Search Console (GSC) tool. Start with the Overview report.
Last time, we explained how to access GSC so data will be collected, but once you have data, you’ll want to understand what it means. There’s a lot there and not all of it will be of use to you, depending on the complexity of your marketing campaigns. Every website, however, can benefit from these reports.
The Overview report is the first screen you’ll see once you log in and you can get back to it with the link at the top of the left-hand menu. The summary reports there can be confusing if you aren’t an online marketer or a website developer, so let’s briefly explain each one.
Performance
This line graph shows the number of clicks to your website as well as the dates on which those clicks were made. The total number of clicks during this time is also listed. The action that is recorded is a User clicking on a link to your website during an online search.
Why is this important?
If your business relies on web traffic through online search, you’ll want to measure how often people click to go to your website after seeing you as a search result. The goal is to increase the number of clicks over time.
Indexing
The line graph below Performance shows the same time frame but with the number of pages on your website that have or have not been indexed, as well as the days on which Google indexed those pages.
What does indexing mean?
Picture the World Wide Web with the Google search engine bots crawling across the internet, following every strand in the web. As they crawl from web page to web page, the bots note what content is on each page and store that information in Google’s index. When a User later types a term into the search field, Google reviews its index for the best matches to that request and serves up those results.
Why is this important?
Google can’t return your website as a search result if your site isn’t in their index. While there are legitimate reasons for certain web pages not to be indexed, more pages in the index means more opportunities to be found when Users search.
Experience
Providing a good User experience is Google’s main objective. In evaluating whether a website provides a good experience, Google measures several criteria. The security of your website is one standard because we all know there are bad actors on the internet. Over the last few years, websites that do not have HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) have been labeled “not secure” even if they are legitimate, which damages the User’s confidence and experience. If you still have web pages using HTTP instead of HTTPS, this report will let you know.
The Experience report also provides feedback on your Core Web Vitals. Core Web Vitals include your website’s loading performance, its responsiveness, and its visual stability, whether on desktop computers or on mobile devices. If you are seeing “Needs Improvement” or “Poor,” speak to your web tech for fixes.
Why is this important?
The more black marks against your website, the worse your rating will be in Google’s index. If Google thinks your website provides a poor User experience, the chances of your site being high in search results are slim.
Enhancements
Okay, this is really technical, but you should at least know about it. The Enhancements report records the performance of structured data on your website, what kind of structured data you have, and how many pages have structured data on them.
What is structured data?
This is a code-level enhancement to organize the information on a web page for easier indexing by Google’s bots. It makes web pages easier for humans, too.
Why is this important?
Again, the easier it is for Google to index you, the higher you will show up in search results. With good use of structured data, a website may also show up in search results along with extra information. Instead of the usual simple blue link, photos, star ratings, and other tidbits of information may show up, too.
Each of these reports open up to new screens with even more information. We will explore those next time, but if Google Search Console is reporting a problem with your website now, call us to discuss the fix.
Photo by Oleksandr P
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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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