SEO Zooms

Google Search Console

Google search console – A complete guide

The Google search console is referred to as the discussion channel between you and the Google. The webmaster will have the permission to operate the Google search console and it is an integral part of SEO. This amazing free tool provided by Google supports lots of people to design and modify their SEO strategies easily. Today we are providing a complete guide to Google search console.

How to Connect Google search console with your website?

At first login to Google search console using your Google account. Then click on the add a property button. Here you can add the website name. (Note that you should give the full website address.) Click the Add button.

In the next page, you will see 7 methods to verify your website. In this 3 of them are pretty easy.

HTML File – Download the HTML file provided by Search console and upload it to your website.

CNAME or TXT record – Add a special CNAME or TXT record to your domain settings.

HTML Meta Tag Code – Simply paste a unique HTML tag to your webpage’s <head></head> section.

After completing this process you need to click on the Verify button. If you get a green tick mark then your site is verified.

Preferred Domain

You need to decide which domain address you prefer. That means you can use either www version of your website or non-www version. The chosen version will be shown in the search results.

What will happen if you don’t set a preferred domain?

Google takes www and non-www versions as separate references and it will reduce the power of your backlinks.

You can also add redirection code to the preferred domain so that only the preferred domain will be noticed by the user.

Target Country

Google helps the webmaster to know how their website is performing in the case of optimization. For this Google needs to know where is our targeted country. Google will have some assumptions using the information that you provided on the website. Like the server location, contact address, language used etc. If you give the exact information then Google can do the work easily.

You need to click on the International Targeting link in the Search Traffic menu seen on the left-hand side. Click on the Country tab and check the Target users in the box. Then you should select which country you need to target from the drop-down. Click on the Save button to complete the procedure.

Linking Search Console With Google Analytics

While using Google Analytics we would find that we will get very small information about the keywords. Usually, it may show as not provided. But when we link it with Google search console we will get the more clear picture.

In the Google Analytics dashboard click on the ADMIN section. From there click on the Property settings. You need to click on the Adjust Search Console button. Then in the new page click on the Add link. Select your website and check the box near to it. Then click on the save button. Now the Google search console and Google analytics are linked.

Now when you go through the Queries option in the Google Analytics you can see new keywords.

Adding Sitemap To Search Console

Submitting the sitemap will help the google to crawl your website easily. A sitemap Is an XML file which contains the pages of your website with their recent update dates. So whenever a change happened to a web page then this XML file also gets updated. Google bots visiting the sitemap could find the recently changed page and crawl that pages easily.

If you are using WordPress to manage your website then you can add Yoast SEO plugin to quickly generate the sitemap. In the left-hand side section of your WordPress dashboard, you can see the General settings tab for the Yoast Plugin. And click on that tab you can see the heading XML sitemaps. There you need to click on the toggle bar to ON the sitemap. Save the changes.

At any case, if you type your websitename/sitemap.xml you can see your sitemap file. If there is no sitemap then you need to add one.

In the crawl, section select the link Sitemaps to submit the sitemap. You need to add the URL in which sitemap is visible. Click on the ADD/TEST SITEMAP button to add the sitemap.

If you are aware of the old google search console then it is time to investigate the new Google search console. Try the new search console and comment your experience here!!!

Beena