How to Setup Search Console on Your Website
Setup Search Console Step By Step Guide
Setting up Google Search Console is very important to show your website to search engines. Google Search Console, formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools, allows you to track and maintain your website's search results performance. Using it, you will know how your site is performing in search engines and how to optimize it better. So let's see how to easily setup search console on your website.
Why use Google Search Console?
One of the biggest benefits of using Google Search Console is that it gives you detailed information about your website's search performance. You can track:
- Visitors are coming to your website with any search query or keyword.
- How many times your website has been clicked from search results.
- Performance of each of your pages.
- Technical issues such as crawling errors and mobile user issues.
Knowing all this information, you can improve your site's search engine ranking and create a better experience for visitors.
Step by Step: How to Setup Search Console
Setting up Search Console isn't too difficult. You can do it easily even if you are not tech savvy. Follow the steps below:
Step 1: Create Google Account
Setting up Google Search Console for your website requires a Google account first. If you already have a Google account, you can skip this step. To create a new account:
- Go to accounts.google.com.
- Sign up with your name, email address and password.
- Verify account with phone number.
Once the account is created, you can proceed to the next step to setup the search console.
Step 2: Enter Google Search Console
Once the Google account is created, log in to the Google Search Console:
- Go to the official website of Google Search Console: search.google.com/search-console.
- Sign in with your Google account.
Step 3: Add your website
Now you need to add your website to Search Console. That's why:
- After login click on “Start Now” button.
- You will see two options: Domain and URL prefix. If you want to track all parts of your domain (such as subdomains), choose Domain. Select URL prefix if you want to track only specific URLs.
- Type your website's domain or URL.
- Click on Continue.
Step 4: Verify the website
Google wants to confirm ownership of your website. There are different verification methods:
- HTML File Upload: Google will provide an HTML file for download. Upload it to your website hosting site.
- Add HTML tags: You can also add a meta tag to the <head> section of the website if you want.
- Google Analytics: If you already have Google Analytics setup on your website, you can verify using the same tracking code.
- Google Tag Manager: Those who use Google Tag Manager, can also do verification using it.
Follow the method which is easy for you and click on Verify button.
Step 5: Submit your sitemap
Once your website is verified, you can help Google crawl it. Submit sitemap for this. A sitemap is a list of your website's pages that helps search engines understand your site's structure.
- Go to the Sitemaps section from the left menu of the Search Console.
- Type the URL of your sitemap (usually found at yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml).
- Click on Submit.
Google can now crawl your site better.
Step 6: Explore the features of Google Search Console
Now you have successfully setup Google Search Console. Let's take a look at some of the features that will help improve your site:
- Performance Reports: You can see how many clicks on your site, how many impressions and your page's search ranking information.
- Coverage: How many pages have been indexed in Google and which pages have problems in indexing.
- Mobile Usability: Analyze how well your site performs for mobile users.
- URL Inspection Tool: You can use this tool if you want to re-crawl the new or updated pages of your website.
- Links Report: You can see the links coming from any site for your site.
- Core Web Vitals: Get detailed information about your website's loading performance and visual stability.
problem solving
Some common issues that can occur while setting up Google Search Console are:
Problem Solving
- Verification Failed: If your website fails verification, double check that you have followed the instructions correctly.
- Cannot find sitemap: Verify that it is formatted correctly and is at the correct URL.
- Crawl Errors: If Google is having trouble crawling, make sure all pages are accessible to Google.
Conclusion
Setting up Google Search Console on your website is a very important step. It gives you detailed information about your site's position in search engines and helps increase site traffic.
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