You know you’ve made it when your website appears in the top 5 results for a search query on Google. If you haven’t yet, then you’re probably wondering how to get there.
Many variables determine where your website ranks in Google’s SERP (Search Engine Results Page). It takes time and patience, but there are some things you can do today to start improving your rankings.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a never-ending job that requires tools, patience, and, most of all, consistency. It’s important to remember that SEO takes time and consistent effort to work, but the end goal is worth it.
Below, we’ll show you how to use Google Search Console properly so you can improve your website’s SEO and increase visitors.
What is Google Search Console?
Google Search Console is a useful—and, best of all—free tool developed by Google that allows website owners to understand how Google views their website. While all of Google Search Console’s capabilities are impressive, knowing how to employ them to improve your SEO, and, ultimately, website traffic is where the key to using Search Console effectively lies.
Google Search Console is provided by Google and it allows you to check and fix the appearance of your website in current search results. If you have ever used Google Webmaster Tools, know that Google Search Console is the replacement.
You don’t need to create an account with Search Console to appear in Google Search results. But you should create a Search Console account to help you understand and improve how Google analyzes your website. It can be used to check for and fix technical issues, generate sitemaps, view backlinks, and more.
How to Get Started with Google Search Console
Signing Up
Visit the Google Search Console, and click the “Start Now” blue button. Then, when prompted, choose the Google account you want to use to administer your website, type in your domain name, and prove ownership of your website as directed on the screen.
Add Your Sitemap
If you’re ready to add a sitemap, here’s how to do it, step-by-step:
1. Locate your website’s sitemap: Try searching Google for “site:example.com filetype:xml” or “site:example.com inurl:sitemap” or you can try visiting www.example.com/sitemap.xml.
2. Select your website from the sidebar: It’s critical to remember that you must pick the property for the precise domain in which you want to submit a sitemap and that you must select the edition of your website accessible to visitors.
3. Select ‘Sitemaps’ on the left-hand side: You’ll find the ‘Sitemaps’ option under the’ Index’ category.
4. If any previously submitted sitemaps are still present, remove them: To access this setting, click on the three stacked dots in the top right corner.
5. Add your sitemap URL under “Add a new sitemap” and submit: If you saved the sitemap file on the domain that matches your Search Console property, simply replace the domain with the last part of the URL instead of the domain.
6. Google will confirm that the sitemap is discoverable and readable: This process may have a waiting period, so keep that in mind.
You’ll be able to see if and when a sitemap has previously been submitted, when Googlebot last read your site, and how many URLs were discovered in your sitemap. Keep in mind that discovering does not mean your site has been indexed or crawled. It may take several days for this process to complete; we further discuss this below.
This is a great way to make sure Google and other search engines have found your website. The submission process will teach you some vital information about where the search engines are looking for content on-page, which can help improve rankings in future searches!
5 Tips to Use Google Search Console to Improve Your Ranking
Think of Google Search Console as your one-stop shop for all of the search data on any website you have.
You can see how many times your web pages show in search results, the number of people who click through to your pages, and where they rank on search results when someone searches for any keyword that your site is ranking for.
This insight will help you identify which keywords are driving search traffic so that when it comes time to optimize your website, the areas of concern are clear.
The strategies below will help you optimize your content through the process of improving your search ranking in a data-driven, research-based way and with an outcomes-focus so that you will be able to build an optimized website with ease.
Tip 1: Identify what is working
Your first step when using Google Search Console is to identify your ‘sure bet’ pages—what is currently working? In other words, identify the pages on your site that receive the most clicks from visitors.
These pages are receiving the most Google traffic, so it will pay off to funnel internal links, or backlinks, from your high-interest pages to those not receiving as much traffic.
When using internal links, link to pages that are relevant to your readers and offer more information than the initial page. Internal links that dive deeper into a subject or provide further detail on your brand, product, or services will help ensure that your website’s visitors receive more significant value.
Make sure all reporting boxes in Google Search Console are selected so you can quickly identify these so-called ‘sure bet’ pages to link to. You will want to ensure that Average CTR, Total Clicks, Average Position, and Total Impressions are included.
Tip 2: Improve your lower-ranking pages
While you can get loads of information from your ‘safe-bet’ pages, you can also gain insight from your pages that aren’t performing as well.
The last column of the Google Search Console report is the page position. By sorting with this column, you’ll be able to find out which pages on your site appear on the second and third pages of search results. These pages receive a significant number of views but few clicks. Improving the content on these pages is crucial if eventually you want them to rank higher. Because few people are looking at pages that rank below page three of search results, focus your energy on the pages that are ranking on pages two and three but don’t go beyond this.
Tip 3: Look at your impressions
To discover those pages on your site that appear the most in search results but aren’t necessarily driving the most traffic, you will want to sort your Google Search Console report by impressions.
It’s possible that you haven’t optimized your title and description to persuade your visitors to choose your site over those of your competitors if your page is ranking poorly in search results but performs well for keywords that are frequently searched.
The reason for this is that Google searches display page titles and descriptions, which is what searchers see first. The descriptions are called meta descriptions and detail the contents of your website to convince a searcher to choose your website.
The maximum number of characters allowed by Google is 160, which you may use to provide a solid incentive to visit the webpage. Your meta description should display a clear call to action, address a pain point, or offer visitors something useful.
Take a look at the top results for the same keywords that caused your page to appear in search results and see what titles and descriptions appear on the first page. Use these to inform your own compelling meta content.
Tip 4: Re-index with a URL Inspection
Google is constantly crawling web pages to add them to their index, but this is time-consuming. In 2016, Google discovered 13 trillion websites, so you may be waiting a while for your ranking to improve, even if you make changes to your existing pages. There is a way, however, to accelerate this process.
Use Google Search Console’s “URL Inspection” option to submit the URL of the page you’ve modified to speed things up. Then, select “Request Indexing,” which will prompt Google to reindex your pages within a few hours—rather than the typical waiting period of days or weeks.
Tip 5: Look at your “Core web vitals”
Checking your “Core web vitals” will provide you with desktop and mobile reports that flag pages on your website as problematic for visitors due to sluggish page loading times, large pictures, and more.
Google does not like sluggish web pages and websites, as they take a long time to load on user devices and reflect poorly on them as a search engine. A slow site may jeopardize your position in the SERPs.
Google is always testing websites to determine that they pass their speed requirements. Websites that do not pass this check will suffer in search rankings. Check both desktop and mobile reports for any failures to ensure this doesn’t happen to your website.
Final Thoughts
If you are not already using Google Search Console, make sure to set it up immediately. It is essential for any website looking to increase the ranking of its pages in search results and provide a wealth of information that will help your SEO campaign improve your site’s performance on SERPs.
The number one position in Google receives 43.32% of all clicks, while the number six position receives 10%. This means that if you are not in one of the top five positions, your website is likely missing out on a large chunk of potential traffic.
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