Google Search Console – does it sound familiar? It’s simply Google Webmaster Tools with a new name. Now is the time to get to know the preferred tool of SEO experts, a tool which also provides you with invaluable data on your website’s performance in search.Designed for beginners to advanced users, this powerful tool does a lot, including detecting errors during the reading of your pages and send you alerts by email when these errors are detected. You will also see the search keywords used by Internet users to get to your website.
Link your Google account and your website to the Search Console! Nothing’s easier, you only need to click on « Add a property » and type your website, blog, or mobile app’s URL. You will then have access to all reports and data.
Here is a list of Google Search Console’s most important reports:
1) Search Analysis Report
With this report, Google shows you how often your website appears on Google search engines. You can filter and regroup statistical data of your website by category for search request by keyword, date, equipment type (desktop, laptop, mobile) country, page or request type (image, video, web). By analyzing this data, you will be in a better position to understand your website and how to make it perform better.
The chart will indicate the number of clicks by page from your website in Google search results since last month. As well as clicks, you will have at your disposal the following data:
• Impressions: number of links to your website that are showcased in Google search results even if the Internet user has not scrolled the page to make it visible.
• CTR: number of clicks divided by number of impressions. If a data line doesn’t contain any impression, CTR is represented by a hyphen since it is a zero division.
• Position: average positioning of the best ranked result on your website. Thus, if your website is shown 3 times, in 2nd, 4th and 6th position, position #2 is the one indicated.
Clicks, impressions, position and CTR value vary depending if you decide to regroup the results per site or page. You can also filter your data for better comparison, as an example, the number of clicks from country A compared to number of clicks from country B.
2) Explore your content with the Googlebot feature
You have the ability to submit your website content to Googlebot, or web crawler, to know how Google sees your pages. Googlebot will check how it displays on various browser and equipment. All code (more often html or Javascript) is screened by Googlebot as well as linked resources (like images, CSS style sheets and other files). This process aims to optimize the look of your page and create a better interpretation of your content. It is important to check that Google and Googlebot are able to access your URL content to ensure it is properly referenced in search results. If the crawling of your URL is finished, it means that Google has been able to get in touch with your website and all is fine. On the other hand, if the crawl is only partial, you are able to click on the report to get more details on errors and correct them to optimize your web referencing in the blocked results report.– Added Benefit: Search Console will send you by email, a Googlebot errors report and as well as the statistical crawling results.
Did you know that your website crawling errors can block the display of your pages in search results? This report will give you the details to why Google cannot crawl the URL and which http errors occur.
This report includes two types of errors:
– Website level: this section shows the main errors over the last 3 months which have blocked Google access to your website.
– URL level: this section list all specific errors met during the crawling of specific pages either on a computer or mobile device.
3) External and Internal Links Reports
– External Links: These links are detected by Googlebot during the indexation of your website and it correspond to the links originating from other websites pointing to your website.
– Internal links: The right linking strategy can boost your SEO, so pay attention to this report on you website internal links. The Googlebot needs to see your site structure clearly in order to return accurate results.
4) Mobile Usability Report
Google provides a mobile optimization tool to check if a web page is responsive i.e. adapted to mobile devices. You will be able to see the page in a screenshot as if you were seeing it from a cellphone. The test results include a list of all mobile usability problems detected, including: the display screen is not properly configured or at fixed width, content size is not adapted to the display screen, typeface is too small (the user has to zoom) or the interactive elements are too close. In responsive web design, it is not recommended to create websites with Flash because it is not compatible with the majority of mobile equipment.
Need help analyzing all this data provide by Google? Amauta Marketing can do it for you and make sure that your website reflects all the best SEO practices, gets excellent results on Google search, and is highly usable so Internet users get the optimal experience with your brand.