Every Tuesday I like to talk about a certain tool or piece of technology that I have been using for quite a while and either share why I use it, or the latest updates around the tool.
Google Webmaster Tool is a free web service provided by Google for Webmasters. You can use this tool to check indexing status and optimise your website visibility. You can also submit and check your sitemap, view statistics on how Google’s bots access your site, list internal and external links to your site, get a list of broken links for your site and receive notifications from Google.
Google has now rebranded their Webmaster tool as a “search console.” They have decided to rebrand so that their webmaster tool is accessible and suitable for users that care about their website searches.
Below is a video on how Google Search Console works.
This tool will help you understand how Google crawls, analyses and ranks your website. Discovering problems which might affect your ranking is crucial for understanding why you are not getting the right amount of traffic.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Verifying Ownership of Your Website
Part of using this tool, is verifying the ownership of the domain you are using. There are a few ways in which you can do this;
- Add a HTML tag to the <head> of your site
- Sign in to the domain name provider
- Use Google Analytics
- Use the Google Tag Manager account
- Upload an HTML file
Verifying with more than one of the above will give you a big thumbs up in Google’s eyes.
Search Appearance
This feature tells you how your website is ranking in search results and can be influenced by a number of different factors;
- Structured Data – This shows website errors which is downloadable.
- Data Highlighter – A great way to implement Structured Data
- HTML Improvements – Collects all errors relating to meta descriptions, titles and non-indexable content.
- Sitelinks – Used to help navigate a website.
Search Traffic
Want to know where your visitors come from? Use this feature. This includes;
- Search Analytics – Once known as Search Queries. Gives you insights into the organic traffic you are getting from Google.
- Links to Your Sites – Shows linking domains, anchor text and most-linked pages.
- Internal Links – Identify the pages that receives the most internal links
- Manual Actions – Information about Google penalties that are currently in effect.
The features of Search Console are endless. You can also track Mobile Usability, Content Keywords, Blocked Resources, manage URL’s and crawl your website for errors.
Are you using Google’s Search Console to its fullest potential?
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: Tech Tuesday: Google Rebrands Webmaster Tools with Search Console
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