Search Console, formerly Google Webmaster Tool, is the Google free tool for those who want to monitor their website, check any problems and solve them in order to better positioning the website in the search engine.
HOW TO LOG IN
Just enter your Google account, or create it if you do not already have one.
Once logged in, a welcome message will appear followed by the invitation to enter the URL address of the website or, as called by Google, the Property.
Afterwards, Google will ask you to upload an html code within your website in order to verify the ownership. Even this step is simple and Google will guide the user through the entire process.
WHAT IS IT FOR?
Once the ownership has been verified, you can finally have access to the Dashboard.
Unlike other SEO tools, Google Search Console does not allow you to analyse the competition. However, it offers a series of useful indications to improve the indexing of the website.
- Scan errors: to keep in mind when you make any changes to the structure of the URLs of the website. Not finding the old address, Google reports an error and you could lose positions within the SERP;
- Research analysis: it is the most interesting tool from a SEO point of view because it allows you to see the research carried out by the users before entering the website. More in detail, it allows you to analyse: user clicks in relation to their search, impressions, CTR and the position in which the website appears in the SERP based on specific queries;
- Sitelinks: these are links generated automatically by Google. Through this function it is possible to make back those links that could be displayed in the search results of the website;
- Links that refer to the site: Google is inclined to reward those pages and those sites that are cited through external links. This is a useful function because it allows you to see which and how many sites refer to yours;
- Keywords for the network of contents: it is a summary of the most frequent keywords on the website. For each of these, Google suggests which keywords are most relevant to the website contents. It is therefore an excellent tool to know for which keywords the website is indexed;
- Manual actions: as stated in the Search Console guide, "Google issues a manual action against a site when its reviewer has determined that the site pages do not comply with Google webmaster quality standards". It is therefore important to constantly monitor this area to avoid receiving penalties;
- Sitemap: it is one of the most important actions, namely the creation of an xml file thanks to which the URL of the main resource and of the web pages is communicated to Google.
Other useful indications offered by Google Search Console: research aspect, search traffic, usability on mobile devices, Google index, scanning errors and many other useful functions to optimize the website.
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