How to Use Google Search Console: A Beginner's Guide

Google Search Console is a free tool from Google. It shows how your site appears in search, which queries bring visitors and which issues prevent some pages from being crawled or indexed. It is the foundation of any SEO tracking.

1. Add and verify your site

There are two property types:

• Domain property: it covers all versions of your domain (http, https, www, subdomains). Verification is done through a DNS record.
• URL prefix: it covers a specific address, with several verification methods (HTML file, meta tag, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager).

2. Submit your sitemap

In the "Sitemaps" menu, enter the address of your XML sitemap (for example /sitemap.xml). This helps Google discover your pages and lets you track how many were processed.

3. Read the "Performance" report

This report shows four metrics:

• Clicks: visits from Google results.
• Impressions: how many times your site appeared in results.
• CTR: click-through rate (clicks divided by impressions).
• Average position: your average ranking.

You can filter by query, page, country or device and compare periods. Data is kept for 16 months. For example, spot pages with many impressions but a low CTR: their title and description need work.

4. Check indexing

The "Page indexing" report shows which URLs are indexed and why others are not (noindex page, 404 error, crawled but not indexed, etc.). Fix the issues affecting your important pages first.

5. Use URL inspection

Paste an address in the top bar to see its status in the index, the version Google saw and any errors. After publishing or fixing a page, you can request indexing. This doesn't guarantee immediate indexing, and there is no point in resubmitting the request several times.

6. Monitor the other reports

• Core Web Vitals and Mobile usability for performance.
• Manual actions and Security issues for serious alerts.
• Links to see who links to your site.

Make a habit of checking Search Console every week: it is the most reliable way to catch a technical problem or a traffic drop early.