So, you have launched your website; but it’s now been weeks or even months since you built your site, and the traffic to your website is still not increasing or getting any better; your conversions and online goals are stagnant, and it’s even hard to find your business when you search for it on Google.
Maybe you have even used some paid ads to try and lure potential clients to your site, but you just cannot afford to continue pouring money into ads and not getting the results you seek.
Maybe you are starting to even doubt the viability of your online business model; wondering if you have what it takes to thrive on the online space.
Maybe you have tried looking for all the things you’ve been doing wrong; but still to no avail.
Well, you don’t have to give in or give up on your dream of having a thriving online business or brand; and you don’t have to spend a fortune to find out what’s wrong with your site or why it’s not performing as you expect. Just “GSC that site”.
GSC? What is that? How can it help me? Why should I care? And How do I set it up?
Google Search Console; that’s what GSC stands for. It is one of the best go-to tools for troubleshooting your website issues.
According to Google; “Google Search Console is a web service by Google, provided free of charge for webmasters, which allows them to check indexing status and optimize visibility of their websites”.
GSC is a collection of tools and resources to help website owners, SEO professionals, site administrators, web marketers, and web developers monitor website performance in the Google search index.
It is a great tool in providing an in-depth analysis of your website’s technical issues, your site’s crawlability by google bots, sites linking to your website, and the web traffic being routed to your site; and it’s free. With GSC, you can also see how often your site appears in Google Search, which queries show your site, and how often searchers click through for those queries.
In other words, if your website represents your brand’s presence online, then GSC can be used to help identify problems and boosts your sites traffic, conversions, and sales.
So, why is this all important to me?
Well, from the above, it should already be clear why you need to use Google Search Console.
Truth is, nobody wants to have something wrong on their website, but sometimes you might not realize there’s a problem unless you are made aware of it or someone tells you about it. Instead of waiting for someone to tell you about a problem, Google Search Console can immediately notify you of any errors, that it finds on your site.
GSC is directly linked to your site ranking on Google’s search result pages; but it can also help you detect issues about your site which you might otherwise be able to detect.
If your site is downgraded in Google’s rankings, or even completely blocked, instead of panicking because you don’t know exactly what the problem is, Search Console can provide you with information directly.
For example:
- Crawl errors, if Google bots are no longer able to crawl your website
- Malware issues on your website that may have been introduced by hackers
- Spam actions by Google against your website, because it may have suspicious backlinks.
Also, of interest are the details of the indexed pages of your website. It’s possible to submit a sitemap, which helps Google better understand your website and in turn helps you rank better.
So, how do I set up GSC?
Go to Google Search Console and log in. Once you have successfully logged in, click the “Add A Property” button at the top of the page. Enter the URL of your website, then click continue. Next, you’ll be asked to verify that you own the website.
Once you’re set up, you have to wait about a week before any useful data shows up, however, something you can do straight away is submit an XML sitemap. This helps Google to find content on your site and index it more quickly.
Alternatively; for better insights into Search Console and for more effective optimization of your site you can Contact Us.
Article Author : Tshepo Maloa
