Google Search Console: what it tells you about your website

If Google Business Profile is how Google sees your shop, Google Search Console is how Google sees your website. It's a free tool, made by Google, that shows how your site appears in search results and warns you when something is wrong.

Every business website should have it set up. Most owners never need to open it more than once a month.

What Search Console shows you

1. The searches that find you

The Performance report lists the actual words people typed into Google before your site appeared, how many times it appeared, and how many people clicked. This is gold: it shows you the keywords customers really use.

Four numbers to know:

• Impressions: how many times your site appeared in results
• Clicks: how many people clicked through
• CTR (click-through rate): clicks divided by impressions
• Position: your average position in results

2. Which pages Google has included

The Pages report (also called indexing) shows which pages Google has added to its search library and which it hasn't, with the reason. A page that isn't indexed can't appear in search at all.

3. Problems that need fixing

Search Console emails you when it spots trouble: pages that don't work on phones, pages that can't be reached, security issues or problems with your structured data. These are the technical SEO issues that are otherwise invisible.

4. Your sitemap

You can submit your sitemap, the list of all your pages, so Google finds new pages quickly.

5. Links to your site

It shows which other websites link to yours. See what backlinks are.

Search Console vs Google Analytics

They answer different questions:

• Search Console: what happens *before* someone visits, in Google's search results
• Google Analytics: what visitors do *on* your site once they arrive

Both are useful. Search Console is the one that tells you about being found.

Setting it up

1. Sign in to Search Console with the business's Google account.
2. Add your website. The Domain option covers every version of your address at once.
3. Prove you own it, usually by adding a small record to your domain settings.
4. Submit your sitemap.

If someone else built your website, ask them to set it up under your account, so you keep access.

A simple monthly routine

1. Check for any new warning emails
2. Look at Performance: are impressions and clicks growing?
3. Note the top searches. Are they what you expected?
4. Check that important new pages are indexed

Getting help

We set up Search Console for every website we build and check it as part of our SEO service and maintenance plans. If you're not sure whether yours is set up, that's one of the first things we look at.