How to set up a Google Search Console

Google Search Console is one of the most powerful SEO tools that you can ever find. And it’s very important because it majors in helping you monitor, manage and optimize your website’s organic search visibility. Google search console can be used to view clicks and impressions.

So I need to show you how to set up a Google Search Console.

This is a very cool tool and it has a lot more to offer:

• It helps you search queries that drive traffic.
• Gives you ways of ranking your page.
• Identifies and leverage hyperlinks to boost link juice.
• It adds a webpage that has a list of your content.
• Detects errors that need to be fixed.
• Ensures eligibility for rich excerpts.
• It makes your site friendlier to mobile users.
• Monitors your Core Web Vitals.
• It shows if your site has been hacked or tampered with.

How To Get Started

To get started with Search Console is easy and free. And there’s a lot of ways to set up your Google search console depending on what works for you.

Google already provides a guide on ways of setting up your Search Console and how to verify your site. To be honest, it’s kind of boring, wordy, and not eye-friendly. So I’m going to give you a very user-friendly guide.

You can trust me, this is the only guide that’ll give you a better understanding of how to set up Google Search Console in the right way.

The fun fact about setting up a Google Search Console is that it’s free! That’s amazing and you know it. So make the most of this software.

Setting up a Google Search Console Account

1. The very first step in setting up a search Console is to sign in to Search Console with your Google account.

Your Google account is very important for this method to work as you set up your Search Console. You don’t have to worry about opening a Google account, it’s free. However, if you already have a Google Analytics, Adwords, or Gmail account, you can use the same for logging in, instead of opening another account.

2. Fill in your Website’s Domain (or URL-Prefix) to add a Property.

Immediately after you’ve signed up, you have the liberty to add a property name through your domain.

When you set up your Search Console through the “Domain” option, it automatically sets up your account as a domain-level property. This means that you’re creating just a single property that consists of all subdomains and protocol prefixes related to your domain. Or better still, this option links Google Search Console to all areas of your site.

3. Verify Your Website

To work with Google Search Console and start collecting data, you need to verify that you are the owner of your site. The verification process varies and it depends on which option you select in the previous step.

Move to the instructions that ask for either Verification for a Domain Property or Verification for a URL prefix Property.

Verification for Your Domain Property

The only way to verify your domain-level property is through your DNS provider (domain name system provider).

Look for your DNS provider (the company you pay to use your domain or hosting company), in the list of choices for selecting a DNS provider to verify a website. This will show a detailed set of instructions significant to your provider.

Using this method, you will have to work with either your developer or DNS provider. In case your provider is not near, you can just leave it as “Any DNS service provider.” You can contact your hosting company and ask for help if necessary.

The next is to hit the “Copy” button to copy the TXT record given to you by Google. After copying your TXT record, open your domain registrar’s site in a new tab entirely. Then log into the account you have with them.

Go through the list of domains you have and choose the one you wish to configure. This can be located in different places, and this depends on your provider’s site. Look for any mention of “DNS” and click on it.

After this, you’ll be taken to a Domain Management screen where you’ll find a list of DNS records. Then choose “Add” to create a new one.

Once you’ve added your TXT record, return to the Google Search Console setup, and click on “Verify.”

You will definitely get a message when the process is successful.

Verifying for a URL-prefix Property

You might not have access to your registrar/hosting or may not want to go through the DNS record stress! You can always set up Google Search Console using a URL prefix property. This provides various alternatives for verification.

It is highly recommended to go through an HTML file.

To use this method, you need to have access to your server, either through FTP or a cPanel File Manager. If either of these is not known to you, don’t attempt to verify through this method.

But if you are very familiar and comfortable working with your site’s server, you can follow through with this process for verification.

• Download the Google provided file. You can do this by clicking the download box displayed.
• Access the main directory (aka public HTML) of your site.
• Upload the Google provided file.
• Return to the Search Console, and select “Verify”

You’re Connected

Once you’re done setting up, Google Search Console isn’t that exciting at first. You’ll have to wait for about a week before any notable data pops up. Notwithstanding, there’s something you can do immediately which is submitting an XML sitemap. This allows Google to search content on your site and point it out more quickly.

Once you’ve finished verifying, the next step is to submit your sitemap to Google Search Console.

Steps To Find Your Sitemap

• Go to the dashboard for your website
• Click on SEO in your left column list
• Click on Features
• Scroll down to SML Sitemaps
• Click on the ? and a list will appear
• Click on ‘See the XML Sitemap’
• Copy the last portion of the URL – sitemap_index.xml
• Open your new Google Search Console
• Look down the left side list for Sitemaps, click
• Look for ‘Add a New Sitemap’ Paste what you copied without the /. 
• Click on Submit and you’re done.

You will need to do this about once a month as you add new content, so keep this guide handy until it becomes automatic.

Submitting your XML sitemap is very important for ranking in SEO. So you definitely want to make sure you’ve done it correctly.

Conclusion

In your Google Search Console, Google can notice the submitted URLs immediately, and after few days your URLs will be mostly crawled and arranged so that you can see how many visitors you are getting and to which content. The graph will show you how your website content is ranking, how many clicks you are getting within your content etc.

You can even click on URL inspection in the left-hand side column and paste in a URL from a blog on your website and check if it has been indexed yet.

After this, your business will automatically be listed in Google search results.

If this has helped you in your research, I would love you to leave a comment, or a like and share.

Thanks for visiting.

LILY