Google Search Console and other Google tools are great to use for monitoring SEO and keeping track of users, their intent, and how to best solve user’s queries. Handling SEO can seem like a daunting task but when you break it down into pieces like this and use beneficial tools, it makes the process more manageable. These tools are valuable and can help with figuring out what kind of content users are interested in, which makes creating content and answering questions a whole lot easier. Keep reading to find out all the great ways Google Search Console can help with SEO.
What is Google Search Console?
Google Search Console is a fantastic free tool that can help oversee a website’s search performance and SEO health. Getting data straight from Google can help improve search rankings as well as user experience. Using GSC to troubleshoot performance issues so that sites can become more search-engine friendly. It is a beneficial tool for Business Owners, SEO specialists and marketers, site administrators, and web developers. Websites have a great opportunity to grow from the use of this tool because you get to see how Google truly views and assesses your site and make improvements accordingly. Google Search Console is different than Google Analytics which is another great free Google tool. Google Analytics has a greater focus on how visitors behave on a site, how they reach your site, what kind of traffic you are receiving and more data points to categorize “who”. Google Search Console tracks the site’s performance how search engines react to the site and content, and what can be done to improve in hopes of a better ranking.
How can we use Google Search Console to Improve SEO?
Find New Content Ideas
Google Search Console is a great tool that can help discover new content to create that would help gain traffic. Taking a look at the top-performing pages and seeing what achieves the most traffic and visibility you can expand on sub-topics, and link to the overarching content so users get all their information in one place. Seeing what pages and content have ranked well and what content users are drawn to make it easy for you to branch off of those topics to boost traffic. By showing content that you can expand on that is already on your page, you can edit, revise, and republish older content to freshen up your page and increase traffic. Another strategy to use is changing the content form, using or adding new pictures, videos, statistics, etc.
Improve Core Web Vitals
Core web vitals are a very important part of SEO, you’re ranking in Google search is impacted greatly by your metrics from core web vitals. The primary focus of core web vitals is to measure the user’s full experience on the website but it also checks interactivity, visual stability, and loading performance. The slower websites are the lower the ranking will be on Google. Another tool that can help with this is PageSpeed Insights, which can assist in double-checking the site’s vitals. Being able to see a report along with suggestions for improvement will help and allow you to make the necessary changes to get back on top of the Google search. Google uses the information they get from experience on the site directly in their algorithm, so then it directly affects SEO score.
Identify a New Keyword Selection
To find new keywords click on the queries report under the performance tab to see what queries have been driving in the most traffic. Make sure to check click-through rate, and average position so it’s easier to target keywords and create content based on the popular queries you already have. It can also help to try focusing on pages that have a lower ranking to try and boost them up. Seeing what category rates the best across the board, if informational topics can bring more clicks, then add more content based around informational text using those new keywords. It’s also possible to use a tool to generate new related keywords or phrases that can be added to an existing article to gain more traffic. It’s also a good idea to create a new article based on these new keywords to gain even more attention. Make sure to take a look at queries that have a higher position to use and edit those along with creating new content.
Find New Back Link Opportunities
By looking at the link reports, and looking under external links you can then look further to “Linking Sites” to create a clearer picture of what pages have the most backlinks. Backlinks provide great opportunities for getting discovered and opening the doors to new users which increases traffic and visibility. When using Google Search Console check the domains that link to the website, it will also show relevant content and after doing some research and finding viable sites, it’s a good idea to reach out to them by email. There’s also an option to open the opportunity directly to see if it’s possible to link to the site or ask if they could put one to the site you’re looking to rank for. Domains are helpful because they prove the information is valuable. After all, the content is linked by other reputable sources shows you have importance.
Compare Mobile vs. Desktop
A lot of times mobile traffic and optimization are overlooked but it is a very important part of SEO to pay attention to, especially since Google uses mobile-first indexing. Most people use their phones for searches rather than desktops, so Google started to rate sites based on mobile versions of the site. This is where Google Search Console comes in handy, take a look at its feature that shows core web vitals to see if there are any errors, and what can be improved for better mobile optimization. It will display the responsiveness, load time, rating of URLs, and more. You can also see your desktop activity and compare the reports to make it more friendly to your users. Using this tool can help to improve mobile and desktop possibilities as well as create an easy-to-navigate and responsive design so it can increase optimization and ranking opportunities.
Conclusion
Google Search Console is a great way to improve SEO and understand what needs to be fixed to improve Google ranking. Having the ability to get a closer look at what your user’s experience is truly like is a big benefit. Make sure to track the different strategies used to see what kind of effect it has. Track the dates on when these changes are applied, Google takes 10-14 days to crawl your pages so after that you can have a clear idea of the effect your changes had. Compare keyword click-through rate, mobile performance, external links, and anything else that had adjustments. Using a timeline and set of dates from before changes occurred and after changes occurred is a great way to gauge change. With Google Search Console fixing problems that occur very quickly while also improving your site is possible. Understanding how a website functions is much easier with Google Search Console which gives clear explanations, and thorough ways to fix what’s wrong.