Is Google Search Console an SEO Tool

Originally published: June 11, 2023 07:51:16 AM, updated: June 11, 2023 08:08:55 AM

You may have heard of Google Search Console if you are a website owner or business owner seeking to optimize your site. You might only know the significance of Search Console if you are familiar with it.

Google offers webmasters Search Console as a free tool to assist in tracking the index health of their website. But what is the purpose of Google Search Console? Why is Google Search Console useful for SEO?

Let's investigate.

Before you understand how vital Google Search Console is for your business's long-term success and your website's functionality, it is crucial to fully comprehend what Google Search Console performs. Because of all the tools it provides to ensure that websites do well in Google searches as well as the tools it provides for them to measure their progress and analyze their traffic, Search Console is a priceless resource for marketers. In addition to the statistics and data it provides, Search Console helps webmasters resolve potential performance concerns.

What is Google Search Console used for?

Google Search Console overview report

Your website or property is briefly described in the overview report you see when you initially log into your Google Search Console account.

It's essentially a summary of the most important information about your website stored in GSC.

Metrics like manual actions, indexed pages, and more are recorded in the overview report. Additionally, by clicking on one of the provided links, you may view more detailed information like search analytics, sitemaps, and crawl errors.

URL inspection

The URL Inspection tool allows you to check whether a URL might be indexable and provides details about the version of a given page that Google has indexed. Information covers video, linked AMP, structured data, and indexing/indexability.

Performance on Search results

Important metrics about how your site performs in Google Search results are displayed in the Performance report, such as:

• View changes in your search traffic over time.
• The sources of it.
• The search terms that are most likely to direct users to your website.

Performance on Discover

The Discover performance report thoroughly tracks a site's Discover traffic across all surfaces where visitors engage with Discover, including traffic from Chrome. The information includes clicks, impressions, and average CTR.

Indexing reports

The indexing report displays the crawling and indexing status of every URL that Google has found for your website.

It enables you to maintain tabs on the indexing progress of your website and alerts you to any technical problems hindering the accurate crawling and indexing of your pages.

Regularly reviewing the indexing report will help you identify problems, comprehend them, and figure out how to fix them.

Experience reports

The Page Experience report gives an overview of how users interacted with your website. In order to determine a URL's ranking in Google Search results, Google analyzes page experience metrics for each individual URL on your website. Google Search evaluates page experiences based on three factors: Core Web Vitals, Mobile usability, and HTTPS usage.

Shopping reports

You could notice a section titled "Shopping" in the navigation bar on the side of the Search Console if Google has classified your website as an online retailer. This area offers resources and information on Google's shopping experiences for your website. Eligible websites are those with a focus on the sale of tangible products or with product-structured data. Google automatically determines a site's status.

Enhancements report

All the insights and enhancements that result in rich results can be gathered under the Enhancements report in Search Console. The Enhancements report has a list of objects, including videos and breadcrumbs. Additionally, the shopping tab contains details on the structured data associated with your product.

Security & manual actions

When a human reviewer at Google determines that a site's pages do not comply with Google's webmaster quality requirements, Google takes manual action against the site. The majority of manual procedures deal with attempts to alter search indexes.

The security issues report will provide Google's conclusions if an evaluation by Google reveals that your site was hacked or displays activity that might potentially harm a visitor or their computer.

Links report

This report shows the links from outside your property to your property (external links) and the links from your property to your property (internal links).

From the above, is Google Search Console an SEO tool? Definitely, the answer is YES!

Why is Google Search Console important for SEO?

The most effective method for sharing pertinent information between Google and SEO experts is Google Search Console.

No other SEO tool on the market can compete with it in terms of features and data for enhancing SEO performance, both technically and in terms of content.

Here is how to use the Search Console tool to enhance SEO:

• Track metrics such as traffic data, average position, click-through rate (CTR), and organic traffic.
• Monitor index coverage to ensure that Google crawlers are correctly indexing websites.
• Disavow files, and identify removals and sitemaps.
• Verify the functionality of Core Web Vitals and the page experience.
• Find and fix problems with mobile usability.
• See which security flaws and manual activities Google marked.
• Analyze important backlink data, such as internal and external links, top linking pages and domains, and anchor text distribution.

All of this enables you to monitor, pinpoint, and enhance your SEO performance.

Conclusion

You can't know where you fall short or how to raise your ranks if you don't comprehend the competitive environment. Therefore, combining Google Search Console insights with data from a third-party tool for competitor analysis, such as Ahrefs, makes sense.