People make more than 3 billion Google searches each day. Google Search Console — which used to be known as the less-catchy Google Webmaster Tools — can help you monitor how, where, when and why your small business factors into those 3 billion daily searches.
Are you using this tool yet? If not, you should be. Here’s why.
It’s Free and (Relatively) Easy
You could pay someone to monitor your site’s traffic, keywords, usability and plenty of other “tech-y” stuff. But why, when Search Console is absolutely free?
It’s also pretty easy to set up. Just sign in, enter and verify your website and you’re ready to start reaping the rewards of the tool.
It’s a Direct Line to Google Itself
Have you ever wished you could pick up the phone and call Google to get some answers? Now you can — kind of.
Google Search Console takes you behind the scenes and shows you feedback direct from Google itself. If someone tries to hack your site, Search Console will tell you. If you’re neck deep in 404 errors, Search Console will alert you. If you’ve crossed the line or broken a rule, resulting in a virtual slap on the hand, you’ll find out about those manual penalties in Search Console.
It Serves as a Roadmap for Crawlers
Crawlers are good little virtual bots who dash through the internet at amazing speeds, giving us the information we’re searching for and maintaining an index that’s more than 100,000,000 gigabytes in size. Eventually, they’ll find you and index you — but Search Console allows you to speed them along by submitting a sitemap that guides them straight to the information you most want indexed.
Is there information you don’t want indexed? You can let your friendly bots know by inserting robots.txt files. This tells them to steer clear of these parts of your site, and while it’s not 100% guaranteed that they’ll listen (some of them are sneakier than others), it’s better than nothing!
It Shows You How People Find You
When people search for your small business, how do they find it? What specific keywords are they using? Search Console can tell you. For instance, if most of your customers are finding you by searching for “soda” but your main keyword is “pop,” you can reconstruct your marketing tactics with that information in mind.
It Integrates With Google Analytics
While many small business owners aren’t too familiar with Search Console, nearly everyone knows about (and uses) to track their web traffic. It’s not an either/or proposition — for the best results, they should be used in tandem.
Google Analytics focuses more on the “who” of your site — who is visiting, where they’re coming from, and what they’re doing once they get there. Search Console focuses more on the “what” — the internal things like how your site is performing, potential malware and hacking, mobile usability and more. Integrating the tools allows you to see the big picture while still keeping an eye on the small details.
It’s time for your small business to give Search Console a try. There’s no such thing as too much information, and Search Console tells you everything you need to know about your website!
Ready to implement Search Console? Mischa Communications is happy to help! Get in touch today and we’ll uncover the secrets of your website together.