Setting Up Search Console the First Time

What it is for

It reports what Google actually did with your site: which pages it found, which it indexed, which searches showed them, and what problems it encountered.

That is information available nowhere else, and it is free.

It is not analytics. It tells you what happened in search results, before somebody arrives, whereas analytics tells you what happened after.

The two answer different questions and most small businesses have the second and not the first, which is the wrong way round for anybody trying to be found.

Verifying that you own the site

The one step that stops people, and there are several routes.

Through your domain, by adding a record at your registrar. This covers every version of the address at once and is the best option if you can reach your DNS settings.

Through your platform, where many site builders have a field for this or a direct connection.

By uploading a file to your server, if you have access.

Through a tag in the page head, which most platforms allow.

Any of them works. The domain method is worth the extra effort because it avoids the common problem of verifying one version of your address and not the others.

The address version problem

Worth understanding at setup rather than discovering later.

A site can be reachable with and without www, and over secure and insecure connections, which is four possible addresses.

Verifying only one means the reports cover only that one, and if most of your traffic arrives at another, the data will look wrong.

Domain verification covers all of them together, which is why it is recommended.

If you verify a single version instead, make sure it is the one your site actually uses, and check that the others redirect to it.

The first three things to look at

1. Coverage, to see how many pages are indexed and what was excluded.
2. Performance, to see which searches showed your pages.
3. Any messages, which flag problems needing attention.

The first will usually contain a surprise, either pages you did not know were excluded or a total far lower than the number of pages you have.

The second is where the genuinely useful information lives, and the query list is worth reading through properly rather than glancing at once.

A worked example

A business that set it up after four years of running a site without it.

Coverage reported forty-one pages, of which nineteen were indexed.

Of the excluded twenty-two, eleven were duplicates created by a plugin, six were orphans, three were correctly excluded, and two were blocked by a setting nobody knew about.

None of that was visible from outside, and all of it had been costing visibility for years.

The performance report showed the site appearing for a phrase the owner had never considered, which became the subject of a new page.

Fifteen minutes of setup produced a work list that occupied a fortnight and materially improved the site.

What not to worry about at first

The interface contains a great deal that a small business does not need.

Structured data reports, which matter for specific content types and can be ignored initially.

Most of the enhancement reports, which relate to features you may not use.

Manual actions, which is worth checking once and will almost certainly be empty.

And the removals tool, which is for urgent situations rather than routine tidying.

Coverage and performance answer nearly every question a small business is likely to have, and the rest can be learned later if a need ever arises.

The counter-case

Where this is not a priority.

A business with no website, or one that exists purely as a placeholder with no intention of being found through search.

A business whose work arrives entirely by referral and tender, where search visibility is not part of the plan.

Even then, setting it up costs fifteen minutes and produces alerts about problems, which is worth having whether or not you look at the reports.

A site quietly compromised or accidentally blocked will show up here well before it shows up anywhere else you would happen to notice.

Adding other people

A practical detail worth getting right at setup.

If somebody else maintains your site, they should have access, and it should be granted to them rather than achieved by sharing your account.

Verify ownership yourself, then add them as a user, so that access can be removed when the relationship ends.

A business whose Search Console access belongs entirely to a former supplier has the same problem as one whose domain does, and it is avoided the same way.

Do the same for anybody in the business who should see the reports, since it is a read-only view for most purposes.

Connecting it to analytics

A step worth taking once both are set up, and it is a single setting.

Linking the two lets you see search queries alongside what people did after arriving, in one place.

Which answers a question neither tool can answer alone: whether the searches bringing people in are the ones producing enquiries.

A term with many visits and no enquiries is attracting the wrong people, which is useful to know before writing more pages aimed at it.

The link is made from within either tool, requires access to both, and takes about two minutes.

Other search engines

Worth a mention, since Google is not the only one with a tool like this.

Bing offers an equivalent, and it will frequently import your Google setup rather than requiring the verification again.

For most Canadian small businesses the traffic from it is a small fraction of the total, which is why it is a footnote rather than a priority.

It costs about five minutes if you are already set up elsewhere, and the reports occasionally surface a problem the other did not.

Do the main one properly first, and add the second only when the first is being used regularly.

A monthly routine

Fifteen minutes, once a month, is enough for most small businesses.

Check for messages. Look at coverage for anything newly excluded. Read the performance report against the previous period. Note anything unexpected in the query list.

That is the whole routine, and it catches most problems within weeks rather than years.

The alternative, which is checking nothing until something is obviously wrong, is exactly how a site ends up with twenty-two excluded pages that nobody knew about.

What the coverage report is telling you is covered in a page that Google has never seen.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.