TLDR

Google Search Console is a free service provided by Google that allows you to monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot the visibility of your website in Google Search results.

As a publisher using Google Search Console, there are several key aspects to monitor for optimal performance and visibility. Here are seven things to look for:

1. Search Performance Overview

2. Top Performing Pages

3. Search Queries

4. Index Coverage

5. Mobile Usability

6. Core Web Vitals

7. Enhancements and Rich Results

Search Performance Overview:

What to Watch Out For: Evaluate your website's overall performance in terms of clicks, impressions, click-through rate (CTR), and average position in search results. Look for patterns, increases, or decreases.

Top Performing Pages:

Find the pages with the highest numbers of clicks and impressions. Recognise the reasons behind these pages' success and use your newfound knowledge to optimise your content.

Search Queries:

Examine the search terms that people use to find your site. Identify high-performing keywords as well as those with potential for growth. Adjust your content approach based on user search behaviour.

Index Coverage:

Keep an eye on the status of your pages in Google's index. Examine the pages for problems, warnings, and exclusions. Ensure that vital pages are indexed, and address any crawlability issues.

Mobile Usability:

What to Look For: Evaluate your site's mobile usability. As Google prioritises mobile-first indexing, make sure your pages are mobile-friendly. Address any issues that may have an impact on the mobile user experience.

Core Web Vitals:

What to Look For: Pay attention to Core Web Vitals measures such as loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. These indicators are used by Google as ranking considerations, and they contribute to a great user experience.

Enhancements and Rich Results:

What to Look For: Check for enhancements and rich results, such as structured data and schema markup. Ensure that your pages are eligible for rich snippets in search results, enhancing their visibility.

Monitoring these characteristics in the Google Search Console on a regular basis keeps you updated about your website's performance, user behaviour, and places for development. It also assists you in aligning your content and technological strategy with Google's best practices and standards.

Basic Search Console usage - Read this guide to basic day-to-day Search Console usage, if you're not a full-time SEO.

Check your index coverage (how much of my site is on Google?)

Ideally, Google should have all the important canonical pages (that is, non-duplicate pages) for your site indexed. It can take some time for new pages to appear, and you can help Google find new or updated pages by publishing a sitemap or asking for a crawl. For smaller sites (a few hundred pages or fewer), or if you just want to check a page or two, simply search for a given URL on Google.

Monitor your AMP coverage on Google

Use the AMP Status report to discover how many of your AMP pages have been located and indexed, as well as any indexing issues that have arisen. Read the report's documentation to learn what to look for and how to interpret the report's findings. If a page has issues, click into the report and click the Inspect icon next to a URL in the examples table to troubleshoot that URL in the URL Inspection tool. Confirm that the AMP version is accessible by Google, indexable, and properly linked and that Google has no parsing issues.

To track your AMP traffic on Google, use the Performance reports and filter by the relevant AMP type's search appearance (or visit the Search Appearance or Discover Appearance page).

Monitor your rich result coverage

For each rich result type that Google provides for your site, Search Console will send a Rich Result report. These reports can be found in the Enhancements area of the navigation bar. If Google discovers structured data that cannot be parsed, an Unparseable Structured Data report will be generated.

Monitor your site traffic from Google

The Performance reports show your traffic on various Google platforms, including Search, Discover, and News. You will only have Discover or News versions of this report if you have sufficient data for the report.

You can filter these reports by URL, date, kind of Search result, and more. To fully comprehend the report, read the documentation.

Monitor your Core Web Vitals statistics (LCP/FID/CLS)

See site-wide statistics on the speed and responsiveness for your site, based on actual user data, for the key metrics of largest contentful paint, first input delay and Cumulative Layout Shift

Testing

The following site testing tools are available in the Search Console:

URL Inspection tool: A thorough testing tool that delivers information about a page's indexing, crawling, AMP, mobile usability, and structured data. Use this tool for advanced debugging of all types of bugs on both the live and indexed versions of this website. To utilise this tool, you must own the property.

AMP test: Check to see if the page meets the Google AMP criteria. Only works on the live page; no information about the indexed version is available. To use this tool, you do not need to own the property or be logged in.

Mobile-friendly test tool: Test whether Google considers a page to have mobile usability issues. Works on the live page only; no information about the indexed version of the page. You need not own the property or be logged in to use this tool.

Rich results test: Test whether Google is able to process rich results structured data on a page. Works on the live page only; no information about the indexed version of the page. You need not own the property or be logged in to use this tool.

Robots testing tool: Test the validity of your robots.txt file, and see if a specific URL matches any of the rules in the file. You must own the property to be able to use this tool.

Conclusion - Hocalwire CMS includes a carefully curated collection of automatically updated settings to keep up with the Google Update cycle for its search engine. As a service to our clients, we include mobile SEO implementation in our standard packages. Schedule a Demo today to learn how Hocalwire can help you transform your current codebase into a beautiful mobile experience.