Checking Your Website Health with Google Search Console
When it comes to managing the status of your website, Google Search Console (formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools) is one of the most useful resources available. Like a routine check-up at the doctor’s, Google Search Console is a diagnostic tool for making sure your website is running well. In addition to offering insight on how to enhance your performance, it’s a great place to look if you start noticing various website aches and pains.
What Does Google Search Console Do?
Google Search Console is a free tool offered by Google that allows you to take a variety of steps toward improving your website’s functionality and visibility in search engines, such as:
- Checking your site’s health for potential issues that Google has detected.
- Evaluating your organic search traffic and learning how users are finding your site.
- Addressing any current security issues or Google Manual Actions.
- Making optimizations to help Google better understand and represent your site.
How Is Google Search Console Used for SEO?
A primary goal of any SEO campaign is to get to the top of Google for keywords relevant to your business. Google Search Console is an important component of this quest, as it essentially tells you how Google sees your website and will consequently present it in search results. The GSC dashboard gives robust insight into the pages of your website that are being indexed, pages having problems being crawled, who is linking to your website, the most popular keywords on your site, and more.
These reports are incredibly detailed and offer a wealth of information that you can use to enhance the core elements of your site. The health of your website will directly impact your Google rankings, and having access to these details will help drive informed decisions about the SEO strategies needed for success.
Who Is Monitoring Your Site’s Google Search Console?
Chances are, if you are paying for SEO services, your webmaster has added and verified your site with Google Search Console. But as a site owner, how can you tell if your GSC is being monitored? What are the processes in place to ensure that detected errors are corrected? Is the data being analyzed to gain insight into new ways to optimize your website’s performance?
If you are a current Rosemont Media customer, schedule a meeting with your rep to review the health of your website. Considering becoming a customer? Contact us to have your data evaluated and let us help you maximize your online exposure.
Editor’s note: The original version of this post was published on September 5, 2013.