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5 reasons to start using Google Search Console now

5 reasons to start using Google Search Console now


Having a website is not easy. Getting your website high in the search engines is even more difficult! However, there are a lot of tools available online. In this blog I discuss the free Google Search Console tools. Google Search Console is a true goldmine for anyone with a website. But guess what? Most website owners do not know what Google Search Console is.

What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console, formerly called Google Webmaster Tools, is one of the most unknown but powerful tools you can use to prepare your website for the search engines. Through this tool, Google communicates with webmasters and, in addition to some useful settings, helps them discover problems with their website. The great thing about this tool: it's free and super simple. So get started!

5 things you can arrange right away in Google Search Console

You can arrange many things in the Search Console. Some things are easier than others. Here I discuss 5 things you can get started with right away.

Manage Sitelinks

Have you ever wondered where those little links below your main search result come from? These are so-called sitelinks. The good news is you can manage these links. The bad news is that at the moment you can only “demote” links, or put them down (veto). At the moment you cannot add links yourself - Google checks which results are most relevant to visitors. However, if there are pages that you would rather not see, you can send Google a signal that these pages are not that interesting for visitors.

Upload your sitemap

You have done your best to make your website as clear as possible and build as clean as possible. But unfortunately, Google isn't perfect either, so the bots won't always understand where to find something. Help the Google bots find the information you provide by adding your sitemap.

A sitemap is simply an organized list of all the pages of a website that helps search engine bots better understand how to crawl your website. The sitemap may also contain metadata about the pages, such as when it was last changed or how important the page is relative to other pages.

A small website in which all pages are internally linked is easy to search for Google. But large websites with pages that are not directly linked together are too unclear. Adding a sitemap can certainly help your search results in this case. A sitemap is certainly not an unnecessary luxury for new websites that do not yet have external links.

The location of your audience

Are you already doing business across the border? Then your website can probably be found in several languages. If you have local domains, such as .au or .uk, Google will immediately understand which region or language you are connected to. But if you have a generic domain such as .com, .org or as is popular nowadays .io, then it is important to take some extra steps. For example, if you have a generic domain name, you can enter this in Search Console.

For example, if you serve several countries in 1 language, this is not recommended. It is then important to set up your website properly, for example by means of Hreflang tags. With these tags you explain to Google for which language, country or region this page is intended.

The image above shows that no hreflang tags have been added to the pages of the website yet. If this is the case, the total is shown here, how many pages per tag and whether errors were found on the pages.

Crawl frequency

Are you someone who often updates their website, for example by updating your blog? Then of course you also hope that Google often comes by to see what's new! From some websites it seems like Google comes by every day, no matter what you search for, they are always at the top with new content. It probably is! Unfortunately, you cannot tell Google how often the bots should come by - this is determined by algorithms. If it happens that your site becomes slow because the bots crawl too often and too many pages, you can submit a request to crawl less often.

Links to your website

Have you always been looking for a tool that really tells you exactly where and how many backlinks you have managed to create to your website? Why not just ask the search engine master himself - Google! In Search Console you can see how many links there are to your site, where they come from and what your most successful content is.

Finally

Google Search Console cannot create extra backlinks, cannot get you to page 1 in Google within a week and certainly cannot make your website function better. However, this tool can help you take the first steps and put the finishing touches. Take the time to add your websites and see what data you come across. There is a good chance that you will encounter things that you did not know before. Good luck!

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