Google's Search Console, formerly known as Webmaster Tools, is an great free addition to your website toolbox when it comes to your web marketing. Search Console tools and data let you see how much traffic and how well your site is doing in Google Search. The tools also help you fix problems to help your site stand out in search results.
For today, we will focus on the essential features of the tool.
In summary (if you want to skip the breakdown below): Search Console is a great free tool you should check periodically to ensure your initiatives are performing, especially the Performance section. Those who aren't confident with technology should focus on the Performance section to monitor the overall health of your website. The other sections can get technical and some remedies reported within will be technical, it can become overwhelming for the non-technical person.
Overview.
The overview provides a quick snapshot of the number of clicks your website has received in Google's search results. A lack of clicks indicates something isn't working, either you are being displayed too far down in the results or your messaging is not resonating.
Performance.
The Performance tab provides you details about total impressions, clicks, CTR (click through rate) and average position in Google's search results. CTR is most important here, a low CTR (less than 3%) means you are being displayed in search results but people are not clicking or you are too far down in the results. Average position is important, the higher the position, the more eyes you will get on your content. You should see a cascading effect, as your position improves so should your CTR, if your CTR does not it is a red flag.
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Sitemaps.
In our opinion, a must, and for every client we support an automated feature. A sitemap is a listing of all content on your website to allow Google to easily obtain a web content manifest and the date of last change.
HTTPS.
Available when you purchase an SSL certificate. HTTPS is just a protocol to ensure that communication to and from your website is encrypted and Google recommends and prefers sites which are encrypted. This is a no brainer, while you can run a website without SSL we would never do so in our day and age as it does have an impact on your SEO.
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Links.
Gain insight into who is linking to you. In our opinion, this is the critical factor when it comes to your SEO and web marketing activities. Links will provide you with insight into who is linking to you (referrer/linking sites), where they are linking to (page) and how they are linking to you (keywords).
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