Google Search Console is the world’s most powerful SEO tool – and free – but most people are using it wrong!
Here are 5 easy ways to use Google Search Console to power up your SEO.
1. Easy Pickings
- Your Google Search Console is brimming with keywords that you can rank for in minutes.
- Go to Search Console to discover how many terms you’re showing up for on Google.
- Look through these keywords. There will be hundreds of keywords for which you are not performing basic SEO.
- Make the most of low-hanging fruit. Include the keywords in the page’s title or text.
- If the term isn’t relevant to the page, create a new one to rank for it.
Filtering is your ally! Begin by filtering by impressions to discover which keywords you appear for but don’t receive many clicks for.
2. Answer the Questions
- You can easily find the questions that your audience is asking!
- Here’s some code.
- \b(who|what|when|where|why|how)\b
- You may use this code to filter by selecting New > Query > Queries Containing > Custom (regex).
3. Understanding Google’s Perception of You
- Google Search Console is the genuine article.
- You will learn which pages Google values and which it does not.
- You can observe how many pages are “dead” and which ones work well.
- You can also view how frequently they crawl your website by going to Settings > Crawl Stats.
- You can discover which pages Google likes and which Google considers “dead.”
- Filter to sites with no clicks to discover what Google considers “dead.” In Settings > Crawl Stats, you can view how Google crawls your website.
4. Keyword Cannibalisation
- Cannibalisation is risky. But here’s how to make things right.
- You may click on any term to discover which pages are receiving clicks for it.
- If there is more than one, this indicates cannibalisation.
- Google has no idea which page to rank. It is your responsibility to inform them.
- Improve your ranks by redirecting one to the other!
5. Examine Risk to Your Site
- Examine the number of clicks on each page.
- What percentage of all clicks do they contribute?
- You’re in trouble if ten articles receive all of the clicks.
- You may lose that ranking in an instant.
- You want a consistent distribution of clicks across all pages.
Chris Giles Snr built his first client website in 1995 and has remained at the leading edge of web development and SEO ever since. He is a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Marketing (FCIM).
