Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool that helps you measure your website performance in Google’s Search Engine Result Pages (SERPS).
Not only is it an important tool to understand how your website has performed in Google searches over time, but also helps you submit your website to Google to get it indexed in the first place. As such, it is one of the most essential SEO tools you can use.
But how do you link your website to it? How do you leverage all its features to your SEO advantage? Is there a huge learning curve? We answer all questions about setting up and using GSC effectively in our detailed guide.
Before you can start using Google Search Console, you’ll need to verify that you are the rightful owner of the domain you want to use it for. Keep the following on standby before you start the process of connecting your website to it:
You can set up Google Search Console using two different methods. One requires that you use the Google Tag Manager to add GSC verification tags to the website, while the other requires that you or a web developer add the code to your website manually.
We will show you the step-by-step process to set up GSC using both methods. Feel free to use whichever is easiest for you.
1. Before you start, ensure you’re signed into the Google account you want to use for Google Search Console.
Then, go to Google Search Console and click on “Start Now”.
2. You’ll be taken to a page that asks you to Select property type.
The choice here will depend on whether you want to track the whole website or just a subdomain. Here’s what each of these means:
For instance, Google’s various subdomains such as mail.google.com (Gmail), drive.google.com (Google Drive), news.google.com (Google News), and maps.google.com (Google Maps) offer different Google products and receive millions of users each, so it makes sense to track data for each of them individually.
This approach ensures complete domain-level verification, which covers all subdomains and protocol variations (e.g., http, https, www, non-www).
Start by entering your domain and selecting Continue.
You’ll now see this box with further instructions:
Copy the TXT record provided by GSC in instruction #4.
Then, paste the TXT record into your DNS settings.
Note: If your website is hosted on a server other than your domain registrar’s, you’ll have to add the Txt record in your cPanel instead.
For instance, we use FastComet’s shared hosting service for one website and can add the Txt records via cPanel’s Zone Editor.
The process will look largely the same for all hosting providers — and you have the option of asking their customer service for help if you’re stuck while navigating their platform.
Then, select Txt record from Type and add the code you copied from GSC in the Record column there.
This method offers greater flexibility in terms of how you can verify domain ownership.
You can still use DNS verification as above, even if you only want to monitor a specific protocol or subdomain of the website.
Note: If you’re not using the URL prefix method entirely, click here to skip to the next section.
We recommend using DNS verification as the primary verification method unless you have Google Tag Manager or Google Analytics already configured for your website.
Here’s a brief overview of the other options available:
1. HTML File Upload:
2. HTML Tag
In our opinion, HTML Tag method is relatively simpler than HTML file method. You also don’t need to have access to your domain account or cPanel if you use a content management system (CMS) like WordPress, and can just execute this directly from there.
You need to place it in your website home page’s HTML code in the <head> section.
b) Now you need to access your website’s HTML code. If you use a popular CMS like Joomla, Shopify, WordPress, or Drupal — the next steps are straightforward. Using cPanel File Manager will be necessary for static websites.
We’ll show you how to do this with WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Wix, Shopify, and static websites.
Note: The steps to do it inside other popular CMSes also look largely the same. Only terminology may change for step #2. For example, in Joomla, you navigate from Extensions > Templates.
Similarly, in Drupal, you go to Structure > Block Layout for step #2, and locate the block that manages the header. That’s where your HTML tag from GSC goes.
Once you've located the index.html file (or the equivalent main HTML file), right-click on it and select View to see its contents without editing it. Select Edit or Code Edit from the context menu. This will open the file in a text editor within cPanel.
c) Regardless of which CMS you use, the last step will look the same:
Return to Google Search Console and click Verify after adding the meta tag.
3. Google Analytics
To use your existing Google Analytics account to verify domain ownership for Google Search Console, you must meet some prerequisites. This method won’t work otherwise.
Before you start, ensure that:
Once the prerequisites are in place, just click Verify and it will automatically verify domain ownership.
This method requires less technical know-how, so is recommended for those working without a web developer.
Before you get started, make sure to have Google Tag Manager open in one tab and your GSC account in the other.
Enter your URL below the URL prefix method column, as shown below. Then, select Continue.
If GTM was installed correctly on your website, Google Search Console will automatically detect the GTM container on your site during this process and verify domain ownership.
Click Verify to confirm. Once the verification is complete, you’ll get a confirmation message inside GSC.
You’ve set up Google Search Console. Now what?
To start leveraging it to your advantage for SEO, you’ll need to spend some time learning about the features and tools available inside Google Search Console.
You won't need to worry about learning a lot since the interface is quite straightforward to use for even non-technical users. Familiarizing yourself with different tools should take a couple of sign-ins, and you should be good to go.
Once you sign in for the first time and select the website you want to review, the first page you’re brought to is called the Overview report. It works as a home page for the dashboard and gives you a quick overview of everything, including indexing issues, search performance, mobile usability, and experience issues, etc.
In a true home page fashion, you can also navigate to other tools easily from the Overview page.
Let’s break down what each of these tabs is for so you can leverage it to perform better in Google search.
The Performance section offers in-depth analytics on your site’s visibility in search results, presenting key metrics such as Click-Through Rate (CTR), impressions, average position, and search queries.
Just like the name suggests, the insights here allow you to understand your overall SEO performance. You can figure out which keywords drive traffic to your site, how your pages rank for specific search terms, and how you can perform better.
Here are some tips for using this report effectively for SEO:
This mismatch could mean that the page ranks well but is not enticing clicks, perhaps due to an unappealing meta description or title. Adjusting titles to be more engaging and ensuring they reflect search intent can help you get more clicks to your website.
For example, if you notice that mobile users have lower CTR, optimize page loading times or mobile UI for a better mobile experience. Similarly, you can focus on marketing more in locations where your audience primarily comes from.
Just below the Overview and Performance tab, you’ll find The URL Inspection tool.
It provides insights into how Google views specific pages on your site. You can use it to check whether a URL is indexed, has any crawl errors or mobile usability issues, etc.
Here’s an example:
You can use this tool to test if a new page you added to the website has been indexed. If it’s not, you can click on Request Indexing to submit it for indexing.
Also known as the Coverage report, the Indexing report shows you the overall indexing and crawling status of different URLS on your websites. It also tells you why some web pages or videos may not have been crawled or indexed yet, so you can fix those issues.
This tab has four options below it:
The simplest way to create a new sitemap is to use a WordPress plugin like RankMath or Yoast. They automatically create sitemaps for you (and can also submit them directly to GSC if you have connected both tools).
In case you don't use WordPress, you can use an online tool like XML sitemaps to generate a new sitemap with a click of a button. Then, just download the XML file and submit it to the search console.
Once you start reviewing the Pages or Videos tab, you’ll find URLs grouped together based on the type of error they have. For instance, all pages that have been deliberately or accidentally excluded on your website using robot.txt, are highlighted under Excluded by no index tag category.
Here are other types of errors you’ll commonly come across in this report and what they mean:
Experience tools tell you how well your website meets usability and performance standards. It considers experience-based metrics like page speed, mobile-friendliness, and core web vitals for each URL.
As page experience is an important ranking factor for Google Search, the SEO issues listed in this report shouldn’t be overlooked.
You’ll find three tabs under this group:
Note: If you have a small website that gets up to only a few hundred visitors a month, the tool may not have enough data to show for your website. In this case, it will direct you to the PageSpeed Insights tool to do a live test of your site.
There’s nothing to worry about, though. The PageSpeed Insights tool breaks down exactly what could be affecting your website performance — and how you can fix it.
Shopping Tools can help you manage and optimize how your product listings appear in Google searches. This group of tools is designed for online stores and ecommerce websites, although other websites may still get some insights from it.
You’ll find two tabs in this group:
Enhancement tools are designed to highlight issues with how FAQs, product reviews, and star ratings appear in the SERPs.
There are three tabs in this group:
Note: Google is depreciating this feature soon. Sitelinks Searchbox will soon cease to appear in Google search results.
Security and Manual Action Tools can help you identify and resolve issues that may negatively impact your site’s search visibility.
This group has two tabs:
If a manual action has been issued by Google, the report will tell you how to resolve the issue. You will also be able to submit an appeal once you’ve made the required fixes.
The Links tool breaks down your site’s internal and external linking structure. You can analyze how many URLs link to your content (backlinks) and identify your site's most linked-to pages.
The report is divided into four main sections:
Setting up GSC is not enough — to make the most of it, you must understand how to understand and then leverage the data you get through it.
Start by monitoring the dashboard regularly to familiarize yourself with the ins and outs. Here’s a handy checklist to help you plan what you should be doing with GSC:
Monthly Checklist:
Quarterly Checklist:
Not sure how to use GSC data to inform your SEO strategy? Consider our Google Search Console replacement tool - SEO Stack. It shows you exactly how you can increase revenue and search results with the insights from GSC, so you can focus more on SEO and less on interpreting the data.