Analytics tells you what visitors did once they arrived. Search Console tells you how Google sees your site, which is the part you can act on. It is free and every site should have it.
What it shows you
- The searches that brought people to you, and your position for each
- Pages Google could not index, and why
- Mobile usability problems
- Warnings if Google finds security problems or a manual penalty
- For a shop, whether your product structured data is valid
Setting it up
Add your site as a property, then prove you own it. The DNS method is the most robust because it covers the whole domain including subdomains and survives site changes. If your domain uses our nameservers, send us the TXT record and we will add it. Alternatively upload the HTML file Google gives you to your public_html.
After verification
- Submit your sitemap. Most content systems and shops generate one automatically.
- Check the Pages report for anything excluded, and understand why
- Choose whether the www or non-www version is canonical, and be consistent
The most valuable habit
Look at it once a month. Search Console is where you find out that a change three weeks ago stopped Google indexing half your site – long before you would notice it in your sales figures.
If you have just moved or relaunched
Use the Change of Address tool when moving domain, and watch the coverage report closely for a few weeks. This is when problems appear.
