Google Search Console is a powerful, free tool, to help you see how your site ranks on the world wide web. If you don’t already have it set up for your site- let’s do it now!
How to Set Up Google Search Console
Start by heading over to your webmaster tools here.
Once there you will want to enter your website and click the ADD A PROPERTY button.
Then you will be taken to a screen to verify that you own the site.
How to Verify Your Site for Google Search Console
You will be given the recommended method for verifying your site, but if you are tech-challenged this may seem like a foreign language. If that’s true, click over to Alternate methods.
From here choose the first option of HTML tag. You will be given a snippet of code to add to the <head> section of your website.
You can do this in a number of ways- the easiest is through Yoast SEO plugin.
Simply go to SEO –> Dashboard and then clicking on the Webmaster Tools tab.
Then paste the code in the section that says Google Search Console and save changes.
Then go back to Google Search Console and click verify. When you get a message of Congratulations, you have successfully your ownership of yoururl.com you are done!
Related Reading: 4 Free SEO Tools for Frugal Bloggers
I recommend going through these steps for all versions of your site. For example:
- https://yoururl.com
- http://yoururl.com
- http://www.yoururl.com
- https://www.yoururl.com
This way you get the information from each site address.
Once you have added all domains, you might want to set a preferred domain by clicking on your preferred URL and then going to the gear icon in the top corner and choosing Site Settings and making your choice for the preferred domain.
Now you can start to watch what terms you rank for on Google and what terms are leading people to your website! Then head over to How to Use Google Search Console for SEO to learn how to use this tool to rank higher in search!
