Description

Google Search Console is a diagnostic tool that shows you 'under the hood' what what Google sees and thinks about a specific website.  Out of the 4 pillars of SEO, Search Console is particularly helpful with Pillar #1 (SEO Structure) and Pillar #4 (SEO Technology). Here is a quick list of highly valuable data points:

• Google Organic Search Volume, Keywords, and Position
• Coverage (indexing) issues such as bad sitemap files, pages that crash (Server 500 error)
• Experience - if the site gets enough traffic the Experience section tells you if the site is mobile friendly, shares page load speeds, and how it renders on the browser.
• Enhancements AKA Featured Snippets that are detected and now qualify to be featured on Google's SERP

Overall Google Search Console is a key part of an SEO strategy.

SEO Structure: Keywords and Google Search Console

From Google Search Console you can view the search queries that Google matched to your site, see which pages they were matched to, and get traffic volume (website visits AKA clicks) and position data (the position on the SERP).  This is a great way to measure SEO campaign results. 

The Queries section in particular is extremely helpful when starting an SEO campaign because from this list you can determine:

• What's Working
• What's Missing
• What's Surprising

SEO Technology

Sitemaps - submitting an XML sitemap to Google is key to making Google's job easier to index your website.

Coverage - Coverage issues our when a page has invalid HTML or a Server Error

Enhancements - updated website code and help plugins (like Yoast SEO) provide more data to Google in the form of Structured Data

Website Speed - AKA Core Web Vitals - this is critical to check and Search Console will give you a report of website speed across all the pages.  Use Google's PageSpeed Insights to triage specific page issues.

These (and more) are covered in our 360 Suite

References

• SEO: Keyword Research