Google Search Console: a plain guide for small business owners

You want to know whether people find your business on Google, and what they typed when they did. Your analytics can tell you someone arrived from Google. It can’t tell you the search that brought them, or the searches where you showed up and nobody clicked.

Google Search Console can. It’s a free tool from Google that shows which searches bring up your site, how often people click, and which pages Google has left out. It also tells you when something breaks.

Setting it up through your domain

When you add a site, Search Console offers two kinds of property. A URL-prefix property covers one exact address, such as https://www.yourbusiness.co.uk. A Domain property covers everything on the domain: with or without www, http and https, plus any subdomains. Pick Domain.

A Domain property is verified with a DNS record, which proves you control the domain. Search Console gives you a short line of text. You add it as a TXT record wherever your domain’s DNS is managed (often the registrar, sometimes your host), then click Verify. Google says a new record can take up to two or three days to work. Leave it in place afterwards, or you lose access to the data.

Whoever looks after your website can do this in a few minutes, but the property should be in your own Google account, not theirs.

Performance: what people searched

The Performance report is the one you’ll use most. It shows four numbers for Google Search, and the default view covers the last three months.

• Clicks. How many times someone clicked through to your site from a Google results page.
• Impressions. How many times a link to your site appeared in someone’s results. They didn’t have to scroll to it or notice it.
• Average CTR. Clicks divided by impressions, shown as a percentage.
• Average position. Where your site ranked, on average. Position 1 is the top result, so lower is better.

Below the chart is a table. The Queries tab lists the searches that showed your site, and the Pages tab lists which of your pages appeared. Click a query, then switch to Pages, to see which page Google matched to it. Check that a search like “electrician Norwich” lands on your page about that service.

Spotting an opportunity

Sort the Queries table by impressions, highest first, with the CTR column visible. Look for searches with plenty of impressions and few clicks.

Google already thinks your site is relevant to these, yet people choose someone else. There are two usual reasons.

You’re ranking low. An average position of 9 or 15 is the bottom of page one or somewhere on page two. Few people look that far. The fix is a better page for that search. Our local SEO guide covers what Google looks at for searches like these.

Your listing doesn’t tempt anyone. If the position is good but clicks are low, read what shows in the results. That’s usually your page title and description. A title like “Home” gives nobody a reason to pick you. Rewrite both to match the search.

Make one change at a time and give it a few weeks before you judge it. Rankings settle slowly.

Page indexing: pages Google left out

The Page indexing report splits your pages into indexed and not indexed, and gives a reason for each one left out. A page that isn’t indexed can’t appear in search at all.

Not every reason is a problem: “Page with redirect” usually means an old address points to a new one. These are worth a closer look:

• Not found (404). Google tried a page and it wasn’t there.
• URL marked ‘noindex’. The page tells Google to stay away. It’s sometimes left on by mistake.
• Crawled, currently not indexed. Google read the page and chose not to include it yet. Thin or near-duplicate pages often end up here.
• Discovered, currently not indexed. Google knows the page exists but hasn’t fetched it.

Once you’ve fixed a page, paste its address into the URL Inspection tool at the top of Search Console, run a live test, and use Request Indexing.

Core Web Vitals: speed from real visits

The Core Web Vitals report rates your pages as Good, Need improvement or Poor, separately for mobile and desktop. It uses real visits from Chrome users rather than a lab test.

Small sites often see no data here, because Google needs a minimum number of visits before it reports. If you do see Poor pages, our guide to why a website is slow explains where to look first.

Messages: when something goes wrong

The bell icon at the top of Search Console opens the message panel. Google posts there when it finds a new indexing problem, a security issue or a manual action (a penalty applied by a person at Google). It can email you as well, which you control from the Email preferences page, so make sure the account you verified with is one you read.

The Security issues and Manual actions reports should say no issues were detected. If either shows something, deal with it before anything else in this guide.

A monthly look

Ten minutes a month is enough: compare clicks with the month before, scan the top queries for gaps, then check page indexing and messages. Search Console shows what happens before the click. Your analytics picks up from there.

If you’d like Search Console set up properly, or a hand reading what it shows, get in touch.