Purpose

Google Search Console is a powerful tool that helps you understand how people find your website. Analyzing search queries helps you refine your content, attract more visitors, and enhance your website's indexing for better search engine rankings.

When to Use Google Search Console

Identify Popular Search Queries: Discover the keywords people are using to find your website.
Find Content Gaps: Identify topics that your audience is interested in but aren't currently covered on your website.
Update Outdated Content: Ensure your content is accurate by identifying search terms ranking for a specific page and updating it with relevant answers or information.
Improve Your Website's SEO: Optimize your content for search engines and attract more organic traffic by using the popular search queries for content ideas.
Index Your Website: Submit your website's sitemap to help Google discover and index your pages.
Remove Content from Search Results: Use the "Remove URLs" Tool to temporarily remove specific URLs from Google's search results.

Elements of Google Search Console:

Removals: The Removals tool in Google Search Console allows you to temporarily remove specific URLs from Google Search results. This tool is useful for temporarily hiding outdated content or other pages from search results.
Note that this is a temporary solution, and the URLs will eventually reappear in search results if they're still accessible on your website. For permanent removal, you'll need to delete the content from your website.

Sitemaps: The Sitemaps section in Google Search Console is used to submit your website's sitemap to Google. Submitting a sitemap helps with the following:
- Improved Indexing: Helps Google discover new pages on your website.
- Faster Crawling: Prioritizes important pages for Google's crawlers.
- Better Search Visibility: Increases the chances of your website appearing in search results.

Search Results: The "Search Results" section is like a window into what people are searching for when they land on your site. You can also use the "Add filter" button to search for a specific URL. Here's what it shows:
- Search Queries: These are the words people type into Google to find your site.
- Clicks: How many times people clicked on your website from Google Search.
- Impressions: How often your website appeared in Google Search results.

By understanding these search queries, you can improve your website's content to match what people are looking for. This can help your website rank higher in search results and attract more visitors.

Pages: The "Pages" section in Google Search Console is like a report card for your website. It shows you how well Google understands and indexes your pages. It helps you understand:
- Indexed Pages: These are the pages that Google has found and added to its search results.
- Excluded Pages: These are pages that Google hasn't added to its search results.
- 404 Error Pages: These are pages that have broken links and that have returned errors, such as 404 Not Found.

By checking this section, you can make sure Google is seeing the right pages and fixing any problems that might be keeping your website from showing up in search results.

URL Inspect: The URL Inspection Tool in Google Search Console is like a magnifying glass that lets you check a specific page on your website to see how Google sees it. You can use it to:
Check Indexing Status: See if Google has indexed your page.
Find and Fix Errors: Identify any issues that might be preventing your page from ranking well.
Request Indexing: Ask Google to crawl and index a specific page.
Referring Page: The "Referring Page" in the URL Inspection tool shows the page where Google first discovered your URL. It's essentially the source of the link that led Google to your page. Keep in mind that this isn't necessarily the most recent or important backlink. It's simply the page where Google first encountered your URL.

Identify Content Gaps and Update Outdated Information:

Identify Missing Topics: Look for keywords that are related to your page but aren't currently covered. Use the search queries that have high impressions and low clicks.
Refresh Old Content: Update outdated information by adding new sections or paragraphs to your content to address these keywords.
Improve Readability: Write clear, concise, and easy-to-understand content and make sure to add the keywords in your page titles, headings, and content.

For example:

If you have a page about "Standard Work Template" and you notice within the search results section you have high impressions but low clicks for the search queries "standard work," :

How to use Google Search Console to review and improve Outdated Content

You can first look over your outdated content page and check if your page includes relevant keywords and search queries within the header and paragraph sections of your page.

If you don't then use those search queries by adding them to that page within the heading and body text. For example when we review this Standard Work Template page within google search console we see that it has high impressions for the search query "Standard work" but the clicks are low.

When we go to the page directly we can see that within the heading the word "Standard work" could be added. Additionally another section of content within this page can also be added that either covers more relevant information about that search query.

By using Google Search Console and following these tips, you can update your outdated content by making it more relevant to what your audience is searching for when they land on that page and improve your search engine rankings.

How to Update Outdated Content

Go to Google Search Console in the "Performance" tab, use the "Search Results" section.

Select the "Add Filter" button and then pages so that you can enter the specific URL of the page you want to analyze. This is how you can find the search terms that are currently being used by users in google to find that page:

Look at the "Search Queries" section to see what search query has high impressions but low clicks, these are the search terms or keywords that you can use to update your outdated content. Since the clicks are low that means that their is a good chance that the page isn't covering a specific question that they may have for this search query.

Once you have the search term you can now go to the edit section of your page and you can add a new section within your page covering any relevant information of that search term.

How to Edit a Page

You can easily find all of the content pages on your site that you want to edit by selecting the "Content" button.

Selecting the Content button will bring up the Content library page where you will see all of the pages that you and your team has added to the site.

To find the specific page you want to edit you can use the search field to search for the name of that page and you can also sort pages using the content type filter field.

From within the content library you can select the "Edit" button for the page you want to work on to start editing that page.

You can also edit a page if you already have the url of that page, when you go to the page you want to update all you need to do is select the "Edit" button that is directly above the page title:

How Do I Work with Google Search Console?