21 Tips for Using Google Search Console to Grow Website Traffic

Google Search Console is an invaluable free tool for website owners. It provides insight into how Google sees and interacts with your site.

Unfortunately, most website owners don‘t utilize Search Console to its full potential. By leveraging all of its powerful features, you can gain valuable SEO insights to grow your website traffic.

In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll provide 21 actionable tips to help you get the most out of Google Search Console.

1. Verify Your Site in Google Search Console

The first step is to verify your website with Google Search Console. This gives Google permission to provide you with data.

To add your site, go to search.google.com/search-console and click ‘Start Now‘. Log in with your Google account and enter your correct website URL.

Use the URL prefix method, as it‘s more flexible than domain verification.

2. Submit an XML Sitemap

An XML sitemap helps Google efficiently crawl your site. The sitemap contains all your URLs that you want indexed.

Many WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO can automatically generate and submit a sitemap for you. You can also use Google Search Console to submit your sitemap URL.

This signals Google to crawl and index the pages listed in your sitemap.

3. Connect Google Analytics

Connecting your Google Analytics and Search Console provides a powerful combination of data.

For example, you can view keyword and traffic data from Search Console directly in your Analytics reports.

To connect them, go to your Analytics account and navigate to Admin » Property Settings » Search Console. Click ‘Add‘, choose your site, select your Analytics property, and click ‘Confirm‘.

4. Review Index Coverage Reports

Search Console‘s index coverage report shows indexed, excluded, and errored pages. Review this regularly to check for crawling issues preventing pages from being indexed.

Pages with errors like 404s and 500s should be fixed. For crawled but not indexed pages, fetch them again.

5. Fix Crawl Errors

There are several common crawl errors you may see:

• 404 errors – Page not found. Fix or redirect missing pages.

• Soft 404s – Page returns 200 OK status but displays 404 content. Exclude search landing pages.

• 500 errors – Server issue. Contact host for support.

• NoFollow – Crawler blocked from page. Remove if page should be indexed.

• Restricted by robots.txt – Adjust robots.txt file permissions.

Fixing crawl errors ensures Google can access and index all of your content.

6. Check Security Issues

Security issues like malware and hacking can negatively impact SEO. Pages may get removed from the index.

Search Console detects these issues automatically. You‘ll see alerts on the overview page. Clicking provides details on cleaning up the problems.

7. Request a Manual Action Review

Manual actions are Google penalties imposed after human review. They require action to reinstate your rankings.

If hit with a manual penalty, submit a request for another review after cleaning up the cited issues.

Common manual actions include unnatural links, manipulative text, and spammy content.

8. Analyze Google Traffic

The performance report provides invaluable organic search data. You can view impressions, clicks, CTR, average position, and more for all keywords driving traffic to your site.

Filter by keyword, country, device, page, and date range to derive insights. Download as CSV to use the data external tools.

9. Uncover New Keyword Opportunities

Use the keyword position filter to discover low competition search terms where you rank on page 2 or 3.

Improving existing pages for those terms can help you gain rankings with relatively little effort.

Sort by impression volume to prioritize keywords sending the most potential traffic. Expand the date range to ensure ongoing search volume.

10. Earn More Backlinks

Backlinks remain a ranking factor. Referring domains and anchor text linking to your site are available under the links report.

Reaching out to top referrers that are relevant can help you earn more high-quality backlinks.

Consider offering guest posts, asking them to update existing links with better anchor text, etc.

11. Improve Internal Linking

Strong internal linking helps pages rank for their target keywords. The links report shows pages with the most internal links.

Look for thin content with low internal links. Link to these pages from related content to provide relevance signals.

Ideally, craft contextual anchor text using keywords the target page ranks for.

12. Fix Technical SEO Issues

Google provides diagnostics on technical problems hurting your real-world user experience.

The Core Web Vitals report includes speed and mobile usability data with suggestions on how to improve site performance.

Technical SEO is becoming more important, so monitor and address these issues to avoid drops in rankings.

13. Create Structured Data Markup

Enable structured data markup to have your content displayed as rich results like star ratings, events, recipes, etc.

The enhancements report shows existing markup implemented on your site‘s pages. Identify pages that can benefit from additional schema.

There are many plugins that add markup automatically based on content.

14. Request Indexing for New Content

Rather than waiting for Google to eventually discover new pages, proactively request indexing for fresh content.

The URL inspection tool allows submitting individual URLs. Be selective and use it for high-priority new content only.

Google still independently decides whether to crawl and index submitted pages.

15. Remove Outdated Content

Over time, some content loses relevance or becomes outdated. While you can remove pages from your site, Google may still index them until the next crawl.

Using the URL removal tool signals Google to drop pages from results much faster without waiting for recrawling.

16. Discover Top Queries and Landing Pages

The top queries and landing page reports provide the exact keywords and pages generating the most Google traffic.

Use the data when creating content. Optimize pages getting significant organic traffic for target keywords by adding related content.

Monitor trends over time. If search interest in a topic drops, consider shifting focus to more popular keywords.

17. Compare Devices and Locations

Viewing clicks, impressions, and CTR by device type helps optimize content for mobiles vs. desktops. Some topics may perform better on a particular device.

The geographic summary lists countries your site ranks in along with the share of overall traffic. Produce localized content for your biggest markets.

18. Share Access Safely

To let others access Search Console without handing over your Google password, add them as users.

Under Settings » Users and permissions, input their Google email and assign read-only or admin access.

Great for providing access to SEO consultants, agencies, and staff without compromising account security.

19. Set Up Google Alerts

Google Alerts proactively monitors the web for mentions of key terms related to your business. You can get notified of new results by email.

Some useful alerts include your brand name, product names, competitors, and industry news.

This helps you find new link prospects and see who‘s talking about your brand.

20. Monitor Your Rankings

While Search Console provides keyword rankings, it doesn‘t fully replicate live Google results. Use a rank tracking tool for real-time data on your site‘s rankings.

Rank tracking software lets you track unlimited keywords so you can get the full scope on your market presence. They also provide ranking history and competitor comparisons.

21. Analyze the Click-Through-Rate

Click-through rate (CTR) measures how enticing your snippets and titles are to searchers. It‘s calculated by dividing clicks by impressions.

A low CTR suggests your pages appear irrelevant for users‘ queries. Use higher CTR keywords as guides for creating better titles and meta descriptions.

Hopefully these tips provide a good starting point for making the most of Google Search Console! Feel free to reach out via the comments section if you have any other questions.