How to Add Your WordPress Site to Google Search Console

Here is a 2000+ word guide on "How to Add Your WordPress Site to Google Search Console":

Adding your WordPress site to Google Search Console (formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools) is one of the most important steps for optimizing your website for search engines.

Google Search Console provides webmasters with valuable insights and tools to monitor and improve their site‘s presence in Google search results. This free platform should be part of every website owner‘s SEO toolkit.

In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through the entire process of adding a WordPress site to Google Search Console, step-by-step:

What is Google Search Console and Why Use It?

Google Search Console is a free web service offered by Google for webmasters to monitor and maintain their websites‘ presence in Google search results.

With Google Search Console, you can:

• See how Google bots crawl and index your site‘s pages
• Identify and fix crawl errors and other issues
• Check indexed pages and request indexing of new content
• Analyze how site pages rank for different keywords
• See click-through rates, impressions, and other metrics
• Discover broken links and 404 errors
• Add XML sitemaps to help Google find new content
• Get notifications about security issues and manual actions
• And much more…

In short, Google Search Console provides invaluable SEO insights that can help you boost your WordPress site‘s search engine rankings and traffic.

That‘s why it‘s highly recommended to add your site to Google Search Console as soon as you launch it or do a redesign. The data will help you identify SEO issues early and take corrective actions.

Step 1 – Sign Up for a Google Account

The first step is to have a Google account, which is needed to access Google Search Console.

If you already have a Gmail account, you can use that to sign up. Otherwise, go to accounts.google.com and click Sign Up to create a new Google account.

Step 2 – Add Your WordPress Site‘s URL

Go to search.google.com/search-console and click Start Now. Sign in with your Google account.

On the next screen, enter your WordPress site‘s URL in the box and click Continue.

Make sure to enter the correct URL – the one that visitors use to access your site.

For example, if your site is https://www.example.com then enter that full URL.

You can double check your site‘s URL in WordPress by going to Settings > General.

Step 3 – Verify Ownership of Your WordPress Site

After adding your site‘s URL, Google will ask you to verify that you own this website. This prevents random people from accessing your site‘s data in Search Console.

There are a few options to verify site ownership, but the easiest is using the HTML file method. Just click on the HTML tag verification option.

This will display a meta tag that looks like:

<meta name="google-site-verification" content="ABCDabc123defgHIJklmnOPQRstuVXYZ" />

Copy the entire meta tag code by clicking on the Copy button.

Step 4 – Add the Verification Code in WordPress

Next, you need to add this meta tag to your WordPress site‘s code so Google can verify you own this site.

Don‘t edit the theme‘s header.php file to add this! That will cause the verification to stop working if you ever change the theme.

Instead, use the free All in One SEO plugin to add the Google verification code:

1. Install and activate All in One SEO plugin.

2. Go to All in One SEO > General Settings.

3. Scroll down to the Webmaster Tools section.

4. Paste the HTML tag code snippet into the Google Verification Code box.

5. Click Save Changes.

This will properly add the Google verification meta tag to your pages.

Step 5 – Verify Your WordPress Site

Head back to Google Search Console, and click the Verify button.

Google will crawl your site looking for that meta tag and show success once it‘s verified!

You can now click Go To Property to start using Search Console.

Congrats, your WordPress site is now fully connected to Google Search Console!

Step 6 – Submit Your XML Sitemap

Next, you should submit an XML sitemap in Search Console so Google can more easily crawl and index your WordPress content.

All in One SEO can automatically generate and manage an XML sitemap for your site.

To access it:

1. Go to All in One SEO > Sitemaps.

2. Click on the Open Sitemap button to see your XML sitemap URL.

3. Copy the sitemap URL. It will look like: https://www.example.com/sitemap_index.xml

Now switch to Google Search Console:

1. Click on Sitemaps on the left menu.

2. Click Add/Test Sitemap.

3. Enter your sitemap URL in the box.

4. Click Submit.

This will add your WordPress sitemap to Google so they can discover new content faster.

Extra Tips to Use Google Search Console for WordPress

Now that your WordPress site is connected to Google Search Console, here are some tips to start using it for improving SEO:

Monitor Index Coverage Report

The Index Coverage report shows how much of your site Google has included in their search results index.

Aim for as close to 100% indexation as possible. If the percentage is low, it means Google is having issues crawling your content.

You can click on specific sections like "Not Selected" to see a list of URLs that Google hasn‘t indexed, and take steps to fix that.

Analyze the Performance Report

This shows how your pages rank for different keywords in Google search results over time.

You can see which terms are driving traffic to your site, and which ones your rankings are improving/declining for.

This data can help inform your SEO strategy and content optimization plans.

Discover Crawl Errors

The Crawl menu highlights any crawl errors Google encounters on your site, like 404s or other technical issues.

Fixing these can improve page indexing and performance in search results.

See Your Top Pages

Under the Links section, you can analyze which of your web pages get the most clicks from Google search results.

This helps identify your best-performing content in SEO. You may want to optimize and link to those pages more.

Check Your Site Security

Google will notify you under the Security Issues report if there are any malware threats detected on your WordPress site.

Resolve these ASAP to protect your site.

See Any Manual Actions

If your site violates Google‘s webmaster guidelines, they may take manual action and penalize your rankings.

You‘ll get notified in Search Console, so you can correct the problems.

Integrate with Google Analytics

Connecting Google Analytics gives you access to even more useful metrics like pages per session, bounce rates, and conversion tracking.

Use Tools Like AIOSEO for Easy Access

Plugins like AIOSEO make it easy to view key Search Console data directly in your WordPress dashboard. This saves time switching between sites.

We hope this detailed guide covered everything you need to know about adding your WordPress site to Google Search Console! Proper setup is crucial for monitoring and improving your WordPress SEO.