What Is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool provided by Google. It shows you how your website appears in Google Search results. You see which search queries you rank for, how many people see your pages, how many click through, and any technical issues Google has found on your site.

A lot of people mix these two tools up. GSC is not the same as Google Analytics.

  • Google Analytics tracks what visitors do on your site (pages they visit, how long they stay, conversions).
  • Google Search Console tracks how your site performs in search, before the click even happens.

Both tools are valuable, but they answer different questions. GSC is your window into how Google sees your site.

Your action: If you haven’t set up GSC yet, go to Google Search Console and sign in with your Google account.

How to Add and Verify Your Site

Before you can see any data, you need to add your site to GSC and prove you own it. Here’s how.

Step 1: Add a Domain Property

When you first open GSC, you’ll be asked to add a property. Choose Domain (not URL prefix). This covers your entire site including all subdomains and both HTTP and HTTPS versions.

Type in your domain (e.g. yourbusiness.com) and click Continue.

Step 2: Verify Ownership

Google needs to confirm you actually own the site. There are three main ways to do this:

  • HTML tag: Google gives you a small snippet of code. Paste it into the head section of your website. If you use WordPress, a plugin like Yoast SEO makes this easy. Just paste the tag into the plugin settings.
  • DNS record: Log in to your domain registrar (e.g. GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare) and add a TXT record that Google provides. This sounds technical but most registrars have a simple interface for it.
  • Google Analytics integration: If you already have GA4 installed on your site, this is the easiest option. GSC can verify ownership automatically through your existing GA4 connection, with no extra code needed.

Once verified, it can take a day or two for data to start appearing.

Your action: Choose the verification method that suits you best. If GA4 is already on your site, use that. It takes less than a minute.

Key Reports Every Small Business Should Check

Once your site is verified, you’ll have access to several reports. Here are the four most important ones for small businesses.

Performance Report

This is the report you’ll use most often. It shows:

  • Impressions are how many times your site appeared in Google search results.
  • Clicks are how many people actually clicked through to your site.
  • CTR (click-through rate) is the percentage of impressions that turned into clicks.
  • Average position is where your pages typically rank in results.

Three things to look for in this report:

  • High impressions, low CTR: Your page is showing up in search but people aren’t clicking. This often means your page title or meta description needs to be more compelling or relevant.
  • Keywords ranking in positions 11–20: These are on page 2 of Google, close to page 1 but not quite there. These are worth targeting with better content, more internal links, or additional backlinks.
  • Your top pages by clicks: These are your best performers. Understand why they work and apply those lessons to other pages.

Your action: Open the Performance report and filter by page. Find your top 5 pages by clicks. These are your most valuable search assets right now.

Pages Report (Formerly Index Coverage)

This report shows which of your pages Google has indexed (meaning they can appear in search results) and which ones it hasn’t, along with the reason why.

If a page isn’t indexed, it simply won’t show up in Google search. Full stop. This report helps you catch pages that are accidentally blocked or have issues preventing them from being discovered.

Your action: Check for any pages marked as having errors or warnings. If important pages aren’t indexed, investigate why.

Core Web Vitals Report

Google uses page speed and user experience as ranking factors. The Core Web Vitals report shows which pages on your site have performance issues, such as slow loading times or layout shifts that make the page feel unstable.

Pages with poor Core Web Vitals scores may rank lower than they otherwise would.

Your action: Look for pages flagged as “Poor” and share the report with your web developer or use a tool like PageSpeed Insights to understand what needs fixing.

Sitemaps

A sitemap is a file that lists all the pages on your site. Submitting it to GSC helps Google discover and crawl your content faster, which is especially useful for new pages.

If you use WordPress with Yoast SEO or RankMath, your sitemap is usually already generated at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml.

To submit it: go to Sitemaps in the GSC sidebar, paste in your sitemap URL, and click Submit.

Your action: Check if your sitemap is already submitted. If not, find your sitemap URL and submit it today.

Common Issues to Look For

As you explore GSC, keep an eye out for these three common problems:

  • “Crawled but not indexed”: Google visited the page but chose not to include it in search results. This often means the content is thin, duplicated, or lacks enough internal links pointing to it. Improving the content or linking to it from other pages can help.
  • 404 errors: These are broken pages. Someone (or Google) tried to visit a URL that no longer exists. Fix these by either restoring the page or setting up a redirect to a relevant existing page.
  • Mobile usability issues: Pages that don’t display properly on smartphones. Since most searches happen on mobile, Google prioritises mobile-friendly pages. GSC will flag specific issues like text that’s too small or buttons that are too close together.

Your action: Head to the Pages report and look for any errors. Even fixing one or two broken pages can make a difference.

If the same errors keep coming back month after month, I dig into the cause as part of a technical SEO review rather than patching pages one at a time.

How Often to Check

You don’t need to live inside GSC, but you should check in regularly. Here’s a simple schedule:

  • Weekly: If you’re actively publishing new content, running a campaign, or have recently made changes to your site. Also check after publishing any new page to confirm it gets indexed.
  • Monthly: The minimum for most small businesses. A monthly check is enough to catch issues before they become serious problems and to track whether your search performance is trending in the right direction.

Your action: Set a recurring calendar reminder, weekly or monthly depending on how active your site is, so GSC doesn’t get forgotten.

How to Connect GSC with GA4

Linking Google Search Console with Google Analytics 4 puts your search query data and your on-site behaviour data in one place.

Here’s how to connect them:

  1. Open Google Search Console and go to Settings
  2. Click on Associations
  3. Select your GA4 property and confirm the link

Once connected, organic search data (including queries, clicks, and impressions) will appear directly inside your GA4 reports under Acquisition > Search Console. This means you can see not just how people found you, but what they did after they arrived.

Your action: Link GSC and GA4 today if you haven’t already. It takes two minutes and gives you a much richer picture of your search performance.

Google Search Console can feel overwhelming at first, but you don’t need to master every feature to get value from it. Start with the Performance report, make sure your key pages are indexed, and fix any errors you find. Even small improvements add up over time, such as a better meta description here and a fixed broken link there. The tool is free, so there is no reason not to use it.

Search Console tells you where your pages stand, and acting on what it flags is the work I do on small business sites. Send the project brief with your domain and the issues you are seeing.