How to Set Up Google Search Console

Google Search Console Video Transcript

All right, we’re going to be setting up Google Search Console on our test website.

And I know it’s a beautiful site, you don’t have to tell me.

To get started, you’re going to do a quick Google search for Google Search Console, and it’ll bring you to this page.

Google Search Console, well, does exactly what it says.

It improves your performance on Google search.

It does this by allowing you to submit your website’s sitemap to Google’s search engine.

A sitemap is just a digital map of your website’s pages and structure.

By submitting your sitemap, Google is then able to index your website which makes your website more searchable.

In addition to indexing your website, Google Search Console also gives you incredible insights on your website’s performance on SERPs, or S-E-R-P, which stands for Search Engine Results Page.

AKA, the pages that show up when you Google something.

These insights include impressions, click through rates, search queries, and more.

And the best part is, Google Search Console is completely free to set up and use.

Now that we have a basic overview, let’s move forward with setting up your website in Google Search Console.

Click “Start now”, And you’ll need to sign into your Google account.

If you don’t have a Google account, you can create one by clicking “Create Account”.

Once you’re logged into your Google account or created your Google account, you will be brought to this page.

You can either enter your whole website, which is the left hand column, or you can enter a single page on your website.

It’s best to just do your whole website.

So enter your website’s URL.

Then you’ll have to verify ownership of your website.

There are many ways to do this. The easiest is to be logged into your Google account with an email that has the same domain as your website.

For example, since I’m submitting bitwavelabs.space, it would be best to use an email such as admin@bitwavelabs.space.

If your Google account doesn’t contain your website’s domain, no worries, you can add a TXT record to your DNS that will verify your ownership.

If you don’t know how to do this, or even what your DNS is, don’t panic, just send us a message and we can help you out.

Once you’ve verified ownership of your domain, you’ll see this pop up, you want to click go to property.

From there, you’ll be brought to your dashboard. Hit “START”.

And there’s not going to be any data yet because it takes time for Google to go out and gather data about your website.

So over time, these boxes will all be filled with website data.

You can see all your menu options on the left hand column.

Sitemaps, performance.

So we’re going to go ahead and go to Sitemaps to submit our sitemap for our website.

Now, I’m not actually going to submit a sitemap because I don’t want Google to index this website.

But to find your sitemap go to your domain, /sitemap.xml.

If you go to this page, and it returns a 404 error, this means your website does not have a sitemap.

Again, don’t panic, just reach out and we can help you generate a sitemap for your website.

If you do have a sitemap, however, you’re gonna want to take that URL and submit it into Google Search Console.

And once you submit your sitemap to Google, it’ll do the rest.

Alright, last thing I want to show you is how to add other users to your account.

So you want to go to the bottom left hand side where it says “Settings” then click “Users and permissions”.

And then go to the right hand corner, click “ADD USER”, and then just enter a Google account email.

And then, they’ll be invited to join your Google Search Console account.

Alright, that about sums up how to create a Google Search Console account. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out and we’ll try our best to help you.

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