Google Search Console for business owners

Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that shows how your website performs in Google Search. It sounds technical, but a few of its reports are genuinely useful for business owners.

What it is

Search Console tells you which searches your website showed up for, how often people saw it, and how often they clicked. It also tells you if Google has trouble reading any of your pages. It does not cost anything, and it does not change your site. It only reports on it.

Setting it up

To use Search Console, you add your website and prove you own it. The common ways are adding a record to your domain's DNS settings or adding a small tag to your website. Whoever built or hosts your site can usually do this in a few minutes. Once it is set up, data starts collecting from that point on, so set it up early.

The Performance report

This is the report most owners will use. It shows four numbers for any period you choose:

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  Total clicks: how many times someone clicked through to your site from Google Search.

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  Total impressions: how many times your site appeared in someone's search results, whether they clicked or not.

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  Average CTR: the share of impressions that turned into clicks.

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  Average position: roughly where your site appeared in the results, on average. Lower is better.

Below that you can see the actual searches (Google calls them queries) that brought people to your site, and which pages they landed on.

What to look for

Here are a few useful questions to ask the report each month:

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  Which searches bring people in? If you see searches for services you offer but do not have a page for, that is a good page to add.

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  Which towns show up? Searches with town names tell you where you are being found.

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  Are clicks going up or down? Compare this month with the same month last year, since many trades are seasonal.

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  Which searches show you a lot but get few clicks? Your page may be showing up but not looking like the right answer. A clearer page title and description can help.

The Pages report

The Pages report, under Indexing, shows which of your pages Google has added to its index and which it has not, with a reason. Not every excluded page is a problem. Some pages are excluded on purpose. But if an important service page is missing, this is where you will find out.

Sitemaps

A sitemap is a file listing the pages on your website. Submitting it in Search Console helps Google find all your pages, especially new ones. Many website platforms create a sitemap automatically. You just need to submit its address once.

URL Inspection

If you add a new page or make a big change, you can paste the page's address into the URL Inspection tool to see whether Google has it, and request that Google crawl it. It does not guarantee anything, but it can speed things up.

Things to keep in mind

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  Search Console data usually lags by a couple of days.

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  It shows Google Search only, not visits from other places like Facebook or your Google Business Profile.

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  Average position is an average across many searches and locations, so treat it as a trend, not a fixed rank.

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  Search Console does not count phone calls. Pair it with something that does.

A ten-minute monthly routine

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  Open the Performance report and set the date range to the last 28 days.

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  Note total clicks and compare with the previous period and last year.

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  Scan the top searches for services or towns you are missing.

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  Check the Pages report for important pages that are not indexed.

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  Write down one thing to improve, such as a new service page.

That is enough to stay informed and catch problems early, without turning it into a second job.

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