Google Search Console will be one of the best tools in your arsenal. My goal here is to teach you how to set up Google Search Console quickly and easily.

Most people have heard of Google Analytics and perhaps even set up an account. But there’s a number of people that don’t know about or don’t use Google Search Console. We’ll walk through how to set up Google Search Console in just a second but first let’s look at what Google Search Console (GSC for short) is. The easiest way to explain what GSC is – is that it’s a control panel that allows you to control and monitor how Google sees your website. For example, you mistyped a link while hyperlinking to a recipe and didn’t notice. Next time Google crawls your site GSC will let you know that you have a 404 error and where it is so that you can delete it. Ultimately giving your users a better experience on your site.

Next is: What does GSC give you (beyond 404 errors)? It gives you a wealth of information that’s crucial to effective SEO, things like what keywords your site ranks for, what position you rank in for those keywords, how often people are clicking your result after typing in specific queries, and what other sites have linked to your content. It also gives you additional crawl errors (Google can’t access a page on your site), manual actions (i.e. Google has penalized your site due to a violation of one of their quality guidelines). It even tells you if your site is mobile-friendly or not.

How To Set Up Google Search Console

Time needed: 20 minutes

First, go to Google Search Console.
Create an account
Create an account or if you have Google Analytics set up on your website (recommended), log in using your Google Analytics credentials.
Select Property
Select a property type by adding your website address to either the domain or URL prefix tab (as seen below).
Verify Site Ownership
You’ll have to verify that you own your site. Preferably, verify ownership using your Google Analytics tracking ID.
Tracking ID
To find your Google Analytics tracking ID, login to your Google Analytics account and navigate to Admin » Property settings » Basic settings» Tracking ID.
Alt Verification
If you don’t have Google Analytics it’ll be a bit more annoying. I suggest checking out Kinsta’s – Google Site Verification: 7 Ways to Verify With Search Console
That’s it, you’re all done.
Now, the next time you log in to your Google Analytics account, you’ll be able to access Google Search Console via the sidebar as well.