Instructions for using Google Search Console from A-> Z (2019)

In this article there is everything about Google Search Console you need to know.

If you are a beginner to SEO, I will show you how to use it GSC.

And if you are an SEO veteran, I have some tips and tricks to share that will help you get higher rankings.

This will be the latest full Google Search Console guide (2019)

Chapter # 1: Getting started with Google Search Console

In this chapter I will introduce a little about Google Search Console.

And then instructions for installing Google Search Console.

Finally, set this tool to the best.

What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is also known as Google Webmaster Tool.

This is a set of tools provided by Google, to help you understand how the website is displaying on search engines.

It provides detailed reports and data on how each page appears on Google.

Such as keywords, clicks, CTR, average rank of that keyword.

This data can help you improve old posts, write new content and build content strategies for your website.

Google Search Console also allows you to submit XML sitemaps, exclude URLs and help Google display the most important content of the page.

It also notifies you if the page has a problem that causes Google, not to crawl and index.

Step 1: Instructions to install Google Search Console

First, let's access to Google Search Console.

Click Start now and login to your gmail account.

After logging in, there will be 2 options:

There are 2 types: Domain and URL Prefix

• Domain will include all URLs on subdomains, www, or no www, https, http. And required to verify by DNS.
• URL prefix This is still the old form, the URL must be correct, and there are many verification methods.

Looking above we can be the appropriate domain for websites with many subdomains (type demo.dieuhau.com or vip.dieuhau.com)

URL prefix type is for single websites, easy to install.

Please select the appropriate category.

Here I will use the URL Prefix type as this guide.

Remember this way you must enter the correct URL including https offline.

SSL or https is now required on every website.

Next is to verify website ownership.

There are 5 ways to verify. But these are the 3 easiest ways to claim a website.

• Upload the HTML file - Upload an HTML file to the website
• HTML tag - (Recommend this one): Simply attach a small piece of code in the tag of the homepage is fine.
• Use Google Tag Manager - You must have "manage" GTM rights.

Copy the following code:

Come Appearance »Editor. Copy the code above and paste it into the section header.php under the card then select Update File is ok.

Return to the verification step, and click Verify is okay.

Set up Google Search Console

Step 2: Install Preferred Domain (preferred domain)

These settings will be in the old version of GSC.

Scroll down to the bottom of the menu

This step will proceed to set preferred domain.

This will determine whether you use wwww or non-www for the website.

Select the icon »Site Settings

For example: Google can understand your website as:

https://dieuhau.com

or

https://dieuhau.com

I'm familiar with the domain type without www already. Although it has no effect on SEO at all.

But why install it?

The preferred domain you choose here will show up in the search results.

If you select "www" on GG, the results will be www.dieuhau.com

Note: You can completely choose "Don’t set a preferred domain"

But I recommend you choose 1 of 2. Google said: "If you don't specify a preferred domain, we may treat the www and non-www versions of the domain as separate references to separate pages”

Means: If you do not choose preferred domain, google may apply version www and non-www for each individual page.

Sometimes this will make you get 404 errors. So it's best to choose 1 of 2

Tip: Set the 301 redirect for the version you didn't choose to the preferred you want, for example, you will set the 301 redirect for www.dieuhau.com to dieuhau.com. This is the best way to increase user experience and SEO.

Step 3: Set the Target Country you want

Actually google fully knows your website, which country it is targeting.

GG will rely on the following data to know:

• Based on the domain extension (.vn .uk. Us ..)
• Address on your website
• Server location
• Country you received the most backlinks
• Language on your website (English, Vietnamese ...)

Follow these steps:

1. Select "International Targeting" under "Search Traffic"

2. Select to tab "Country"

3. Check the "Target user in" box and select the country and save

That is completed.

Step 4: Connect Google Analytics and Google Search Console

Open Google Analytics, then select Admin in the lower left corner

Choose Property Settings in the Property section

Scroll down you will see Adjust Search Console

There will be buttons here Add. Click and enter the website url is fine (here I have entered it)

That's it, Google Analytics has connected to the Google Search Console.

Return to Google Analytics in the section Acquisition »Search Console» Landing Pages

You will see parameters such as Impression, Click, CTR (page by page), Average rank….

Section Countries You will see which countries your traffic mainly comes from

The next item is Devies and Queries.

For me these 2 items are not very important, but you should still refer to them.

Because the Query section should look at Google Search Console will be much more detailed.

Step 5: Check Security Issues

Finally, see if you have a security error

The new Google Search Console also has this section.

Check both Manual actions (manual action).

See if there's any warning.

If there is no problem then you are assured!

Step 6: Add Site Map

The bigger the site, the more articles it has, the more important the site map

I have explained this problem in the File robots.txt article and how to optimize them for SEO.

Here are some ways to add site maps:

Using Yoast SEO »Overview and enable the" XML Sitemap "

Go to the link: https://tienmiencuaban.com/sitemap_index.xml to check

If not using Yoast SEO, do the following manually:

Go to the new Google Search Console on the left menu, select Sitemaps

Enter sitemap_index.txt and press sumbit.

Chapter # 2: Check for errors with Google Search Console

A lot of people don't notice that Google Search Console is outside to check for search keywords

It is also one SEO tool Give a lot of advice to you.

As you know, fixing these errors will help optimize SEO.

In this article I will guide you.

How…

Use "Coverage" to find content with error "Index"

After you have a website, write the content.

Now Google's turn will:

• Navigate to your site
• Start collecting information on your website

But sometimes, due to some error, gg cannot index all the pages on the website.

And you will need the Coverage feature in GSC.

Let's find out.

What is Coverage? What is its effect ?

Coverage is a report that tells you which pages on your website have been indexed by google.

And it tells you the error that prevents the page from being indexed.

In this interface you will see sections such as:

• Error - Error is on the website
• Valid with warnings - Indexed but there are some warnings
• Valid - Indexed
• Excluded - Do not index

Find the index error with the Error report in Coverage

Now click on the Error tab to see the errors you are experiencing.

You will see here I have 3 errors, and a chart over time on this parameter.

Scroll down and see the information for each error.

I have quite a few errors here. But I will also list some common errors:

Submitted URL seems to be a Soft 404

This error is quite common which means that the page is "not found" or does not exist. Perhaps you deleted the post, or changed the url, but forgot to redirect.

Redirect error

There is a 301/302 redirect for that page

But inaccurate or defective

Submitted URL not found (404)

This page could not be found, and the server will return it with a code (404).

In short, this page does not exist.

Submitted URL has crawl issue

This error is very likely to occur

It is best to click directly to see what is happening

Server errors (5xx)

Googlebot is not allowed to access the server, your server may be down, time out ...

Click on each of the errors below to see a list of the pages being broken.

Let's start with the 404 error first, because this error is quite easy to fix

First, check that the URL does not exist.

And if it does not exist (or deleted)

How to handle error URLs 404

Now there are 2 ways to handle this:

• Ignore it! then google will deindex that page (Google will understand that you are not selling that product anymore)
• Navigate to another page (an article, category, or whatever you want).

Now go back and press Inspect URL

To analyze whether this URL has a problem?

There is a button in the right corner TEST LIVE URL (check this url actually).

And the box below is the status of this link currently.

• Coverage: URL indexed
• Mobile Usability: Compatible interface on mobile
• AMP: there is an AMP version but there is a warning here

The Live Test function will let you know the actual status of this URL:

Still the same interface is not very different.

Please rely on this information to fix the error.

How to fix other errors

Above I have 404 errors but quite light, I will show you some other errors and how to fix them

1. Blocked index

Click on Test Robot.txt Blocking

Will be transferred to robot.txt Tester on the old version to check.

If this is Allowed, it is completely okie and not blocked.

But if not, you will have to check your robot.txt file.

You can see the details of this file here.

In general, depending on the website, there will be different errors.

If you do not know, please comment below I will guide you.

2. Fix the "Warning" errors in Coverage

Sometimes these errors are often not paid much attention.

But to me, only a small error affects the website

I will also try to understand and fix it.

Click on the Warning tab, you will see the following interface:

Like above, click directly to check for errors.

As here, these URLs are blocked by robots.txt files.

Click on Test Robot.txt to test it.

It will show the reason why this url is blocked.

So how to fix the error file robot blocked?

Simply unblock it in the Disallow line in the robot.txt file.

Or check if the page has a "noindex" tag.

Please double check if this is your purpose, or just a mistake.

Instructions for removing URLs from Google Search

If you want to remove any page from indexing on Google.

Use the following tool:

Enter the path you want to delete from GG

A confirmation panel appears and select submit to agree.

Note: This block will only work for 90 days. Googlebot will continue to crawl that page,

It is best to block it on robot.txt. It will vanish on the search result immediately

Check the indexed pages

Now go to the Valid tab and check the number of pages indexed.

The issues you need to note here:

1. Sudden increase or decrease in the number of indexed pages

If there is one sudden fluctuations Which one is in this chart?

Please pay attention immediately, you may be having problems such as:

• A large number of pages are blocked by robot.txt
• Or you can tag the wrong noindex somewhere

If you do it because necessary, and absolutely right.

So there's no need to worry so much.

If not, please reconsider.

2. The number of pages indexed is unusually high.

Currently I have 818 articles published on Dieu Hac.

So when you look at your Valid tab, expect it to be somewhere true for that number.

And if it's higher than that, you'll need to find out why.

I have a bit lower here, but it doesn't matter.

Check the Excluded tab (leave no index)

As I explained in the post:

What is crawl and index - The way that Google is crawling your website

Not everything on the website needs to be indexed.

On the contrary, busy to be selective. Things should be indexed.

And take care of whatever is not needed.

For example: tags, affiiate links, a certain page ...

As you can see above, I removed a lot of unnecessary things.

Scroll down to see the detailed list.

Ok now glance at why I removed them.

Excluded by the ‘noindex’ tag

We all know that tag is one way for users to find related owners.

And this one doesn't need an index.

Alternate page with proper canonical tag

This is normal, this is the effect of the canonical tag.

Crawled - currently not indexed

These are pages that have been crawled but not indexed.

Google does not provide any reason why they do not index.

But in my opinion, it is not satisfactory to be on google search.

My advice is: Refresh it.

If it goes back to the category page, add the content and the description as well.

Too many duplicate content, make it more unique.

Page with redirect

These are pages that have been redirected to another URL.

This is absolutely good.

Discovered - currently not indexed

Google has crawled these pages but not yet indexed

Crawl anomaly

Fish pretty many reasons. Click directly to view it ...

Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical

This is a set of pages with duplicate content without canonical tags.

As on my website, the images have the same name.

Chapter # 3: Increase traffic with Google Search Console

Now comes the main, specialty section of Google Search Console

It is the Performance feature

And the most favorite part for me.

Because I have relied on it to increase organic traffic more times than now thanks to it.

Certainly people also look to GSC because of this feature.

So we will start with this feature.

What is performance?

Performance is a GSC report that shows the overall search performance of websites on google search. This report tells you how many CTRs, Impressions and average rankings.

This is a new interface instead of Search Analytics in the old version (google webmaster tools).

Here will be more interesting than the old version (filter results separately on AMP)

In the old report you only reported results in 90 days.

GSC you can choose up to 16 months or custom from the date you start.

There will be a lot of useful stuff here and there.

Improve CTR with Performance feature

CTR is the one Key ranking factor on GG?

The more it relates to the Google RankBrain algorithm.

And the question now is

How can I improve my CTR?

Use the Performance feature in Google Search Console

Let's start to learn this feature offline.

1. Find keywords with the lowest CTR

First, click on the box Average CTR and Average Position

Here we will focus on finding keywords with low CTR and low rankings.

Please select filter, here I will find from average rank # 5 onwards.

Select "Greater than 4.9".

You now have a list of keywords (page) ranking # 5 or higher.

According to word research Advanced Web Ranking, the 5th position on GG will have a CTR of about 4.35% (of course there are still special cases).

Continue to filter to keywords with CTR below 4.35%.

Choose "Smaller than 4.35”

So now you have a list of keywords (page) that rank on average # 5, and a CRT below 4.35%

Improving CTR is one of the fastest ways to increase traffic.

Focus on keywords that have a low CTR but a good amount of impressions.

This keyword I achieved 127 clicks, 4998 impressions, and 2.5%.

Good enough for us to invest in it.

2. Switch to the page tab

Next you will find the page that is ranking for that keyword.

Simply click on the Pages tab.

3. Find all the keywords ranked for that page

Do not rush to point to the optimal input just 1 page with only one keyword.

That can make you rank down with 100 other keywords on that page.

So please do it this way:

Click + New »Page: select URL containing, Enter the URL below.

Okie! Below will be a list of all ranking keywords for that page

Looking at the table above, there are 381 clicks with 12.7k impressions on Google.

Enough to see this page CTR is very low (count all the keywords on this page).

4. Optimize tilte and description to improve CTR immediately

There are many ways to improve CTR.

But what I like most and apply it nearby is probably:

Optimize the title and description of the article.

By using the Power Word:

So what is Power Word?

Power words are strong emotional words for readers, make them curious, see what they want right away, and want to click on your article to discover.

And these words have been proven many times, to be effective.

Here are some words you have applied

• New
• Fast
• Simple
• Step one
• Easily
• The best
• Full set
• From A-Z
• Hot
• Secret
• Tips
• Truth
• ...

Please apply to the title and description accordingly.

5. Follow up and check the results

Finally note and wait after 10 days to see the results.

Why 10 days?

It will take a few days for google to index your posts.

It will then be about 1 week for you to have data about this change.

In Google Search Console select compare to compare.

If you get good results, come back here and let me know!

Tips: Depending on the field, you should choose the words that suit you, try and change!

Search for potential keywords with Perfomance Report

Continue a great feature of Google Search Console that you may not have known.

What are potential keywords?

Potential keywords are phrases with word rank 8-20, but received relatively good impressions.

So why is it potential?

1. Google has considered your page to be relevant to the keyword (if not you headline page 10). You have the ability to push the page to the first position.

2. Do not rely on "search volume" from third party SEO tools. Data from GSC tells you the most accurate available traffic.

You will now follow the steps below:

Finding these keywords in the Performance report is a simple 3-step process.

Step 1: Set the range to: 28 days

Step 2: Filter the report to show only the keyword ranking "Greater than" 7.9

Step 3: Finally, sort by "Impressions". You will get a list of "Potential Keywords"

Here is what you need to do to increase the rank of these pages:

1. Be prepared with very detailed content

Google likes in-depth content that is fully inclusive.

This is why The average number of words on page 1 is 1,890 words.

So make sure your content is a detailed one.

This content should include all the knowledge you know about the topic.

If it is too sketchy, rewrite the content, adding more relevant topics inside.

(Like this article of mine for example)

2. Improve Dwell Time with Video

Dwell time is the amount of time Google users spend on the page.

When you increase this time to rank will improve.

So that's why I want you to write your content in-depth.

So you have increased the time users spend on your website.

But to increase the time ...

Please add some videos to your site.

This has been Wistia proves is dwell time increases 2.6 times when a page contains videos.

This is really a huge difference.

3. Add Internal Links

Adding some internal links to the page will be very beneficial.

In chapter 4, I will show you how to use Search Console to optimize these internal links.

But first, remember that using internal links wisely will increase rankings.

4. Earn new backlinks to take out opponents

Backlinks are still part of the Google algorithm.

Which means that:

Building quality backlinks to the site will increase the ranking of that page.

Regarding these backlinks, I have made it clearer in this article.

And before we move on to the next chapter, I have two bonus tips for you ...

Bonus # 1: Optimize potential keywords in GSC and push them to the top with long keywords (Longtail keyword)

As in my Google RankBrain post, I said

"Long tail Keyword is dead"

Now the old SEO way is no longer working.

(Type 1000 articles for 1000 long keywords)

But now the opposite: You get hundreds or even thousands of keywords for a single post.

You do not believe it?

This is evidence for an article that I ranked a lot of different keywords:

There are a lot of keywords around this post, I'm not optimal but it is still ranked.

There is also the word "free domain name registration" on page 1.

As a result, this is one of the articles I have the most visits to.

So what's the secret here?

First you need to make the content truly in-depth.

Because when there is a long, intensive article. It is highly likely that it will automatically rank for long keywords.

Your content is sketchy and unknown what will add to the problem?

Just check the keywords that page has ranked in Search Console.

Select the URL of the post, you will see a lot of suggestions.

(Keep going, the song will be too long, I'll update next ... ..!)