One of the most useful and important SEO tools is Google Search Console. Google Search Console is a free tool provided by Google for webmasters (also known as Google Webmaster Tools).
Google Search Console has a number of tools and reports that you can use to find out what Google knows about your website, improve your site’s performance in search results, and fix problems.
In this post, you will learn how to add your website to Google Search Console.
How to put your website in Google Search Console
The first thing you need to do is sign up for Google Search Console and add and verify ownership of your website.
Here are the steps:
Step 1: Create an account with Google Search Console.
Go to Google search console and click Start now
If you already have a Google account, you can sign in directly; if not, the first step is to create an account and then log in.
Note: If you already have a Google analytics account, you can use it to sign in. It is always a good practice to have Google Search Console and Analytics in the same Google account.
Step 2: Add your website
Add property to Google Search Console
Click add property clicking on the search property dropdown.
Enter your website URL and click Follow.
Note: Google treats http:// and https:// URLs differently, as well as http:// (without www). In the eyes of Google, these are 4 different websites.
You can read this guide at www or not www for more information.
For now, just enter one of the variations, and once verified, you can repeat this process to add all four variations of your website.
Step 3: Verify ownership of your website
Verify property methods
The next step is to verify the ownership of the website. There are 5 main ways to do this:
HTML file verification
If you choose this method, you must download the provided HTML file and upload it to the ROOT folder of your website. In most cases, it is located in the public_html folder.
Once uploaded, you can click the VERIFY button and proceed to the next step.
Note: You should keep the file in the root folder of your website at all times. Deleting the file will also remove the ownership of the website.
HTML tag
Check property with HTML tag
If you choose to use this verification method, you must copy the meta tag provided by Google and add it to the section
from your website.If you are using the Yoast SEO plugin, you can add the verification code in the Google Verification Code box by selecting:
Yoast SEO > GENERAL > WEBMASTER TOOLS
Add HTML tag to Yoast SEO
google analytics
The third method is the easiest and my recommended method.
If you already have Google Analytics installed on your website and you are using the same Google account for GA and GSC, all you need to do is click the VERIFY button.
Verify ownership with Google Analytics
Google Tag Manager
Same as Google Analytics. If you already have the Google Tag Manager script installed in the main section of your website, then it can automatically check the Google search console.
domain name provider
If you can’t use any of the above methods, you can verify website ownership by editing the DNS settings. If you are not technically savvy, I would not recommend this method as you need to know how to edit your domain’s DNS values. In this case, it is better to ask the help of your domain provider.
Step 4 – Repeat the process to add ALL website variations
Once you’ve added and verified one of your website addresses, you need to repeat this process until you’ve added all variations.
If you have https installed on your website, this means you need to add and verify all four instances:
- .example.com
Google Search Console Settings
Google Search Console Settings
You can go to SETTINGS to check ownership status and add/remove or change users who can access your web properties.
That’s it, you can now take advantage of Google Search Console tools and reports to measure and improve your site’s performance on Google.
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