Google Search console is a Free tool that helps your WordPress blog appear under Google searches, and it shows your blog’s statistics. This allows you to learn a lot of various aspects of how well your WordPress blog is doing. In this article, I am going to explain to you a step-by-step guide on How To Add Your WordPress Blog To The Google Search Console.
Before you hop on this post, I will advise you to set up your Google Analytics account first. Here you can find step-by-step guide on how to set up Google Analytics account.
In this blog post, we are going to talk about the following points:
- Why do you need a Google search console for your WordPress blog?
- A detailed step-by-step guide showing how to set up Google Search Console and verify your WordPress blog
- How to submit your website’s XML sitemap to Google Search Console
- How to connect Google Search Console to the Google Analytics
- A brief overview of the features on the Google Search console.
Why do you need a Google search console for your WordPress blog?
- To make your website appear under search engine results, you have to submit XML Sitemap to those search engines, for example, Google. Even though your site appears in the search results after google robots crawl your website, this process might take a couple of months. And sure, nobody wants to wait that long! And this is the reason you have to submit your WordPress blog to Google and ask Google robots to crawl it. To make this process easier, Google has provided us with a free tool, Google Search Console.
- It also allows you to maintain and monitor your WordPress blog. In short, Google Search Console shows you how well your WordPress website ranks in the Google search engine, tells you how your SEO is doing, and how well your WordPress blog is performing.
Now, we know that why you need GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE, let's see How To Add Your WordPress Blog To The Google Search Console
- Go to https://search.google.com/search-console/about
- Add your domain name
3. In this step, we have to copy the given txt code and paste it into the domain service provider. I use Siteground, so I am going to show you how to do it. Even if you use any other Domain name provider, the user interface is going to be more or less similar. So, just follow the steps.
4. Login to your Domain name provider->go to the site tools->domains->DNS zone editor->copy the TXT code and paste it into the value.
5. Click create
6. Come back to google search console and verify your account (it may take some time to verify).
Click continue and you will now be at the dashboard of the property and it will be displayed at the rightmost corner of the dashboard.
You have successfully added Your WordPress Blog To The Google Search Console. Now,
Let's add your blog's XML sitemap to Google Search Console
- Once your account is verified, go to the property you just added
- Click on sitemap
- In this step, we’re going to use Yoast SEO plug-in. If you haven’t already installed and configured the plug-in on your WordPress Blog, you can follow these steps here and once it is installed and configured, resume back.
- Let’s go to your WordPress dashboard->Yoast SEO
- Go to the Features->click on XML sitemap (make sure it’s turned on)->click on see the XML sitemap and a link will open in a new window.
6. Copy the URL of the index page (e.g., domainname/sitemap_index.xml)
7. Come back to the Google Search Console window and Paste that link in the sitemap. Click Submit (it may take time to verify).
8. When this is verified, you can see the success message on the same window.
Now let's validate if the your blog is indexed on Google or not. To check that, go to Google and type "site:yourdomain.com." (without ""). If you see a listing of your pages in the search window, that means your site is indexed.
*Remember that, this process may take some time.
We’re almost done and at the final step of How to Set Up Google Analytics & Search Console in WordPress.
You can skip this step and see the statics from both of these platforms by logging in each of them individually. But I always prefer it this way, having everything in one place.
Lets see how to connect Google Search Console to Google Analytics
- Go to your Google Analytics dashboard
- Go to Home->Acquisition->Search Console ->Landing page
3. Click on Set up Search Console data sharing
4. Click on Adjust search console ->add. It will take you to a new place and click the website you want to connect to. Save.
5. You might see all the statistics right away, or even if you don’t, don’t worry. It can take some time to pull all the data and show it here.
Once Google Search Console and Google Analytics is connected, you will be able to see some of the Search Console features directly in Google Analytics dashboard.
You can check this information here:
Acquisition > Search Console.
What to check on Google Search Console:
Dashboard: The first thing you see when you log in to the Google Search console. Your Dashboard will tell you all the important functions of your website if there are any Crawl Errors, Analytics, and Sitemap.
Search Appearance: Here, you can see how your website appears in search results. You can also view how your website is performing, what keywords and pages are getting more traffics. This way, you can target more on those keywords, create more content, and generate more traffic to your WordPress blog.
Messages: When you set up a property, i.e., your website, you will start receiving messages/notifications on how you can improve your website’s performance.
Crawl: When you submit your site’s XML sitemap to Google search console, you’re letting robots to crawl your website. Crawl statistics show you how many pages Google has crawled and if there is any problem in the crawling and how you can fix it.
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