Have you completed optimizing your website? Are you sure that it will run as per Google SEO recommendations? There could be a possibility that your website doesn't stand up to search engines' standards. You need to be pretty sure that users are getting optimal and the best experience on your website. It will ensure that your ranking will rise considerably with time. For this, auditing your website is of utmost importance.
Audit assures that your website runs flawlessly and gives a wonderful user experience. Do you want to see the performance of your website? And find out the possible issues inhibiting its efficiency. Google search console is the ultimate solution! It is an entirely free tool that checks many SEO issues in one go. We'll discuss scrutinizing for SEO mistakes and opportunities with the Google search console.
How To Perform An SEO Audit Using Google Search Console?
Examining a website is not a one-step process. It involves various steps and measures to follow to get completed as required. These are the main elements of the auditing process:
# Check status of URLs for indexing
You have put all your efforts into designing your web pages. But, verifying that Google bots are indexing them or not guarantees that these pages are visible to users. Indexing is the parameters that Google has listed your website in its system.
Furthermore, Google may block your pages if it doesn't follow Google guidelines or even by accident. In the former case, Google doesn't index your page as a penalty. In Google Search Console, see the error and warning signals to find the reason behind this. But in the latter case, it may be left out of indexing. So, resubmit your web page URL for indexing.
# What is the user experience on your website?
Fix out the user experience issues by generating the core web vitals and mobile-friendly reports. Optimizing user experience is the route to customer retention, reducing bounce rate, and increasing the repetition rate on your website.
When you open the core web vitals report, you'll get to know:
- How many web pages are hampering the loading speed of the website?
- What are the changes required to improve the user interaction?
GSC will give you a list of discovered issues. After this, you can click on the URL. Move to page insights to find out the details of the problem and its possible solutions.
A mobile-friendly report can prove to be your best friend for improving the website's usability for mobile users. GSC shows you the errors and how to fix them. You can click on the page URL to know more about the error and fixing details. Once you set the errors, select Validate fix option and remove these errors from the reports.
If you want an optimal user experience, you can contact SEO professionals to identify and fix possible speed issues.
# Verify your sitemap XML file
The sitemap is an important file for making sure to tell Google how to navigate your website. It is the file that explains the location and structure of all your URLs and images. Do you know that a sitemap increases the speed and efficiency of crawling? It tells where to locate the web pages on the website. Also, how many times do Google bots must visit these web pages.
Inspect if you have added all your URLs in the proper order. Further, if the file is not there, you can submit it by:
- Enter your website link in the Google search console.
- Click on the sitemaps option.
- Put the sitemap URL.
- Finally, select submit option.
# Optimize your content for relevant keywords
It is super easy to track the ranking of target keywords. You can analyze them according to their competition and trend in the market. With GSC, you can look at whether your keywords are in a higher position on search results or not.
Find the status of keywords with Select performance > Move to Search results > Click on Total impressions and Average position. Total impressions are the total number of persons searching for a keyword. And Average position is the position of the keyword on SERPs.
The above data will tell you to change the below-average keywords from your website. They are contributing but dragging your web page down. 1-3 is the best position, while 4-5 are good. However, keyword ranking positions 11-15 need optimization.
Other than that, keyword ranking at 2nd place but getting only ten impressions is of no value. Indeed, it needs improvement in other areas like page speed or quality content. Make your strategy in a way that you get more impressions as well.
Conclusion
Let's wind up; auditing is the crucial step for overhauling your website optimization. And Google Search Console is your best guiding partner. It is a one-stop solution for all your SEO needs.
First, increasing your search organic traffic.
Second, you can optimize your content for keywords.
Then, get email alerts for SEO issues.
Last but not least, how search engines see your web pages.
So, what are the steps that you're planning to take for using Google Search Console?