What Is Google Search Console?
Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool provided by Google that helps you monitor and maintain your website's presence in Google Search results. Unlike Google Analytics, which tells you about your website visitors, Search Console tells you about how Google itself interacts with and ranks your website.
Every Australian business website should have Search Console set up. It's free, it provides data you can't get anywhere else, and it gives you direct communication with Google about your site's health.
Setting Up Google Search Console
Go to search.google.com/search-console and add your website as a property. You'll need to verify ownership via one of several methods: HTML file upload, HTML meta tag, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, or DNS record. Once verified, it takes a few days for data to begin populating.
The Key Reports in Google Search Console
Performance Report — What People Search to Find You
The Performance report is where most of the gold lives. It shows you: the exact search queries people use to find your site (Queries), which pages appear in search results (Pages), your average position for each query, how many times your pages appear in results (Impressions), and how often people click through (Clicks).
Pay particular attention to: queries where you have high impressions but low clicks (your title and meta description may need improvement), queries where you rank on pages 2-3 (a small improvement could move you to page 1), and pages with declining impressions or clicks (potential ranking drops to investigate).
URL Inspection Tool — How Google Sees Individual Pages
Enter any URL from your website to see exactly how Google has indexed it, when it was last crawled, and whether there are any issues. If you've made recent changes to an important page and want Google to recrawl it, you can request indexing directly from this tool.
Coverage Report — What Google Is (and Isn't) Indexing
This report shows which of your pages are indexed and which have been excluded, along with the reason for exclusion. Critical issues to investigate: "Crawl anomaly" errors, "Submitted URL blocked by robots.txt" (your pages may be accidentally blocked), "404 Not Found" errors for important pages, and "Duplicate without user-selected canonical" issues.
Core Web Vitals Report
Shows how your pages perform on Google's Core Web Vitals metrics across real user data. Pages flagged as "Poor" are directly at risk of ranking penalties. Prioritise fixing any pages showing in red.
Mobile Usability Report
Identifies specific pages with mobile usability issues, including: "Text too small to read", "Clickable elements too close together", "Content wider than screen". Fix every issue flagged here.
Links Report
Shows which external websites link to yours (your backlink profile) and which pages on your site link to each other most. Use this to understand your site's link authority distribution and identify opportunities.
Sitemaps
Submit your XML sitemap here to help Google find and index all your important pages. Check back regularly to confirm Google has successfully processed your sitemap.
A Monthly Google Search Console Workflow
- Check Performance report: are impressions and clicks growing month-over-month?
- Identify your top 10 queries and check if rankings are stable, improving, or declining
- Find queries with positions 8-20 (just off page 1) — these are your quick-win opportunities
- Check Coverage report for any new crawl errors
- Review Core Web Vitals for any newly flagged poor pages
- Check for any new manual actions or security issues
Advanced Search Console Strategies
Finding Quick Ranking Wins
Filter the Performance report to show queries where your average position is between 8-15. These are pages ranking on the bottom of page 1 or top of page 2 — small content improvements could push them into the top 5 and dramatically increase traffic.
Identifying Content Gaps
Look for queries generating impressions but very few clicks. These indicate people are seeing your pages for those terms but not finding them compelling enough to click. Improve your title tags and meta descriptions for those pages.
Connecting to Google Analytics
Link your Search Console and Google Analytics accounts to unlock additional insights about how organic search traffic behaves on your website after they arrive.
The Bottom Line
Google Search Console is the closest thing to a direct line of communication with Google's algorithm that any website owner has. Using it consistently and acting on its data is one of the most impactful free SEO activities available. If you haven't set it up, do it today.
