How to Use New Google Search Console Reports with Jeannie Hill @essentialskill #vcbuzz

Website owners may often get angry with Google for forcing their agenda on how they should be creating and publishing content but one thing is undeniable: Google provides by far the most useful free tools in the industry.

And they keep working on improving those tools too!

One such useful tool that is constantly being updated and upgraded is Google Search Console.

@Google has responded to many #SEO requests for more Search Console tools and Reports. By using them, search marketers know how the tech giant views a site and exactly what improvements are needed. #vcbuzz https://t.co/BjVevOduJ0
— Jeannie Hill (@essentialskill) December 8, 2020

So let’s discuss how to make the most of it!

***Add #VCBuzz chats to your calendar here.

***Please sign in here to follow the chat -> twchat.com/hashtag/vcbuzz

About Jeannie Hill @essentialskill

Jeannie Hill @essentialskill is no stranger to #vcbuzz Twitter chats. She hosted one just a few months ago on schema essentials.

Jeannie Hill @essentialskill is an experienced organic and AdWords Optimization and Campaign Manager, marketing communications project manager, Accelerated Mobile Page Implementation, SEO copywriter, and mobile website manager.

Questions we discussed

Q1 What does the Google Search Console do and which new reports does it include?

A1. GSC help you measure your website's organic search traffic and performance on different queries, find crawl & speed issues, etc.

New reports I use prominently: Discover traffic, web vitals, URL inspection, crawl stats (recently).#vcbuzz
— Praveen Sharma (@MusingPraveen) December 8, 2020

Great answer by @MusingPraveen on why we should use the Google Search Console for optimization.

With Google being the source of most site’s organic traffic, its Search Console reports to critical to know how to improve in Google Search.

Hello #vcbuzz – I’m dropping in for a short time as Jeannie tagged me.

A1 GSC is a vital tool to understand how Google is crawling and indexing your site and most importantly give you some clues to issues. New is the Crawl Stats report and its tucked away in settings.
— Simon Cox (@simoncox) December 8, 2020

Having said that someone is bound to come up with a really good business use for the Crawl Stats report. But i think it is intentionally hidden away in the settings.#vcbuzz
— Simon Cox (@simoncox) December 8, 2020

The new Google Crawl Stats report is tucked away – it took me a bit at first to locate it under settings. It is a great help with crawling issues.

A1 The Google Search Console provides information that Google knows about your website, and can be useful if you want to improve how your site is doing for searches, and for visitors to it. #vcbuzz
— Bill Slawski ⚓ (@bill_slawski) December 8, 2020

GSC measures a website's organic performance for different verticals and also reports Technical SEO errors along with crawl stats. It helps you to remove outdated content or move a website and determine the crawl rate. You can see whether you have a manual action or not. #vcbuzz
— Koray Tuğberk GÜBÜR (@KorayGubur) December 8, 2020

Check out the Google Search Console Excluded tab under the Coverage report to identify and resolve many Technical SEO issues.

Q2 What is your favorite Google Search Console report and how to make the most of it?

My favorite new #GoogleSearchConsole Tools:

? Signed Exchange Accepted by Google AMP
?The Core Web vitals 3 major components: first input delay, largest contentful paint, and cumulative layout shift.
?The Crawl Stats report

A2. My favourite: traffic performance report.

Bcoz it gives details like queries where we hv impressions but fewer clicks on page 1, we can improve those pages.

Also, we can see performance as per search appearance like rich results, videos, how-to, web stories, etc.#vcbuzz
— Praveen Sharma (@MusingPraveen) December 8, 2020

It is Crawl Stats Report since it is more interesting lately, but usually, it is Coverage Report since I am using it to improve the website's quality score in the eyes of Search Engines. #vcbuzz
— Koray Tuğberk GÜBÜR (@KorayGubur) December 8, 2020

A2 Now that we have 18 months of data instead of 90 days, we can see seasonal improvements invisibility year on year by using the Performance Compare functions. Great for showing clients how we are doing!#vcbuzz pic.twitter.com/D62pIW6tXv
— Simon Cox (@simoncox) December 8, 2020

A2 My favorite GSC report is the "Excluded" report in the Index Coverage section that shows why Google is crawling URLs but not including them in the index. Great opportunity to find crawl waste and opportunities to index new content #vcbuzz
— Chris Long (@gofishchris) December 8, 2020

You are right @gofishchris – I find the “Excluded” report in the Index Coverage section so valuable that I wrote about it here in 2017.

A2: Mostly the performance reports w/ filters (i.e. comparing brand vs. non-brand; product lines, different directories, etc.) — then URL inspection + Page Speed Insights. #vcbuzz
— Sam (@DigitalSamIAm) December 8, 2020

A2 I like to see which terms specific pages are receiving impressions and clicks for in GSC, and whether clicks can be increased for the impressions received. I often import this information into Screaming Frog through the API. #vcbuzz
— Bill Slawski ⚓ (@bill_slawski) December 8, 2020

A2 My favorite report is the following: #vcbuzz pic.twitter.com/QCCmRIlVbl
— Boyd Norwood – nozzle.io (@boydnorwood) December 8, 2020

A2 There's also an interesting report in GSC called "Crawled, Not Currently Indexed" which shows which URLs Google is crawling but manually excluding from the index. I wrote a guide on how to find meaningful insights from that report #vcbuzz https://t.co/R3ubfV8uF5
— Chris Long (@gofishchris) December 8, 2020

Q3 What are the most actionable reports? How to use the data to improve your site performance?

The most actionable Google Search Console reports: How to use the data to improve site performance?

Coverage Report
Discover – Understand Clicks, Impressions & Avg CRT in news
Enhancements – Includes how schema markup is performing

A3: In terms of pure actionability, probably the URL Inspection reports + Page Speed Insights reports; those give clear, directive advice on what Google believes is happening, along with (generally) how to address it. #vcbuzz
— Sam (@DigitalSamIAm) December 8, 2020

A3 A manual Action is the most actionable! Must be actioned asap!

Apart from that a lot depends on the site and platform restrictions.#vcbuzz pic.twitter.com/WYO0BhkfAR
— Simon Cox (@simoncox) December 8, 2020

Q4 Is there a long-term value in adding a sitemap to Google Search Console? Do you recommend doing that and why?

Yes. Submitting sitemaps:

Lets you specifying URLs you want included
Submit an image and pdf sitemap to search engines for your owned media assets.
Helps you push an updated page
Assists when the URL inspection tool is nonfunctional.

A4 Right now there is short term value as there is no URL Inspection Tool!

Long term – yes – I always say it is a vital part of the site structure.#vcbuzz
— Simon Cox (@simoncox) December 8, 2020

Q5 To end with something actionable: What would you suggest our users do to incorporate Google Search Console reports for Data Studio?

To incorporte GSC date with Data Studo try @serpstat or @supermetrics.

Distinguishing between branded & non-branded search queries
Learn effectiveness of actions taken to target new non-branded terms.
Discover CTR insights on traffic & visitor actions

A5: There are plenty of cool things you can do with GSC + Visualization platforms. Some options:

1. Gap analysis between PPC + Organic Rankings (helps to look at SERPs holistically + find out where you have opps)

2. Macro + Contextual Reports (I use Tableau, but w/e)#vcbuzz
— Sam (@DigitalSamIAm) December 8, 2020

A5 Slight bias on this – can be really useful for monitoring a site migration. I even wrote a piece on it:https://t.co/aDhSwUQwHh #vcbuzz
— Simon Cox (@simoncox) December 8, 2020

I have read this article by @simoncox and do echo others recommendation to read it. It is easy to discover 301s, 404s and server issues after a migration. (Best to do so before, however.)