Are you wondering how to make sure your website is visible to potential patients? Don’t have an SEO or marketing team to help you? Then you should consider leveraging the power of Google Search Console.

Google Search Console is a free service offered by Google that helps webmasters, businesses, medical practices, and bloggers optimize their websites for search engine visibility. In this blog post, we’ll explain what Google Search Console is, and how it can help you improve your website’s visibility in search engine results.

Check out our other blogs on Google Search Console and website rankings:

• Tips To Improve Your Website Ranking On Google
• What is Google E-A-T? Why Should Doctors Care?
• Google My Business for Doctors: Rank in Top 3 on local search results

What Is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console (GSC) is a web-based platform that helps website owners to monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot problems with their sites. Originally known as Google Webmaster Tools, the platform has grown to become an essential tool in the search engine optimization (SEO) arsenal.

GSC provides an array of features that allow website owners to analyze their website’s presence in search engine results, detect issues with their website’s content, and submit sitemaps with URLs for indexing purposes. With GSC, website owners can also track their website’s performance over time.

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How to Add Your Website to Google Search Console

The first step is to sign up for Google Search Console, then add and verify ownership of your website.

1. Create a Google Search Console account.

• Go to Google Search Console and press the Start Now button.
• You may log in immediately if you already have a Google account; otherwise, you must first create an account and then log in.

2. Add your website.

• Select Add Property from the Search Property menu.
• Enter the URL of your website and press the Proceed button.

3. Confirm the ownership of your website.

The next step is to confirm the website’s ownership. There are four major techniques to accomplish this:

• HTML File Validation:
  • If you choose this technique, you must download the HTML file and upload it to your website’s ROOT folder. This is usually found in the public HTML subdirectory.
  • After uploading, click the VERIFY button to proceed to the next stage.
• Analytics by Google:
  • If you already have Google Analytics (GA) installed on your website and use the same Google Account for GA and GSC, all you have to do is click the VERIFY button.
• Tag Manager by Google:
  • You may auto-verify Google Search Console if you already have the Google Tag Manager script installed in the head area of your website.
• Provider of domain names:
  • If you are unable to utilize any of the techniques listed above, you can verify website ownership by modifying your DNS settings. This option is not for you if you are not a technical person because you will need to know how to update your domain’s DNS settings. In this instance, you should seek the aid of your domain provider.

That’s all there is to it; you can now use Google Search Console tools and reports to monitor and enhance your site’s performance in Google.

How to Add Your Website’s XML Sitemap to Google Search Console

A sitemap is a file on your website that informs search engines about all your pages. It’s simply a blueprint of your site’s structure.

1. On your live site, look for the sitemap page.
2. Back in Search Console, navigate to “Sitemaps” under “Index” on the left side navigation pane.
3. Remove any old, out-of-date sitemaps that have been provided.
4. You may enter your sitemap URL and submit it under “Add a new sitemap."
5. Google will check to see if the sitemap can be located and read.

How to Monitor Your Website Performance

When you own a website, it is important to monitor its performance to understand what are your strengths and weaknesses. Even if you have just launched your website, it will take at least seven days to see any data, and the first month of performance should be compared weekly.

Google Search Console can show you the impressions, clicks, and click-through rate (CTR) for each page on your website. It also provides insights into the keywords that are driving traffic to your site, as well as backlinks to the website. Additionally, it will present any technical errors or issues related to crawling, indexing, and security of the website.

This is essential to understand how users are engaging with your website, and if your optimization efforts are having a positive or negative impact. By monitoring the performance of your website, you can act quickly if any issues arise and keep it running at peak performance.

We hope this blog has given you a better understanding of what Google Search Console is and how it can help you optimize your website for better visibility in search engine results. With the right knowledge and tools at your disposal, you can easily get a leg up on the competition by improving your website’s ranking in search engine results. Write to us at themktgdoctorteam@mktg.doctor if you have any questions about Google Search Console.

About Author

Sharanya Chandrasekhar

I write content that ranks for doctors.