If you're a small business owner desperately trying to compete with Google, one of the best things you can do is to connect your website to Google Search Console. Whilst not an absolute must have and it certainly won’t harm your site by not being connected, best practice is to make sure you do connect your website.

This free tool from Google gives you insight into how your site is performing in search results, and what you can do to improve it. It will give you fantastic information such as, your average position in Google, your top search queries and information on other sites which are linking to you.

Best of all, it only takes a few minutes to set up.

In this guide, I want to help you to make the most from GSC, by making sure you are connected and how to use it to help your business.;

Why Google Search Console matters
How to check if your site is already connected
How to connect your site on Squarespace, WordPress, or Wix. Get in touch if you need information on any other sites.
Bonus tips for getting the most out of it

Track the performance of your Google Search clicks

Why should I connect to Google Search Console?

Think of Google Search Console (GSC) as your SEO control center. It helps you:

See what keywords people use to find your site
Monitor search traffic and page performance
Spot technical issues that could be hurting your rankings
Submit new pages so that google can find them faster
Get alerts when something’s wrong (like mobile errors or broken links)

It is such a useful tool, mainly to see which pages are being indexed by google and are most likely to appear in google rankings, as well as tracking your keywords. I tend to use this pretty much every day for my clients.

Step 1: Is Your Site Already Connected?

Before we dive into setup, it’s worth checking if your website is already verified. You can easily do this by signing into google search console with your google account (ideally the one connected to your business). If it is there then great, if not you will see an option to ‘Add property’. This means you still need to connect.

If someone else has built your site it is always worth checking with them too.

There is also the option to check in the source code of the website, get in touch and I can take a look for you!

If you are not connected I have pulled together instructions for Squarespace, Wordpress and Wix on how to get started:

How to Connect Squarespace to Google Search Console

Log into your Squarespace account
Go to Settings > Connected Accounts > Google Search Console
Click Connect
Sign into your Google account
Squarespace handles the verification automatically

How to Connect WordPress

Visit Google Search Console and click “Add Property”
Choose URL prefix and enter your full site address
Select the HTML tag option and copy the <meta> tag Google provides

Then in WordPress:

Install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin (free)
In your dashboard, go to SEO > General > Webmaster Tools
Paste the code into the Google Verification Code field
Save changes
Go back to GSC and click Verify

How to Connect Wix

Go to Google Search Console and click “Add Property”
Use the URL prefix method and enter your full website URL
Choose HTML tag and copy the code Google gives you

Then in Wix:

Go to Settings > SEO > Site Verification
Paste the tag into the Google Search Console field
Save your changes and publish your site
Return to GSC and click Verify

First steps after connecting your site

Once your site is verified, there’s one more quick step that I would recommend to help Google crawl and index your site more efficiently: submit your sitemap.

Here’s how:

In your GSC dashboard, go to “Sitemaps” (left menu)
Enter your sitemap URL:

Squarespace: yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
WordPress (Yoast): yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml
Wix: yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

Click Submit

Google now has a better idea as to what is on your site and index your pages much more efficiently!

It will take Google a few days to start collecting data. Then you’ll be able to see which keywords are driving traffic, identify your top-performing pages and detect any issues you can fix to improve search visibility.

Google Search Console might sound technical, but as you’ve just seen, connecting it is actually very simple. Once you're connected, you will have real insights into how your site performs in search, and what you can do to make it even better.

Need help making sense of what you see in GSC just get in touch and I can go through it in more detail with you.

GET IN TOUCH TODAY

SEO: Making sure your website is connected to Google Search Console.