Google Search Console & how to use it for SEO (Nov. 2021)
Google Search Console is one of the most critical and often underestimated SEO tools. In Search Console, you’ll find first-hand data for your on-site SEO – directly from Google for free. More than 10,000 participants (German and English combined) have enrolled in this course so far and use it to learn how to do SEO with Search Console.
In this regularly updated Google Search Console course, you will learn how to use each of the reports and tools for SEO. Using many practical examples of a live website with 10,000 monthly clicks, I’ll show you how you can use Google Search Console to make Google love your website and enable you to do SEO without paying for SEO tools.
In this course you will learn:
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Which pages Google displays for which keywords in the search results (and vice versa)
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How to compare the performance of a page before and after optimization
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How to analyze, which pages and keywords lost or won impressions, clicks, and ranking
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Which pages are shown for the same keyword (“Keyword cannibalization”)
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How to get promising keyword ideas from Google Search Console and optimize your pages using these ideas
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The three types of keywords you should look for in Google Search Console
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How to discover pages that may need that little bit of extra optimization.
I will also show you:
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How to discover, which pages Google indexed and which not and how to fix indexing problems
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How to remove pages from the Google index and which requirements have to be met
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Which index report categories you should take a closer look at to prevent a poor ranking.
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How to analyze usability issues, the most common cause of such issues, and how to fix them.
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The new Core Web Vitals will become a ranking factor from 2012. You’ll learn how to analyze them in Search Console and the Page Speed Insights Tool
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How to analyze and improve your internal linking structure using Google Search Console.
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What you should look if analyzing links from external sites
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How to link Google Search Console an Google Analytics plus a neat little trick that will make keyword analysis in Google Analytics easier for you
Additionally, you’ll get more than 30 pages of documentation with the most essential takeaways from each lecture.
Did you know that you’ll see up to 1000 keywords per page in Google Search Console for free and not just 10, 20, or 100 keywords like in other tools?
I have been using Search Console (and its predecessor, the Webmaster Tools) for SEO since it was launched for my websites and my clients’ websites and been able to increase Google traffic from 2.000 clicks a month to 10.000 clicks a month – only by using data from Google Search Console.
Recent Updates to this course
Since I use Google Search Console every day, I quickly become aware of new features and changes. So I regularly update the course with the latest experiences, tips, and bonus chapters. I frequently ask students to vote on upcoming updates and bonus chapters! The latest updates are:
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Nov. 2021: Updated lectures “How to setup” and “Overview Report” with new content and improved Audio; New lecture “Page Experience Dashboard” and restructured course plan to match most recent version of Search Console; updated course materials to match the new lexctures.
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Aug. 2020: Re-recorded and extended lecture about Core Web vitals
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Jul: 2020: New bonus chapter “Link Search Console with Analytics”, Smaller design update of the course documents.
Contact me
Do you have questions about SEO and the course? I’m there for you. Use the Udemy Message function to let me know how I can help you
Are you ready to take SEO into your own hands and save money on SEO tools at the same time?
Enroll now!
Setup and add your new Website to Search Console
A brief introduction of your trainer and what you can expect to learn in this course. From this lecture, you can also download more than 30 pages of summaries and additional documentation in PDF format.
In this lecture, I’ll demonstrate the three steps that are necessary to add your website to Search Console. You’ll learn the important difference between the two kinds of properties and how to add a sitemap.
How to use the overview report and which metrics you should have a look at on a weekly basis to ensure your website is healthy.
How to use the Reports under "Performance"
See the 4 metrics and 6 dimensions in this report, what they mean and how to use them to analyze and optimize the performance of your website in the Google Search Result Pages.
Sorting and filtering is the most aspect when analyzing data in Search Console. Learn how to sort and filter data on a dimension level to find e.g. pages or keywords.
See how you can export the data of the performance report to any of the major spreadsheets like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets for further analysis.
The filter bar is the most important feature in this report. In this lecture, you’ll learn how to use it. Knowing the filter bar is a prerequisite for all the other practical examples in this course.
In this practical example, you’ll learn how to identify pages that should be optimized in the performance report.
See what Google Discover is and if Google suggests your pages to other users in Google Discover.
Tools and Reports under "Index"
In this lecture, you’ll learn what this category is and the most common reasons why pages are listed in this category and how to fix these issues.
Many users think „valid“ is okay anyway. But there’s one sub-category in this category that you should check regularly. Otherwise, you may miss that unwanted pages made their way into the Google index.
This is the most important category in this report. Here you’ll find all the URLs that are excluded from being indexed and why. Using two of the most important categories, I’ll explain how to use this category and how to discover reasons why certain pages are excluded.
Especially if your website is new, it’s vital to submit a sitemap to Google. This way, you help Google to discover and index all relevant pages of your website.
Before Google will remove a page from the Index, one of the 4 prerequisites described in this lecture must be fulfilled and learn why the first 3 options are the best.
A quick summary of the coverage section in Search Console.
Tools and Reports under "Experience" & Enhancements
In May 2020, Google introduced a new set of metrics for measuring the speed of web pages. Learn more about the three metrics and how to discover, which pages need improvement.
In our „mobile-first“ world, usability on mobile devices should be a top priority. See if your pages pass the tests for mobile usability and how to use this report to discover problems of your pagers on mobile devices.
If you’ve implemented schema.org based search improvements, these reports will be displayed in Search Console. In this lecture, you’ll learn to analyze, if Google could discover the Search improvements and I’ll demonstrate an additional - often overlooked - report where to find more information about the performance of the search improvements.
The Link Reports and how to use them to optimize your internal linking structure
Internal linking is an important aspect of SEO. In this lecture you’ll learn how to analyze the internal linking structure and how to optimize it.
There are 4 things that you should look for in the external links report. In this lecture, you’ll learn about these 4 things and what to do when you discovered one of them.
Bonus
Under certain circumstances, you can link Google Search Console and Google Analytics. When done, Google Analytics will import data from the Search Console performance report and you can use the sophisticated report features to analyze the performance of your pages, find pages that should be optimized or keyword ideas. Lecture contains a neat little trick that will make your life easier when working with keyword sets.
