Google Search Console for small business owners

Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that shows how your website appears in Google search: which searches it showed up for, how many people clicked, which pages Google has stored and whether anything is broken. For a small business, it is worth setting up once and checking for ten minutes a month. Most of its reports you can ignore; four of them tell you nearly everything you need.

What Search Console is, and what it is not

Search Console is Google's own window into your site. It is not an advertising product, it costs nothing and nobody needs to sell it to you. It is also not the same as Google Analytics, which counts what visitors do on your site. Search Console only covers what happens on Google before someone clicks: how often your pages appeared, for which searches, and whether Google can read them.

It cannot change where your site appears. It tells you what is happening and warns you about problems.

Setting it up

You need a Google account, ideally one owned by the business rather than a web designer, so you keep access if you change who looks after your site. Website ownership and Google explains why that matters.

Go to search.google.com/search-console and sign in.
Click Add property. You will be offered two kinds. Domain covers every version of your address (with and without www, http and https); it is the better choice, but it needs a change to your domain's settings. URL prefix covers one exact address, such as https://www.yourbusiness.com, and is easier to verify.
Verify that you own the site. For a Domain property, Google gives you a line of text to add as a TXT record in your domain's DNS settings, the part of your domain account that tells the internet where your site and email live. If DNS is new to you, DNS explained for small business owners covers it plainly. For a URL prefix property, you can usually verify by adding a small tag to the site, uploading a file, or through Google Analytics if it is already installed.
Wait. Verification can take a few minutes to a day for DNS changes. Data starts appearing within a few days and builds up over time.

Many website builders have a setting that handles verification for you. Look in your builder's settings for "Google Search Console" or "site verification" before doing it by hand.

Adding other people

Under Settings, then Users and permissions, you can add your web designer or anyone helping you. Give them "Full" rather than "Owner" access, so you stay in control.

The four reports worth reading

Performance: what people searched

This is the report most owners will use. It shows, for the last three months by default:

Total clicks: how many times someone clicked through to your site from Google.
Total impressions: how many times one of your pages appeared in someone's results, whether they clicked or not.
Queries: the actual words people typed when your site appeared.
Pages: which of your pages appeared.

The queries list is the most useful part. It shows you how customers describe what you do, which is often different from how you describe it. If people search "furnace repair" and your page says "heating system service", that tells you something. How to read the search terms report in Search Console goes through it step by step.

Pages: what Google has stored

Under Indexing, then Pages, you see how many of your pages Google has indexed and how many it has not, with a reason for each group. Common reasons:

Page with redirect: an old address that forwards to a new one. Normal.
Excluded by "noindex" tag: a page you, or your builder, told Google to leave out. Check this list for any page you do want in search.
Not found (404): a page address that no longer exists. Fine if it is an old page you removed on purpose; worth fixing if customers used to land there.
Crawled, currently not indexed and Discovered, currently not indexed: Google knows the page but has not stored it yet. Common on new sites and for very short pages.

URL Inspection: one page at a time

Paste any address from your site into the search bar at the top. Search Console tells you whether that page is in Google, when Google last visited it and whether it found problems. You can also click Request indexing for a new or changed page.

Sitemaps

Under Indexing, then Sitemaps, you can submit your sitemap address and see whether Google read it without errors. You usually do this once.

The reports you can mostly ignore

Core Web Vitals and other speed reports. Useful if you suspect your site is slow, but for a small site they often say "not enough data". If you want to look at speed, a direct test of your pages is easier to read.
Links. Interesting to look at, but small sites have few links, and you should not chase more.
Average position. This number in the Performance report is an average across every search you appeared for, which mixes your business name with broad searches. It moves around a lot and is easy to misread.
Shopping and merchant listings, unless you sell products online.

Two things you should not ignore if they ever appear:

Security issues, which means Google thinks your site may have been hacked.
Manual actions, which means a person at Google has flagged the site for breaking its rules. These are rare for ordinary small businesses.

Google also emails the account owner when something serious changes, so use an email address you actually read.

What not to worry about

Small drops and bumps from week to week. Clicks follow seasons, weather and holidays. Look at months, not days.
Pages marked "not indexed" that you do not care about, like a thank-you page after a form or an old address that now redirects.
Warnings about features you do not use, such as product reviews or video.
Emails offering to "fix your Search Console errors" for a fee. Many are sales pitches.

Search Console when you change websites

If you move to a new website on the same domain, keep the same Search Console property. Your history stays, and after the switch you can submit the new sitemap and watch the Pages report for addresses that suddenly show "Not found". Those are the old page addresses that still need forwarding to the new pages.

What to do this week

Check whether someone already set up Search Console for your site, perhaps a past designer. Ask them to add you as an owner.
If not, add a Domain property and verify it through your domain's DNS settings, or through your builder.
Submit your sitemap.
Set a monthly reminder to read the top searches in the Performance report.

If you are about to replace your site and want the new one ready for Search Console from day one, with your old addresses forwarded, you can see your site rebuilt first and check it before anything goes live.