When I first started talking with clients about SEO, most would get a glazed-over look just a few minutes into the conversation. Totally understandable. SEO is dense, technical, and sometimes feels like an ever-moving target. But one of the first tools that I guide beginners toward — a tool that bridges that gap between “what is SEO?” and “how do I actually do this?” — is Google Search Console.
I like to think of Search Console like getting the keys to your house’s electrical panel. You finally have a way to see where the power is flowing, where there’s a short circuit, and what outlets are never getting used. It’s not flashy. It’s not always user-friendly either. But when understood properly, it’s one of the most powerful tools you have for improving your organic visibility.
And that’s the goal today — to walk through Google Search Console from a place of empathy and clarity. Whether you’re a small business owner trying to dip a toe into the world of SEO or a marketing generalist who’s been winging it with page titles and hoping for the best — this guide will show you both how to use the tool and how to think about it.
At its core, Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool provided by Google to help website owners monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot their site’s presence in Google Search results. It doesn’t show you how to improve rankings directly, but it gives you the clues to fix issues and uncover new opportunities.
Think of it like a Fitbit for your website. It doesn't make you healthier on its own, but it tells you where you’re doing well and where you need to move more.
This part is where I get a little philosophical. We’ve all been in the position where we build a beautiful, fast, conversion-optimized site, only to hear a few weeks later: “Why aren’t we showing up for X keyword?”
Google Search Console helps explain what’s happening behind the scenes. Instead of guessing, clients can see the real data: what people searched, what they clicked, what pages are rising or falling in visibility.
I had a roofing client in Nashville who had solid branding and content but low traffic. After launching their new site on Webflow, I noticed in GSC that they were getting impressions for keywords like “roof inspection after storm” but weren’t ranking well. We tweaked the title tags and added a dedicated page about storm inspections. Within three weeks, that page jumped to position 7 and started bringing real leads.
Without GSC, we would’ve never seen those queries. It turns “build it and they will come” into “build what they’re already searching for.”
If you haven’t set it up yet, it’s easier than it’s ever been. But there are a couple of ways you can verify your ownership — and some of them are much more reliable than others long-term.
Tip: If you’re working with clients, set them up as owners or users so they have access down the line — not just you.
The Performance tab is the nerve center of GSC. This is where you’ll find Clicks, Impressions, Average CTR, and Average Position.
Most people focus on Clicks and Position — those feel tangible. But it’s the nano-level filtering that reveals real insights. Use filters to break down by page, query, country, or device. This lets you see where pages are quietly crushing it or which search terms are hinting at opportunities that need nurturing.
A yoga studio I worked with saw lots of impressions for “prenatal yoga near me” but almost no clicks. On inspection, they ranked around position 14 and didn’t have a specific landing page for that service. By creating a new page with helpful content and reworking meta titles to mention "prenatal yoga in Franklin," they moved to position 5 in under two months.
That wouldn’t have been obvious from website analytics alone. GSC made that insight actionable.
Submitting a sitemap is like handing Google a map of your neighborhood and saying, “start here.” It doesn’t guarantee every page will be indexed, but it tells crawlers what’s important.
Don’t overthink sitemaps if you’re on platforms like Webflow, Squarespace, or Wix — most generate them automatically. But if you’re deleting old pages or launching new evergreen content, it’s good practice to resubmit.
Make sure your sitemap lives at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. Then, inside GSC under the “Sitemaps” tab, enter that URL and hit Submit. Watch for errors or exclusions that might show up afterward — these can reveal broken links or template issues.
Here’s where things often get murky. There is a difference between a page that is crawlable, indexable, and actually ranked. The Index > Coverage section shows you which pages Google has indexed and, more importantly, which ones have problems.
If you’ve launched a site redesign and your traffic tanks, this is the first place I’d look. Did your important pages accidentally get noindexed? Did templates go live with placeholder content?
I once worked with a local restaurant in Franklin whose online menu was only linked via a .pdf. GSC showed low indexing activity for their key pages, and their menu wasn’t in Google’s index at all. By converting that .pdf into an HTML menu with structured content, their visibility for menu-related queries jumped within a month. Lesson learned: if Google can’t crawl it, it may as well not exist.
This is the part where web design and SEO meet face to face. Core Web Vitals tracks loading speed, responsiveness, and layout stability. These metrics affect your ranking indirectly, and definitely affect user experience.
If GSC says your LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) is above 2.5s on mobile, that’s actionable. You might have oversized images, too much JavaScript loading, or a hero video auto-playing on weak network connections.
And if you’re working in Webflow or Squarespace, remember: just because a site looks sleek in desktop preview doesn’t mean it’s fast on a spotty mobile signal. Mobile-first indexing means Google is looking at the mobile version of your site first — so prioritize accordingly.
This is the red-alert section of Search Console. Manual actions mean Google has penalized one of your pages or your whole domain — often due to spammy practices, malicious content, or unnatural linking. These are rare if you’re following best practices, but they do happen.
Imagine a client purchases 500 backlinks from Fiverr. Suddenly their site disappears from search. GSC will show that flagged penalty. But here’s the thing: this section is also where you recover by submitting reconsideration requests after cleaning things up. Without GSC, you’d be in the dark.
Now that you understand what GSC can do, here’s how to use it proactively — not just as a damage control tool.
If you're running an agency like mine, GSC becomes part of your transparency toolkit. Clients trust you more when they see real data, but they love you when you help them understand it. Even just screenshotting a click-through improvement before and after tweaking headers gives them a window into the ROI of strategic changes.
Google Search Console is not just another reporting tool. It’s a diagnostic center, a trend finder, a smoke detector, and a blueprint — all wrapped into one. It rewards curiosity and punishes assumption.
And while yes — some of its graphs can feel lifeless or robotic — the story they tell is very human: people looking for information, services, and solutions. Your job, our job, is to bridge that gap between what they’re searching for and what we’re showcasing.
For business owners: embracing this tool is like learning to listen before launching into sales mode. For agencies and designers: it’s proof that your work doesn’t end at launch — it evolves through feedback.
So spend some time in there. Run those filters. Ask weird questions. And don’t be surprised when small insights lead to big wins.
Copyright © Zach Sean Web Design
