SEO can feel like this weird nebulous force that’s either working for you or quietly dragging your traffic numbers down behind the scenes. And I get it—especially if you’re a small business owner juggling inventory, customer service, staff issues, and trying to answer your own emails. Even the simplest optimization tools can feel another layer of complexity you don’t have time to unpack.
That’s why I want to break open one tool that, in my experience, almost always leads to an “Oh wow—this is actually useful” moment for clients. That tool is Google Search Console. It’s completely free, surprisingly intuitive compared to some of the more bloated SEO platforms, and perfect for developing that gut-level understanding of what’s working on your site—and what’s quietly losing you leads.
So in this guide, we’re doing a full walkthrough of Google Search Console (GSC)—just what it is, how to use it, how to actually make decisions from what it tells you, and real examples from clients I’ve worked with who went from "I think SEO is working?" to "Oh okay, I know exactly what I need to improve."
At its core, GSC is a direct line between your website and Google. It’s like a health chart specifically for your website’s relationship to search. And unlike Google Analytics, which tells you what people do once they’re on your site, GSC shows how and why they found (or didn’t find) you in the first place.
When you connect your website to GSC, you start seeing:
In other words, it’s a hub for how your site appears in the search results—and how it could appear better. Think of it like doing bloodwork before developing a workout plan. You can ballpark what areas might need support, but once you see the data, the clearer path forward becomes obvious.
Last year, I worked with a salon owner in Franklin, TN who wasn’t showing up for “bridal hair and makeup Franklin” despite doing those services every weekend. GSC showed that while her homepage had a decent click-through for general terms like “salon Franklin,” none of her pages were ranking at all for bridal queries.
Why? She didn’t have a separate page for it. In her words: “I think people just know we do it.” But Google doesn’t know anything you don’t put clearly online. Within a few weeks of creating a well-optimized Weddings page and linking it from her homepage and nav, she started appearing on page one for local bridal intent searches.
We wouldn’t have seen the missed opportunity without GSC making the data plainly visible.
This part trips a lot of people up—mostly because most SEO tools barrage you with options, dashboards, metrics, charts, and colored boxes, and you’re supposed to just “figure it out.” Let’s keep it straightforward.
I typically recommend Domain for most clients because it gives Google full visibility into all variations.
This is the part that might look scary if you're not technical, but it’s just a one-time setup.
If you’re on a platform like Webflow or Squarespace, there’s usually a tutorial right inside the platform docs on doing this, and it takes about 10 minutes.
You won’t see much right away. But within a couple of days, GSC starts showing real data—queries, positions, impressions, and potential issues that Google bots picked up during crawls. This is the good stuff.
Once you’re in, the “Performance” tab is usually where I spend the most time with clients. It’s where we can finally see what search terms are actually driving clicks—and which ones aren’t doing as well as they could.
Here’s where this gets interesting. Let’s say you see that your "Franklin Web Design" page is averaging position 9.5. That means you’re often sitting near the bottom of the first page—barely hanging on in many cases. But if you’re getting a high number of impressions but a super low CTR (like 0.2%), that tells us one of two things:
In either case, we’ve identified a problem we can test a fix for—revise metadata, revamp page content, or target different (longer-tail) keywords that better match the user’s mindset.
One of my clients is a business coach who blogs irregularly but writes killer think pieces. Her article titled “How Entrepreneurs Self-Sabotage Without Realizing It” was ranking well for “business mindset” and “entrepreneur psychology”—but got practically no clicks.
Turns out, the meta description made it sound like a generic advice blog. We updated the meta to better reflect her personal insight and the practical strategies she shares—and within three weeks, the same position on search went from a 0.4% CTR to 4.7%.
Under the “Pages” tab in GSC, you’ll find a section called “Why pages aren’t indexed.” This is where Google tells you which of your URLs it’s ignoring—and why.
In general, I tell clients to focus on pages that clearly should be ranking—for example, service pages that aren’t indexed at all, or blog posts stuck in limbo. You can use the “Inspect URL” feature to see each page’s crawl details, then submit it for reindexing instantly after making changes.
Bonus tip: If you’re on Webflow, double-check your page settings to ensure important pages don’t have “noindex” checked accidentally. I’ve seen that simple mistake cost people dozens of leads from search.
Now here’s where things get uniquely interesting for local businesses. Google now prioritizes location-aware results based on searcher behavior, and you can absolutely use GSC data to refine your local SEO efforts.
Filter performance data by search queries containing your location. This helps you understand how Google connects your content to your geography. If your content isn’t appearing for location-based searches that matter to your biz, ask: does my site actually mention my city or service area clearly?
One client had their town listed once, as “Serving the Franklin area.” That’s it. They weren’t ranking for hosting events, weddings, or birthday parties in Franklin.
We updated their homepage H1, inserted local signal phrases like “event rental in downtown Franklin,” and optimized their image alt tags too. Result: Their average position for “wedding venue Franklin TN” went from 43 to 11 over about six weeks. All trackable through GSC.
The “Links” tab in GSC helps you see which sites are linking to yours—and which of your internal links are sending the most juice between pages. Backlinks still matter, but the right backlinks matter more.
If you see that your site got a backlink from a high-authority blog, but it links to an outdated blog post or weak page, that’s a signal: either beef up that page, or kindly get in touch with the author to update the link to a more relevant resource.
One photographer I worked with discovered a university library blog had linked to his tutorial on photographing architecture without him ever knowing. But the page it linked to was a basic intro guide. He created a deeper version—a true resource—and shot the link authority juice through the roof.
If you offer services, publish recipes, events, or anything that could get Google’s enhanced search layouts, you can test how your page performs for rich results. This is a separate tool from GSC, but the two work together. Use the Rich Results Test to see what structured data applies to your pages.
GSC now tracks Core Web Vitals under “Page Experience”. This covers things like:
Improving these—even just trimming a few hundred milliseconds off load time—can improve rankings over time. Worth noting for anyone on slower WordPress themes or overloaded with third-party plugins.
Google Search Console isn’t just a diagnostics panel—it’s a lens for seeing how your business translates into discoverable presence on the internet. It tells you what people care about, what Google sees when it crawls your site, and where the gaps are between you and the customer you’re trying to reach.
Most small businesses dismiss SEO as something mysterious or too saturated to matter anymore. But truthfully, the edge lies in doing the basics really well—and using tools like GSC to stay aware and agile. You don’t need to be an SEO technician. You just need to be someone who listens, adapts, and takes small steps based on what real data is showing you.
Each click, query, and crawl status is telling a story. GSC is your way of hearing it.
Copyright © Zach Sean Web Design
