What are the best practices for optimizing your website's ranking with Google Search Console?

2 Submit and update your sitemap

A sitemap is a file that lists all the pages and resources on your site that you want Google to crawl and index. It helps Google understand your site structure, prioritize your content, and discover any new or updated pages. You can create and submit your sitemap to GSC using various tools, such as online generators, plugins, or XML editors. You should also update your sitemap regularly to reflect any changes or additions to your site.

3 Fix crawl errors and optimize mobile usability

Crawl errors are issues that prevent Google from accessing or rendering your site pages. They can affect your site's ranking and user experience, so you should fix them as soon as possible. GSC provides a report on the status and details of your site's crawl errors, such as server errors, redirect errors, not found errors, or blocked by robots.txt errors. You can also use GSC to test and optimize your site's mobile usability, which is a key factor for ranking on mobile devices. GSC shows you how your site looks and performs on different screen sizes, and alerts you of any mobile usability issues, such as text too small, content wider than screen, or clickable elements too close.

4 Monitor and improve your site speed

Site speed is another important factor for ranking and user satisfaction. A fast-loading site can improve your bounce rate, conversion rate, and engagement rate. GSC helps you measure and improve your site speed with two reports: the Core Web Vitals report and the Page Speed Insights report. The Core Web Vitals report shows you how your site performs on three metrics that reflect the user's experience: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). The Page Speed Insights report shows you how your site performs on two metrics that reflect the technical aspects of your site speed: First Contentful Paint (FCP) and Time to Interactive (TTI). Both reports provide suggestions and recommendations on how to optimize your site speed for both mobile and desktop devices.

6 Use GSC tools and resources

Google Search Console (GSC) provides a variety of tools and resources to help optimize website ranking. The URL Inspection Tool allows you to inspect and test any URL on your site and see how Google crawls, indexes, and ranks it. You can also request a re-crawl or re-index of any URL that you have updated or fixed. The Security Issues Report alerts you of any security issues on your site, such as malware, phishing, or hacked content. The Links Report shows external and internal links to your site and pages, which can be used to monitor and improve the link profile and authority. The Manual Actions Report shows if your site has been penalized by Google for violating the webmaster guidelines, as well as instructions on how to submit a reconsideration request if the issues have been fixed. Lastly, the Help Center is the official source of information and documentation on how to use GSC and its features, such as FAQs, tutorials, videos, and blogs on various topics related to GSC and SEO.