Google Search Central Guide

Updated 4 January 2021
  • Welcome to Small Business Web Design Sydney's easy, free step-by-step Google Search Central guide. With easy to follow action points, in ONLY ONE HOUR you can boost your website's standing in Google and unlock the power to boost your website's SEO.
  • This guidance has been developed for our clients, but we want to share the learning and have now improved the content and made it available here and via Youtube. This offering is superior to any Udemy course we've seen, or any peer content. We hope you enjoy it and make the most of the powerful Google Search Central on your website. 

Why Google Google Search Central?
Smart web developers use the powerful webmaster tool to meet and exceed Google expectations, and the more groundwork covered, the better positioned your website will be. Best of all, the effort needed isn't ongoing. With a few quick wins, your website is permanently boosted leaving you to worry less about SEO and focus instead on your business. It sounds cliche, but investing an hour and getting familiar with the Google web tools will go a long way.

Next Steps
  • On this page, we offer exclusive Google Search Central insights with proven results.
  • Our own business has benefited from these techniques, and we want you enjoy the same (or better if possible!) results. 
  • There isn't anything in Google Search Central not covered in these video tutorials, so have confidence in each step and maximize the effectiveness of your website. 

Section 1: Google Search Central – The Essential Friend of Your SEO Efforts ​

  • Google Search Console is an essential part of your SEO efforts.
  • The platform is free to use and gives unrestricted access to how Google views your website.

Essential Webmaster Setup Tasks
  • Enter in your domain name, and verify (the recommended method is via Google Analytics or your domain registrar, under “Alternative” methods).
  • Be sure to submit both yourdomain.com and www.yourdomain.com so that Google recognises BOTH extensions of your domain.
Search Traffic - Video Overviews
Watch our videos below for an insight look into Google Search Central with real website examples.
  • Search Analytics – an insight into how your website is visited, with data beyond Google Analytics when it comes to search terms.
  • Links to Your Site – the MOTHERSHIP of every LINK to your website, as indexed by Google.
  • Internal Links – every webpage and where it links internally – very useful.
  • Manual Actions – this is where you will be notified if your website has a Google PENALTY.
  • International Targeting – outlines your website’s language and target country.
  • Mobile Usability – determines if your website is mobile friendly.
Google Index
Watch our videos below for an insight look into Google Search Central with real website examples.
  • Index Status – simply the indexed number of pages on your website.
  • Content Keywords – a fascinating insight into your website’s content. Google overviews your keywords, their variants, where they appear and how popular they are. If your Content keywords don’t reflect your business, this is the report to show it.
  • Blocked Resources and Remove URLs – outlines any page(s) you wish to manually hide from Google.
Crawl
  • Crawl Errors – broken into Site errors (general errors in a website, such as robots.txt, DNS and connectivity) and URL errors - pages which Google once indexed, but no longer exist (i.e. 404 errors). These URL errors are not an issue to your website unless you expect to see the deleted pages appear.
  • Crawl Stats – these graphs present Google’s routine indexing – as your webpages increase or decrease, you can expect to see a correlation with the number of pages indexed by Google.
  • Fetch as Google – this is where you submit your URLs once you’ve completed/published a page.
  • robots.txt Tester – this shows the Robots.txt report – ideally you want zero warning, errors and as few pages listed as possible (these pages will prohibited from being indexed).
  • Sitemaps – this page outlines your sitemap
  • URL Parameters – any issues with country location etc can be sorted by manually inserting a URL parameter. Usually Google gives the all clear.
Our Tip:
  • Google Search Central BEST Twitter account to follow - Google's team have excellent insights into what Google wants to see in websites. Thin websites with duplicate content is out, deeply rich pages with authority is in.
  • Backlink Indexer – you won’t be able to index other links you make, which means it will take some time for search engines to detect them. For this reason, I recommend backlinksindexer.com – however, paying $15/month isn’t great if you’re only working on a limited number of links/month. 

Section 2: Secret Weapon: Google Search Central and “DISAVOWING” Bad Links

Google knows you’ve been bad (linking), but it won’t punish you forever.
  • Often bad links are stuck – you can’t contact the website owner, so there’s no hope.
  • The Google Disavow tool allows you to manually remove BAD links, unrelated and spammy links in one simple step.
  • Along the way, you’ll see all the links that Google recognises as linking to your website!
  • With the power of information, you can have a much healthier website and be free of any Google penalties.

Video Guidance - Disavow Tutorial (the complete guide)
 
Part 1 - View the Links Google Indexes in Your Website
  • Log in to your Google Search Central home page, and select the website you want.
  • On the Dashboard, click Search Traffic, and then click Links to Your Site.
  • Under Who links the most, click More.
  • Click “Download Latest Links” – you now have a record of EVERY link, in sequential date order. Powerful stuff!
  • Review this list, line by line. Look for bad links, unrelated website links, spammy website links – basically EVERYTHING you don’t want to be associated with. A manual review is essential – do not rush this.
  • Remember – the focus is on RELATIONSHIP. If you have a link from dogs.com but your website is about Mars, the link is worthless. Be BRUTAL and DISAVOW as much as you can.
  • Once you’ve itemised your “bad” links, save them into a CSV file. We want Google to not recognize the entire domain, not just the link.
  • Here is our sample .TXT file of a real life Disavow file – you can use this as a base.
Part 2 - It’s Disavowing Time
  • Once you TXT file of domains is prepared, it’s GO TIME.
  • Log in to the Disavow page and confirm to proceed (Google shows lots of warnings)
  • Select your file, and press SUBMIT.
  • You’re done. The bad links are melting away now.
Summary
  • Often websites with a lot of bad links are being held back.
  • This procedure lets you take the plunge and wipe away the bad links, and benefit yourself in Google.
  • While this doesn’t map to Bing.com or other search engines, the Google effect on your business will be significant.
  • Even if you didn’t find bad links, having an oversight of what links Google recognises regarding your website is very valuable. 

Section 3: Hompeage Essentials (Address, Schema, Phone number etc)

Structured Data – Getting Google
​Overview
  • Less than 0.01% of websites have input "structured data" on their website.
  • It’s a very simple process, and this lecture outlines what you need to do to get the "All Good" tick from Google.
 
What is Structured Data?
As MOZ outlines, “Structured data is a specific vocabulary of tags (or microdata), also know as Rich Snippets that you can add to your HTML to improve the way your page is represented in search engine ranking”.
 
OK. Why use Rich Snippets?
  • By adding "tags" to your webpage, you can LOCALIZE your website, and MARKET your business more specifically to the customers you are trying to target.
  • All you need is the best code snippets to insert into your website, and your website can benefit from better click-through and search results.
 
Structured Data Options
  • Google offers a fantastic tool, developers.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool which offers real-time accuracy.
  • By inserting a URL, you can see the results - the more "All good" results, the better for your website.
  • The optimal number of snippets is 3-4, covering WebPage (covers your business description), Organisation (covers your business contact details), WebSite (covers your business name and alternative name) and Product (outlines your product(s) by a star rating).
  • To make sure your website has LOCALISED and RELEVANT search engine tags, we recommend inserting rich snippet tags for WebPage, Organisation and WebSite.
  • There is less urgency in Product as its true effect is unproven at this time.
 
How to Insert Your Structured Data
  1. Simply modify the code in the RESOURCES section, where it says "Insert" simply enter in the business details. You can place all of this in your FOOTER section of your HTML fields.
  2. Google will recognize the code instantly - simply run the structured-data/testing-tool to check your website and make sure you've got the "All Good" sign.
 
Summary
  1. Structured data has tremendous benefit localising your website. Unless your business contact details, it doesn’t need to be updated.
  2. Keep this simple – don’t over complicate the details, and make sure you perform the Google Structured Data test afterwards to ensure your data passes without issue.  
  3. Everything you need to know about Structured Data is outlined here

Concluding Comments

  • Google Search Central​ is not as overwhelming as it first may seen.
  • Yes, there are a lot of menus and sub-menus, and the platform offers a lot of functionality, but the reality is that every element is useful to your website and business.
  • The aim of Google Search Central​ is transparency - we hope that our guidance above delivers this in each video segment. 
  • If you have any questions, please leave them on the respective Youtube video so we can best assist you.