Goal: To set up Google Search Console for the first time, and to connect it with the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin.
Ideal Outcome: Your Google Search Console property has been verified, and you are able to check if there were any cra wl issues for your site recently, straight in your WordPress Admin.
Pre-requisites or requirements: You need to have Google Tag Manager installed on your website and the Yoast SEO Plugin running on your WordPress website to follow this SOP or whatever tool you are using to optimise your website.
Why this is important: Google Search Console is a free tool that allows you to monitor your website’s performance in Google Search. It allows you to collect statistics about your rankings, and optimize visibility, and it’s your main channel of communication with Google, allowing you to monitor potential penalties, or identify crawling errors before they affect your rankings.
Where this is done: In Google Search Console and your WordPress admin.
When this is done: Only once per domain. You will need to do it every time you create a subdomain or add a new protocol (for example, If you migrate to https://)
Who does this: The person responsible for Website management, analytics, or SEO.
Signing up for the Google Search console
- Go to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools
- Log in with your Google Account
- You will be taken to a welcome page and prompted to “ Add a Property”. In the dropdown, select “Website” and type the full URL of your website.
- Note: Make sure your URL is exactly as it appears in the URL bar including the protocol (http:// or https://) and the subdomain (www. or non-www., or any other subdomain you might be using).
- Note 2: If your website supports multiple protocols and subdomains you will want to add them all to Search Console since the tool will treat each of them separately.
- There are multiple ways to authenticate your account. If you are already using Google Analytics, or Google Tag Manager these 2 methods will be the fastest and easiest methods to authenticate. If not, the recommended method is the fastest one to use. This SOP assumes you already have Google Tag Manager running on your website.
- Note: If you don’t have Google Tag Manager yet, you can follow SOP 004: Add Google Tag Manager to a WordPress Site first. Select “Alternate Methods
- Select “Alternate Methods”
- Select “Google Tag Manager” and click “Verify"
- That’s it! You should now see a success message, click “Continue” and you will be taken to your Search Console dashboard.