If you only use one free SEO tool, make it Google Search Console. It's Google telling you, directly, how your website appears in search: which searches you show up for, which pages get clicked and what's broken. Most business owners set it up once and never look at it again. Fifteen minutes a month is all it takes to get real value from it.
Setting it up
Go to Search Console, add your website as a Domain property (this covers www, non-www, http and https in one go) and verify it with a DNS record at your domain provider. Then open Sitemaps and submit your sitemap, usually yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. On Shopify, the sitemap is created for you automatically.
The Performance report: your starting point
This shows four numbers: clicks, impressions (how often you appeared), CTR (the percentage who clicked) and average position. Switch on all four, set the date range to the last three months and look at two tabs.
Queries shows the actual searches people used. You'll often find surprises, including searches you never thought to target.
Pages shows which of your pages get traffic from Google.
Three quick wins hiding in there
High impressions, low clicks
Pages that appear often but rarely get clicked usually need a better title and meta description. Our guide to writing meta titles and descriptions helps.
Positions 8 to 20
Pages sitting at the bottom of page one or on page two are close. Improving their content and adding a few internal links can push them up.
Queries with no matching page
If you're appearing for a search but don't have a page really about it, that's a content idea handed to you.
The Pages (indexing) report
This shows which pages Google has indexed and which it hasn't, with reasons. Some "not indexed" pages are fine (cart pages, filtered URLs, redirects). Look out for important pages marked as not indexed, "Not found (404)" errors and "Server error" issues. Our guide to fixing 404s explains what to do.
URL inspection
Paste any URL into the bar at the top to see whether it's indexed. After publishing or updating an important page, you can request indexing here to nudge Google along.
Core Web Vitals
Shows which pages pass or fail Google's page experience metrics on mobile and desktop. See our Core Web Vitals guide.
A 15-minute monthly routine
- Compare clicks and impressions with the previous period.
- Check the top queries and pages for anything new.
- Pick two pages with high impressions and low CTR, and improve their titles.
- Look at the Pages report for new errors.
- Glance at Core Web Vitals.
Search Console reporting is part of our Monthly SEO package, if you'd rather we kept an eye on it. Get in touch.