Adding your WordPress site to Google Search Console is one of the most critical steps in SEO optimization (formerly Google Webmaster Tools).
Google Search Console provides specific webmaster tools to assist website owners in monitoring and maintaining their search rankings and presence.
We’ll show you how to add and verify your WordPress site in Google Search Console, commonly known as Webmaster Tools, in this post.
What is Google Search Console, and what does it do?
Google Search Console is a free Google service that allows website owners to track their site’s visibility in Google search results.
It assists you in tracking search ranks as well as keeping you informed about site faults, security issues, and indexing issues that may affect the search performance of your website.
If you’re serious about WordPress SEO, you should register it with Google Webmaster Tools right away.
let’s look at how to quickly add your website to Google Search Console.
To begin, go to the Google Search Console website and click the “Start Now” option.
The next step is to sign in using your Google / Gmail account.
You’ll be prompted to enter your website URL once you’ve logged in.
Site verification can be done using either the domain name or the URL prefix. The URL prefix technique is recommended since it is more flexible.
Remember that Google considers HTTP and HTTPS to be two separate protocols. It also treats https://www.example.com and https://example.com as separate websites.
The WordPress website URL must be entered correctly.
If you’re not sure, there’s an easy way to figure out what URL you need to use. Simply go to the Settings » General tab in your WordPress admin panel.
In the site address area, you’ll see your website’s URL.
To go to the next step, click the ‘Continue’ option after inputting your right website address in the Google webmaster tools setup process.
You’ll now be prompted to verify your website’s ownership. There are a few options, but we’ll go with the HTML tag method because it’s the most straightforward.
Expand the HTML tag by clicking on it, then copy the code within.
Now you must add the Google site verification meta tag to WordPress in order for Google to validate that you are the website’s owner.
Most WordPress instructions will tell you to simply update your WordPress theme’s header.php file and paste the code directly above the body> tag.
However, we do not advocate this strategy because the HTML element will vanish if you update or alter your theme.
Google checks for the HTML tag on a regular basis and will disable your access to the site data in the search console if it can’t locate it.
Here’s how to ensure sure Google can always confirm your website’s ownership.
The All in One SEO plugin must first be installed and activated. See our step-by-step guide on installing a WordPress plugin for more information.
Go to All in One SEO » General Settings » Webmaster Tools and click on “Google Search Console” when it has been activated.
Then, in the “Google Verification Code” box, paste the code you copied from Google Search Console.
Don’t forget to save your changes by clicking the ‘Save Changes’ button.
Return to the Google Search Console settings and select the ‘Verify’ option.
Google Search Console will now search your website code for the HTML tag and display a success message.
Note: If you don’t see a success message, your WordPress cache has to be cleared. This ensures that Google can access the most up-to-date version of your website.
That is all there is to it. Your website has been successfully added to Google Search Console (Webmaster tools). To access your Google Search Console dashboard, click the ‘Go to Property’ option.
You may get your website’s performance reports and index coverage from this page.
Let’s tell Google a little more about your website before we do that. This will aid Google in crawling your website more effectively.
Google Search Console should be updated to include an XML Sitemap.
An XML sitemap is a file that lists all of your website’s content in XML format, making it easy for search engines like Google to find and index it.
The good news is that if you followed the instructions above to install the All in One SEO plugin, your site already has an XML sitemap.
Go to All in One SEO » Sitemaps to see your sitemap. You can see that the sitemap is enabled for you automatically from here.
The next step is to obtain the XML sitemap URL. Simply click the ‘Open Sitemap’ button, and a link to your XML sitemap will appear.
You can just copy the URL from your browser’s address bar from here.
You can also visit your XML sitemap directly by appending sitemap index.xml to the end of your website address. Consider the following scenario:
https://www.example.com/sitemap index.xml
Let’s help Google find your XML sitemap quickly now that you have it ready.
Simply go to the Google Search Console dashboard and select Sitemaps from the left-hand menu.
Then, under the ‘Add new sitemap’ area, enter the last part of your sitemap URL and click the Submit button.
Your sitemap URL will now be added to your Google Search Console.
That’s all; your website has now been added to Google Search Console.
The next stage is to learn how to harness the Google search console’s gold mine of data to help you expand your business. We have a thorough Google Search Console beginner’s tutorial that will show you how to get the most out of the data in the Google Search Console.
We hope that this article has shown you how to add your WordPress site to Google Search Console quickly and efficiently.