How to Set Up Google Search Console (Step by Step)

To set up Google Search Console, sign in with a Google account your business owns, add a Domain property, and verify it by adding a TXT record to your DNS settings. Then submit your sitemap under Indexing and give your team their own access. Once it's running, check the Performance and Page indexing reports once a month.

You've got a website, maybe even a good one. But you have no idea whether Google can actually see it, what people type in to find you, or why that one service page never seems to show up. That's a frustrating place to be when you're relying on your site to bring in work beyond referrals.

Google Search Console answers those questions. It's free, it comes straight from Google, and setting it up takes about 20 minutes. Here's how to do it properly, and which reports are actually worth your time once it's running.

What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a free tool that shows how your website performs in Google Search: which searches you appear for, how many people click through, which pages Google has indexed, and any problems stopping pages from showing up. It's your direct line to how Google sees your site.

It's different from Google Analytics. Google Analytics 4 tells you what people do once they land on your site. Search Console tells you how they found you in Google, and whether Google can find you at all. You want both.

Why should a service business bother with it?

It's one of the first places I look when someone tells me their website isn't bringing in enquiries. Search Console lets you:

• Check whether your important pages are actually in Google's index.
• See the real words people search before they find you (often not the words you'd expect).
• Spot technical problems early, before they quietly cost you visibility.
• Tell whether your SEO work is actually moving anything.

How do I set up Google Search Console?

Step 1: Sign in with the right Google account

Go to search.google.com/search-console and sign in with a Google account your business owns and controls. Not a past contractor's account, and ideally not a personal Gmail you might lose access to. You can add other people later.

Step 2: Choose a Domain or URL-prefix property

Google will ask you to add a "property", which is just your website. You get two options:

• Domain property: covers everything on your domain, including http and https, www and non-www, and any subdomains. This is the one I recommend, because you see the full picture in one place. It can only be verified through your DNS settings.
• URL-prefix property: only covers the exact address you enter, such as https://www.yourbusiness.com.au. It has more verification options, so it's handy if you can't get into your domain settings.

If you're not sure which version of your address is the "real" one, my post on www vs non-www explains why it matters.

Step 3: Verify that you own the site

For a Domain property, Google gives you a TXT record. Log in to wherever your domain's DNS is managed (usually your domain registrar, sometimes your host or a service like Cloudflare), add the TXT record, save, then click Verify in Search Console. It often works within minutes, but DNS changes can take longer to kick in, so don't panic if the first attempt fails. Leave the record in place after verifying, because removing it can remove your access.

For a URL-prefix property, you can choose from:

• Uploading an HTML file to your site.
• Adding an HTML meta tag to your homepage (most website platforms have a spot in their settings for this).
• Your Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager account, if it's already installed on the site.
• A DNS record, the same as above.

Step 4: Submit your sitemap

A sitemap is a list of the pages you want Google to know about. Most platforms create one automatically, usually at yourdomain.com.au/sitemap.xml (WordPress sites often use a slightly different address). In Search Console, go to Indexing, then Sitemaps, paste in the sitemap address and click Submit. I've written a step-by-step on submitting your sitemap and why your site might not be showing in Google if you get stuck.

Step 5: Give your team access (without sharing your password)

Under Settings, then Users and permissions, you can add the people who help with your website and choose full or restricted access. It works much like giving someone access to Google Analytics, and it means you can remove them cleanly later.

Which Search Console reports should I actually look at?

Data takes a few days to start showing after you verify, so give it a week before you go digging. Then these are the reports that matter for most service businesses.

Performance

This shows your clicks, impressions (how often you appeared in results), click-through rate and average position. Switch between the Queries and Pages tabs to see which searches and which pages are doing the work. You can filter by country and compare date ranges too.

One quick win: look for searches with lots of impressions but very few clicks. That usually means you're showing up but your page title and description aren't convincing anyone to choose you, which is a copy problem you can fix in an afternoon.

Page indexing

Found under Indexing, then Pages, this report (it used to be called Coverage) splits your pages into indexed and not indexed, with a reason for each. Don't panic at a long "not indexed" list. Redirects, duplicates and pages you've deliberately hidden are meant to be there.

What you should worry about is an important service page showing as "Crawled, currently not indexed" or "Discovered, currently not indexed". That's Google telling you it's found the page but doesn't think it's worth including yet, which is often a sign the page is thin or too similar to another one.

URL Inspection

Paste any page address into the search bar at the top of Search Console to see whether it's on Google, when it was last crawled and any problems found. After you publish or significantly update an important page, you can click Request indexing to nudge Google to look at it sooner.

Core Web Vitals and HTTPS

Under Experience, these reports show whether your pages load quickly, respond smoothly and stay stable, based on data from real visitors, plus whether your pages are served securely. Smaller sites often see "not enough data" here, which is normal. Google retired its separate Mobile Usability report in late 2023, so check your site on your own phone and run your key pages through PageSpeed Insights now and then.

Manual actions and security issues

Both should say no issues detected. If either ever shows a problem, deal with it straight away.

How often should I check Search Console?

For most service businesses, 15 minutes once a month is plenty. Google will also email you when it spots new issues, so make sure those emails go to an inbox someone actually reads.

What matters is acting on what you see. For Iconic Balloons, a structural SEO clean-up based on exactly this kind of data took them from around 20 search impressions a day to more than 100, with clicks up three to five times. Just remember SEO moves in months, not days, so give changes time to show up before you judge them. If you serve a local area, pair this with the steps in my guide to local SEO for Australian service businesses.

If you'd rather not be the one watching the reports, my Site Success Plans cover ongoing Webflow care, including keeping an eye on your SEO and fixing issues as they pop up.

What should I do next?

Set it up this week, submit your sitemap, then come back in a fortnight and check two things: are your key pages indexed, and what are people searching to find you? Those two answers will tell you more about your website than most monthly reports ever do.

If the data raises more questions than answers, my plain-English guide to SEO basics will help you make sense of it.