The Importance of Google Search Central (formerly Webmaster Tools)

Google's Search Central (formerly Google Webmasters) is a great tool offered by Google to help you get the most out of website optimization for Google Ranking. Not only will the platform give you the ability to track and view how people are finding your website, but it also allows you the ability to tell Google how to scrape and index your site.

To set up Google Search Central, go to https://search.google.com/search-console/about and click "Start Now." You'll need a Google account to sign in.

Once logged in you'll get a prompt to decide how you want to connect your site. The "Domain" process is the preferred method:

The next step will be to verify your site ownership via your DNS settings. For this you'll want to copy the text in step 2 as shown below, the log into your DNS manager (wherever you buy your domain through such as GoDaddy, namecheap, etc.). 

You'll then create a TXT record in your DNS settings. Below is an example in Google Domains, but is pretty similar in most DNS settings:

Click add, and then go back in the Google Search Console and click "Verify." (Note, this can take up to an hour to propagate, so if you get a failure message, leave it and come back a little later). Once finished, click "Go to Property."

The first thing you want to do is submit your Sitemap to Google. Your sitemap is exactly what is sounds like - a map of how Google should read and index your website. This also basically submits your website to Google so they know it's there to index. When submitting your site, if using our website builder you would use the following URL: YOURSITE.COM/sitemap.xml/ replacing "YOURSITE.COM" with you actual homepage URL.

Click Submit.

Now you can use the Search Console to do checks on your site - clicking "Core Web Vitals" will give you an overview and rank on how Google views your website. It will give you advice on things you can do to make your site more search friendly so you can rank higher.