I recently challenged myself to explain Google Search Console to my mom in the simplest terms I possibly could.
SEO is an intimidating topic for most people, and as a huge nerd, I sometimes forget to keep it simple when explaining marketing/copywriting/SEO stuff to my clients.
(A cardinal sin for a copywriter, I know, but I’m a recovering perfectionist. Cut me some slack here, thanks.)
So when I challenged myself to explain Google Search Console to my mom (who’s shiny new website had just been designed, homepage copy by yours truly) I knew I had to get it together.
What followed was basically the best 10 minutes of improv theatre I’ve ever had within my copywriting career.
So now, I’m going to sum up Google Search Console, and how you can use it to get more eyes on your website.
Think of Google like a big library
And who doesn’t love libraries?
Basically, like a real library, Google contains a lot of information.
It’s the center you go to whenever you need and answer to literally anything.
And like a library, it would be pretty pointless to have all that information if you couldn’t find what you needed quickly. (Y’all remember learning about the Dewey Decimal System in school, right?)
So Google makes it a priority to stay organized and make sure the most relevant information for what you’re looking for is found quickly.
Every library needs an indexing system – that’s Google Search Console
Now, like any good library, Google has a way that you can make sure new books are added to it’s indexing system.
Google Search Console is basically the indexing system.
Now think of each page of your website like a book that needs to be added to the index
(If you’re super nerdy, you can think about your website like a best-selling series, and each page of the site is an addition to the series.)
Google is smart, sometimes she’ll add those books to the index on her own, but other times you can ask her to add them
Big authors like Sarah J Maas and Stephen King probably don’t have to tell their local library to start carrying their books.
Similarly, a big ol’ website like Forbes or Entrepreneur.com don’t need to manually add their pages to Google Search Console. Google knows they’re reputable and that people want to see their content. She’ll make sure they’re indexed so they can be seen by people who are looking for them.
If you’re a tiny, indie author though, it makes sense that you’ll go directly to your library and ask them to include your books in their collection.
You ask Google to add your pages to the library by submitting your sitemap
When you submit your sitemap to Google, you’re basically going up to the library and saying “hey, maybe you would have caught wind of my books eventually, but can you go ahead and add them to your collection now?”
Google will say “why yes, of course!”“ and begin the process of indexing your books website pages.
To get Google to index your pages, you go to Google Search Console and submit your sitemap.
A sitemap is basically a techy way of describing the list of pages on your website.
This article explains how you can find your sitemap.
The most important thing to realize now is that this a quick task. A copy-paste situation that should only take a few minutes:
1. Create a Google Search Console account and log in.
2. Add your website and verify it
3. Go to the “Sitemaps” tab.
4. Paste your sitemap in and hit “submit.”
That’s it.
It will take Google a couple days to crawl your website and index everything, but you don’t have to do anything else!
BTW, “crawling your website” basically means google sends out these little magical library spiders to go through every page of your website, see how relevant it is, and categorize it accordingly.
If you have a Showit website, you need to submit 2 sitemaps
This is something I didn’t know for literally months, but if you have a Showit website like I do, you need to submit 2 sitemaps. One for your main web pages, and one for your blog posts.
I’m not clear on the techy-nerdy reason why this is, but basically sense your blog is run on WordPress, it’s made of different material than your regular pages.
For this analogy, let’s say one is paperback, the other is hardcover.
You can find your blog posts sitemap by going to https://[www.yourwebsitenamehere.com]/post-sitemap.xml
Submit that to Google Search Console so Google can index your blog posts as well.
BTW, your blog posts sitemap automatically updates when you publish new blog posts, so no need to do this every time you publish a blog.
Of course, SEO is a huge reason why you should be blogging, but there are definitely other reasons why your business needs a blog too, but I digress.
SEO is intimidating, but SEO-optimized website copy doesn’t have to be
Here’s the thing: Just because you submit your web pages to the library of Google doesn’t mean you’ll be ranking on Google.
You still need to make sure your website is written in a way that makes Google want to show your website to more people.
Luckily, I can help you there! Website copy is kinda my bread and butter, and if you’re going to write your website, you might as well do it in a way that will make Google fan girl over each addition to your site.
Check out my copywriting services: Need some conversational copy that is optimized to grow your business and connect with your people? Check out my services here.
