Google Search Console Tutorial for Beginners: How to Use GSC for SEO

If you have a website or blog, you need to know what Google thinks about your website.

Are your pages appearing in Google?

Which keywords are bringing visitors?

How many people see your pages in search results?

How many people click your website?

Which pages are indexed?

Why is a page not indexed?

Google Search Console can help you answer these questions.

In this Google Search Console Tutorial for Beginners, you will learn how to use GSC step by step in very simple English.

We will cover the most useful Search Console reports, including:

Performance
URL Inspection
Page Indexing
Sitemaps
Core Web Vitals
HTTPS
Links
Manual Actions
Security Issues
Removals
Settings

You will also learn what each report means, what you should check, and what action you should take.

You can bookmark this guide and come back whenever you need help with Google Search Console.

If you want to explore other tools for keyword research, backlinks, site audits, and SEO analysis, see our guide to the 10 Best SEO Tools for Bloggers in 2026.

What Is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console (GSC) is a free Google tool that helps website owners monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot their website’s presence in Google Search.

In simple words:

Google Search Console tells you how Google sees and understands your website.

You can use it to:

Check your Google Search performance
Find keywords that show your website
See clicks and impressions
Check whether a page is indexed
Request indexing for a page
Submit your sitemap
Find indexing problems
Check Core Web Vitals
Understand links to your website
Find some security and manual action problems

Google recommends Search Console for monitoring search performance and troubleshooting issues with your website.

Official Google Search Console

Open Google Search Console

Is Google Search Console Free?

Yes.

Google Search Console is a free service from Google.

You do not need to buy a paid SEO tool to use it.

This makes GSC especially useful for new bloggers and small websites.

However, remember one important thing:

Google Search Console is mainly about your own website.

It is not designed to give you the same type of competitor research that tools such as Ahrefs provide.

For competitor and keyword research, you can also read our Ahrefs Tutorial for Beginners.

How to Start Using Google Search Console

Before using Search Console, you need to add your website as a property and verify that you have permission to manage it.

Once your website is verified, Google can start showing Search Console data for that property.

Step 1: Open Google Search Console

Go to:

Google Search Console

Step 2: Add Your Website

Click Start now and add your website property.

Google provides different property types, including domain-level and URL-prefix properties.

Step 3: Verify Your Website

Google needs to confirm that you control the website.

The verification method depends on the property type and your website setup.

Step 4: Open Your Property

After verification, select your website from Search Console.

You can now access the reports and tools available for your property.

Understanding the Google Search Console Dashboard

When you open Search Console, you may see several reports and tools.

Don’t worry if the dashboard looks complicated.

You do not need to understand everything on the first day.

For most bloggers, these are the most important areas to learn first:

Performance
URL Inspection
Page Indexing
Sitemaps
Core Web Vitals
Links

Let’s understand them one by one.

1. Performance Report

Official guide:
Open Google Search Performance Report

The Performance report is one of the most useful parts of Search Console.

It shows how your website performs in Google Search.

Google says the report can help you understand search traffic, queries, pages, clicks, impressions and other performance information.

You will usually see four important numbers:

Clicks
Impressions
Average CTR
Average position

Let’s understand each one.

What Are Clicks?

A click happens when someone clicks your website’s result in Google Search.

For example:

Someone searches:

best free SEO tools

Your article appears.

The person clicks your result.

That counts as a click.

Why are clicks important?

Clicks show that people are actually visiting your website from Google Search.

More relevant clicks can mean more organic traffic.

But don’t focus only on the total number.

You should also understand which pages and keywords are generating those clicks.

What Are Impressions?

An impression means your website’s search result was shown to a user in a Google Search result, subject to Google’s measurement rules.

For example:

Your article appears 100 times in Google Search.

You may have:

100 impressions

even if nobody clicks.

Why are impressions useful?

Impressions can show that Google is starting to show your website for certain searches.

A page can have:

High impressions + low clicks

This can be an opportunity.

Maybe the page is appearing in search results but the title or description is not attracting enough clicks.

What Is CTR?

CTR means Click-Through Rate.

It tells you how often people click your result after seeing it.

In simple terms:

CTR = clicks compared with impressions

For example:

If your page receives 100 impressions and 5 clicks, its CTR is 5%.

Google’s documentation defines CTR as clicks divided by impressions.

Why is CTR useful?

Suppose one of your articles has:

5,000 impressions
50 clicks

That means the page is getting visibility but relatively few people are clicking.

You can investigate:

Is the title clear?
Does it match the search intent?
Does the description explain the benefit?
Are competitors offering a stronger result?

Don’t change a page only because CTR is low.

First look at the keyword, position and search intent.

What Is Average Position?

Average position is an estimate of where your website’s search results appeared in Google Search.

For example, a page may have an average position around:

This does not mean every user saw it exactly at position 8.

Search results can vary by query, device, location and other factors.

Google provides detailed information about how position is calculated.

Simple way to understand it

Position 1–3 → very strong visibility
Position 4–10 → first-page opportunity
Position 11–20 → close to page one
Position 20+ → usually needs more work and authority

These are practical guidelines, not guarantees.

How to Find Your Best Keywords in GSC

This is one of the most useful things you can do in Search Console.

Step 1

Open the Performance report.

Step 2

Select Queries.

Step 3

Sort the table by Clicks.

You can now see which search queries are bringing visitors.

You can also sort by:

Impressions
CTR
Position

Google recommends using the Queries tab and sorting by these metrics to understand which searches bring traffic to your site.

What should you look for?

Look for keywords that have:

High impressions + low CTR

These may be pages where improving the title or search-result presentation could increase clicks.

Also look for:

Position 8–20 + good impressions

These can sometimes be good opportunities for content improvement.

How to Find Your Best Pages

In the Performance report:

Step 1

Click the Pages tab.

Step 2

Sort by clicks.

You can now see which pages receive the most Google Search clicks.

Step 3

Look at impressions and CTR too.

This gives you a better picture than clicks alone.

Google also recommends using the Pages dimension to evaluate page effectiveness.

2. URL Inspection Tool

Official guide:
Open Google’s URL Inspection Tool

The URL Inspection Tool is extremely useful when you want to check one specific page.

For example:

You publish a new article and want to know:

Is this page indexed by Google?

You can inspect its URL.

Google says URL Inspection provides information about Google’s indexed version of a specific URL and also lets you test the live URL for indexability.

How to Check a Page in URL Inspection

Step 1

Open Google Search Console.

Step 2

At the top, enter the complete URL of your page.

For example:

https://example.com/my-article

Step 3

Press Enter.

Search Console will check what Google knows about that URL.

You may see a message such as:

URL is on Google

URL is not on Google

What Does “URL Is on Google” Mean?

It generally means Google has indexed the URL and it is eligible to appear in Google Search, although indexing does not guarantee that the page will actually appear for every search.

If your important page is indexed, you usually don’t need to do anything immediately.

What Does “URL Is Not on Google” Mean?

It means the URL is not currently available in Google’s index.

Don’t panic.

First, check the reason shown in URL Inspection.

There can be many reasons.

For example:

Google has not discovered the page yet
The page is blocked
The page has a noindex instruction
The page has another indexing issue
The page is considered a duplicate

The correct action depends on the reason.

How to Test a Live URL

URL Inspection also lets you test the live version of a page.

This is useful when you have recently fixed an issue.

Simple process:

Enter the URL.
Open URL Inspection.
Choose Test Live URL.
Wait for the test.
Review the result.

A successful live test means Google was able to access and process the page under the conditions checked by the live test, but it is not an absolute guarantee of indexing.

How to Request Indexing

If you have published or significantly updated an important page, you can use URL Inspection to request indexing.

Steps:

Open URL Inspection.
Enter the page URL.
Check the result.
Click Request Indexing if available.
Wait for Google to process the request.

Google says a request does not guarantee indexing, and indexing can take time.

Important

Don’t request indexing repeatedly every day.

If you have already requested indexing, give Google time to crawl and process the page.

3. Page Indexing Report

Official guide:
Open Google’s Page Indexing Report

The Page Indexing report gives you an overall view of pages Google knows about and whether they have been indexed.

This report can look scary because you may see many pages under Not indexed.

But remember:

Not every non-indexed URL is a problem.

Google itself says that some URLs should not be indexed, such as duplicates, pages with noindex instructions, or removed pages that correctly return 404 responses.

Indexed vs Not Indexed

Indexed

Google has added the page to its index.

The page may be eligible to appear in Google Search.

Not Indexed

Google knows about the URL but has not included it in the index.

This does not automatically mean something is wrong.

You need to look at the specific reason.

Crawled – Currently Not Indexed

This status means Google crawled the page but has not currently indexed it.

What should you do?

Don’t immediately rewrite the entire article.

First check:

Is the page useful?
Is the content original?
Does it satisfy search intent?
Is it accessible?
Is it indexable?
Is it a duplicate?
Does it have useful internal links?

If the page is valuable and technically healthy, give Google time to reassess it.

Discovered – Currently Not Indexed

This means Google knows about the URL but has not crawled it yet.

Possible reasons can include:

The page is new
Google has not crawled it yet
The website has many URLs
The page is not well connected internally

What should you do?

Make sure the page:

Is published
Is indexable
Is included in your sitemap when appropriate
Has internal links from relevant pages

Google explains that a page needs to be discoverable through links, a sitemap, or other methods before it can be crawled.

404 Pages

A 404 means the requested page was not found.

Not every 404 needs fixing.

For example, if you intentionally removed an old article and there is no useful replacement, a 404 can be normal.

But if another page on your website still links to that broken URL, you should fix that internal link.

Google recommends focusing on 404 errors that you link to yourself or that are listed in your sitemap.

Noindex Pages

If a page has a noindex instruction, Google should not index it.

This can be intentional.

For example, you may not want certain archive, tag, or utility pages indexed.

So don’t remove noindex automatically.

First ask:

Do I actually want this page in Google?

If yes, investigate why noindex is present.

If no, leave it alone.

4. Sitemaps

Official guide:
Google Sitemap Documentation

A sitemap is a file that helps search engines discover URLs on your website.

For a WordPress website, your SEO plugin can usually generate a sitemap automatically.

Why is a sitemap useful?

It helps Google discover important URLs on your website.

But remember:

Submitting a sitemap does not guarantee that every URL will be indexed.

Google explains that sitemaps help Google discover URLs, especially when pages are new or difficult to discover through normal crawling.

How to Submit a Sitemap in GSC

Step 1

Open Google Search Console.

Step 2

Select your website.

Step 3

Open Sitemaps.

Step 4

Enter your sitemap URL.

For many WordPress websites using SEO plugins, it may look something like:

https://example.com/sitemap_index.xml

Step 5

Click Submit.

Step 6

Check the status.

If Google can read the sitemap, you should see the submitted sitemap information in the report.

5. Core Web Vitals

Official guide:
Google Core Web Vitals Documentation

Core Web Vitals are measurements related to page experience and loading performance.

They include:

LCP — Largest Contentful Paint
INP — Interaction to Next Paint
CLS — Cumulative Layout Shift

These measurements help you understand how users experience your pages.

What should a beginner do?

Don’t become obsessed with getting every score perfect.

Instead:

Check whether important pages have serious problems.
Identify the pages with issues.
Understand the reason.
Fix the most important problems first.

6. HTTPS Report

HTTPS helps protect the connection between a website and its visitors.

Your website should use HTTPS.

For example:

https://example.com

rather than:

http://example.com

If your website has HTTPS problems, investigate them because security and correct website configuration matter.

For most modern WordPress websites, HTTPS should already be enabled through the hosting setup and SSL certificate.

7. Links Report

Official guide:
Google Search Console Links Report

The Links report helps you understand links associated with your website.

You can review areas such as:

Top linked pages
Top linking sites
Top internally linked pages

Why are internal links important?

Internal links connect one page on your website to another.

For example, if you have an article about:

What Is SEO?

you can naturally link to another article about:

Types of Keywords

This helps readers discover related information.

You can learn more in our Types of Keywords guide.

8. Manual Actions

Official guide:
Google Manual Actions Report

A manual action can happen when Google’s spam policies are violated and a human reviewer determines that action is needed.

If your website has a manual action, Search Console can show information about it.

What should you do?

If you see a manual action:

Read the exact reason.
Fix the problem.
Follow Google’s instructions.
Request a review when appropriate.

Do not ignore a genuine manual action.

9. Security Issues

Official guide:
Google Security Issues Report

Search Console can alert website owners about certain security problems.

For example, a website may be affected by:

Hacking
Malware
Harmful content

If Google reports a serious security issue, treat it as a priority.

Do not continue normal SEO work while ignoring a genuine security problem.

10. Removals Tool

Official guide:
Google Removals Tool

The Removals tool can be used when you need to temporarily prevent certain pages or content from appearing in Google Search.

This is different from simply deleting a page.

If you want a URL permanently removed from your website and Google, you should understand the correct technical method rather than relying only on the temporary removal tool.

How to Find Why a Page Is Not Indexed

This is one of the most useful GSC workflows.

Suppose you published an important article.

You want to know:

Why isn’t Google indexing it?

Follow these steps.

Step 1: Open URL Inspection

Enter the complete URL.

Step 2: Check the main status

Look for:

URL is on Google

URL is not on Google

Step 3: If it is not indexed, read the reason

Look under the Page indexing information.

Step 4: Test the live URL

Click Test Live URL.

Step 5: Check important technical information

Look for things such as:

Crawl allowed
Indexing allowed
Canonical
Page availability

Step 6: Fix the actual problem

Don’t make random changes.

Step 7: Request indexing if appropriate

After fixing the issue, request indexing.

Google specifically recommends URL Inspection for checking the status of a specific URL and troubleshooting indexing problems.

How to Find Keywords Your Website Is Already Ranking For

You don’t always need a keyword tool to discover useful keywords.

Your own Search Console data can give you real search queries that Google has associated with your website.

Step 1

Open Performance.

Step 2

Select Queries.

Step 3

Sort by impressions.

Step 4

Look for unexpected keywords.

You may find that Google is already showing your article for related searches that you did not specifically target.

What can you do with this information?

Suppose your article is about:

SEO tools for beginners

and GSC shows impressions for:

best free SEO tools

You can check whether your article already answers that intent.

If it does, you may improve the existing article.

If it is a clearly different intent, it may become a future content idea.

How to Find Pages With High Impressions but Low CTR

This is one of my favorite GSC strategies for bloggers.

A page can receive many impressions but very few clicks.

That means Google is showing it, but searchers are not clicking enough.

How to find these pages

Open Performance.
Click Pages.
Turn on Impressions and CTR.
Look for pages with meaningful impressions but low CTR.
Open the page and study its main queries.
Compare its title and search intent with the current Google results.
Improve only when there is a clear reason.

Google also recommends using low CTR pages as an opportunity to review titles, descriptions and content alignment with search queries.

How to Use GSC Every Week

You don’t need to spend hours in Search Console every day.

For a small blog, a simple weekly routine is enough.

Weekly GSC Checklist

1. Check Performance

Look for:

Clicks
Impressions
CTR
Position

2. Check new queries

Look for keywords you didn’t expect.

3. Check important pages

See which pages are gaining or losing clicks.

4. Check indexing problems

Look for important pages that have unexpected indexing issues.

5. Check sitemap status

Make sure there are no obvious sitemap problems.

6. Check Core Web Vitals

Look for serious issues affecting important pages.

This gives you a simple picture of your site’s SEO health without becoming obsessed with every number.

GSC + Ahrefs: How to Use Both Together

GSC and Ahrefs work well together because they answer different questions.

Google Search Console

Use GSC to understand:

Your actual Google Search performance
Actual search queries shown in Search Console
Clicks
Impressions
CTR
Your indexed pages
Your website’s indexing issues

Ahrefs

Use Ahrefs for:

Keyword research
Competitor research
Backlink research
Content research
Rank tracking
SEO audits

You can read our detailed Ahrefs Tutorial for Beginners to learn how to use Ahrefs.

Simple workflow

Ahrefs → Research

GSC → Measure

For example:

Use Ahrefs to research a keyword.

Write and publish the article.

Then use GSC to see which queries Google actually shows the article for.

This creates a much better SEO feedback loop.

Common Google Search Console Mistakes

Mistake 1: Checking GSC every few hours

SEO data does not need constant checking.

Check it on a schedule.

Mistake 2: Panicking over “Not indexed”

Not every non-indexed URL is a problem.

Always check the reason first.

Mistake 3: Requesting indexing repeatedly

One request is enough.

Give Google time to process it.

Mistake 4: Looking only at clicks

Clicks are important, but also check:

Impressions
CTR
Position
Queries
Pages

Mistake 5: Changing an article every time the ranking moves

Google rankings naturally change.

Don’t make unnecessary changes based on a very small movement.

Mistake 6: Trying to index every URL

Some URLs should not be indexed.

Duplicates, noindex pages, certain utility pages and removed URLs may be intentionally excluded.

Google Search Console Beginner Cheat Sheet

GSC Section	What It Helps You Understand
Performance	Search traffic and keywords
URL Inspection	One specific URL
Page Indexing	Which pages Google indexed
Sitemaps	Sitemap submission and status
Core Web Vitals	Page experience and performance
Links	Internal and external linking information
Manual Actions	Google spam-policy actions
Security Issues	Certain security problems
Removals	Temporary search-result removal
Settings	Property and account configuration

A Simple GSC Routine for a New Blogger

If you are just starting, don’t try to learn every report on the same day.

Start with these five:

1. Performance

Find out what Google is showing your website for.

2. URL Inspection

Check individual pages.

3. Page Indexing

Understand why important pages are or are not indexed.

4. Sitemaps

Make sure Google can discover your important URLs.

5. Links

Understand how your pages connect internally and externally.

Once you are comfortable with these, learn the remaining reports.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Google Search Console free?

Yes. Google Search Console is a free Google service.

How often should I check Google Search Console?

For a small blog, once a week is usually enough for routine monitoring. You can check more often when troubleshooting a specific problem.

Does Google Search Console help improve SEO?

Yes. It provides useful information about search queries, clicks, impressions, CTR, positions, indexing and other search-related information that can help you make better SEO decisions.

Does Search Console guarantee higher rankings?

No.

Search Console provides data and tools. It does not guarantee rankings.

Does requesting indexing guarantee indexing?

No.

Google clearly states that a request does not guarantee that a URL will be indexed.

Should every page on my website be indexed?

No.

Some URLs may intentionally remain outside Google’s index. What matters is that your important, useful pages are indexable and indexed when appropriate.

Is Google Search Console enough for keyword research?

GSC is very useful for understanding the queries your own website is already appearing for.

For broader keyword discovery and competitor research, dedicated SEO tools such as Ahrefs can provide additional data.

Final Thoughts

Google Search Console may look complicated when you first open it.

But you don’t need to understand every report immediately.

Start with:

Performance → understand your search traffic

URL Inspection → check individual pages

Page Indexing → understand indexing

Sitemaps → help Google discover your URLs

Links → understand your website structure

Then slowly learn the other reports.

The most important thing is not to collect hundreds of numbers.

The goal is to use GSC data to answer simple questions:

What is working?

What needs attention?

Which pages are getting visibility?

Which keywords are bringing opportunities?

Which important pages have indexing problems?

If you check these things regularly and take sensible action, Google Search Console can become one of the most useful free SEO tools for your website.

Bookmark this guide and come back whenever you need to check your Google Search performance or troubleshoot an indexing problem.