Marketing - Google Search Console

Without visitors on an online business, there are no sales and no turnover. Therefore, it is important to examine the different sources of visitors (also known as "traffic") to your online business. Most online businesses receive traffic from the following channels: Search engines (especially Google), Affiliates (including price comparison sites), Direct traffic and (to a lesser extent) through incoming links.
 

To examine the flow of visitors from search engines, the first step is to separate visitors who come in through search engine ads (usually Google Ads) from those who come in "organically" (or for free) through normal search results. Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) is a particularly useful tool (especially icm with Analytics) to examine this flow. Bing has a similar tool, but given the limited relevance of Bing as a visitor source, it will not be covered on this page. 

What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a very handy and free tool from Google that gives an impression of how search engines see your online business. The tool is easy to implement by placing a code in the <head> section in the source code of your online business. With Search Console you can find out what keywords Google thinks your website is about. This is particularly useful information when you want to be visible on specific search terms (which is actually always the case). Furthermore, it is possible to view the indexing (the inclusion) of your online business in Google and it is possible to report technical changes to the search engine (for example, that certain pages are not important or that certain urls are no longer correct),

What are the features of Google Search Console?

There are numerous useful features and we definitely recommend you go through them once you have installed the tool. For now, we will highlight some of the most interesting features for you:

1. Search traffic - Search analysis

Under the menu item 'search traffic' you will find the search analysis function. Here you can see which pages of your online business score in Google for which keywords. Per keyword, the total impressions of your page are displayed, the number of clicks from Google to your page, the conversion (the 'CTR', or the number of clicks divided by the total number of impressions) and the average position in the search engine. The data can also be refined by date, device (mobile/tablet/desktop) etc. For every online business owner who is actively optimizing the online business for certain keywords, this tool is of great value!

2. Search traffic - Links to your site

Under the same menu item you will also find an overview of all websites linking to your online business. A useful function to keep track of whether your link building activities are having results. Incoming links still count heavily for Google in the positioning of your online business. The idea behind this is that third parties will only link to your online business if you have some form of authority on the subject. (So suppose your dog food online business has many incoming links on the page "How to choose the right dog food," then Google makes the assumption that you apparently share useful information about this on your website and positions it better on related search terms. Note: Link buying is heavily penalized by Google, so by all means don't do that. In the worst case, your online business will be removed from the search engine and you will no longer be found....

3. Google index - Indexing status

Here you can see exactly how many pages Google has indexed from your website.  If this does not approach the number of pages of your online business, then you have a good indication that Google is experiencing a problem with indexing and it is important to look for the cause. (Tip: If you search in the search engine with the command "site:yourwebshop.com" you will also get the number of indexed pages linked back and you will see right away how Google shows your pages!)

4. Crawling - Crawl errors

Under this function you will find errors in your online business that Google encountered while "crawling" your online business. A good list to improve your performance! You can fix 'dead' links and 404's for example.

5. Crawling - Sitemaps

You can, of course, let Google crawl your site itself and determine what matters and what matters a little less. But you can also give Google a "guide" of your online business. In this guide (also called the sitemap), you include the pages of your online business and assign a value to them (for example, 1.0 for the important homepage and 0.8 for a less important category page). The sitemap provides the menu structure of your online business to Google, which allows Google to index your online business better and faster.

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Why is Google Search Console important when I buy/sell an online business?

97% of the Dutch use Google as a search engine and that makes Google Search Console an important source of information about the performance and findability of the online business you sell or buy. For sellers, Google Search Console provides a wealth of information about 'bottlenecks' in your online business and by improving these, you upgrade the performance of your online business and thus its value.

For buyers, the analysis of the Search Console is of value firstly to be able to properly analyze the current performance and to what extent this performance is stable and organically built (check the sources of incoming links for example) and secondly where the areas for improvement (opportunities) lie. As a buyer, you can always ask the seller for access to his or her Google Search Console account. You only need to provide the seller with a Gmail address. To this address the seller can link your access to his account and you will have access to the data. (It is normal to first sign a non-disclosure agreement together, whether or not through Businessforsale.eu).

It is possible to take an SEO scan through us, with which the data of your (new) online business will be fully reviewed on status and potential. (If it concerns a potential purchase, the cooperation of the current owner of the online business is required).

More information about the scan.