A free tool you can use to discover hidden gems about who lands on your web site is Google Search Console. It’s easy to set up and access. You should make sure your site is set up for Google Search Console any time you move your site to a new host or webmaster.
First, go to https://search.google.com/search-console/about and login using the Google account you want to be able to access Search Console under. Enter the URL of your website in the space provided. The first time you do this, Google will ask you to validate the website, and you can do that in a number of ways. We can also help you with that if you need to update your domain records or post a file to your site.
Once validated, you will start to have a wealth of information about who accesses your site. My favorite part is the Performance menu. Click it on the left, then scroll until you see the tabs Queries, Pages, Countries, etc.
Under Queries, you can actually see the keywords that web visitors used to find your site as well as the volume of visitors during a particular time period. This is useful to see if visitors are coming for the right reasons. You may think of additional content you can develop that contains these keywords to entice even more traffic to your site. You can also use the keywords as ideas for when you run paid search ads.
Under Pages, you can see which web pages are visited the most. You may want to focus on developing these pages to increase conversion, especially if you are getting a lot of traffic but no calls, emails, or appointments. This means your call to action needs to be stronger.
Under Countries, you can see how much of the traffic is US or Canada-based. And under Devices, you can see how many of the visits are made on a smartphone versus a desktop.
Back on the left menu, you can find a section on Index, which catalogs information about pages that Google has indexed for visitors. The Coverage section has a list of errors, which basically includes pages that were not able to be indexed for one reason or another.
Under the Experience section, Google will give the site a score based on some metrics it considers important, including the Core Web Vitals that we’ve written about before.
Farther down the left menu, my second favorite part, Links, provides valuable information. It shows any of your web pages that have been “mentioned” by other sites, thereby linking to your site. Gaining external links, or link building, as it’s called, is very important for ranking higher in search results; In Google’s eyes, it’s like a referral – another site recommending your page. Links are all about popularity (just like high school).
Locate your Home page under Top Linked Sites (External) and click to see the detail. Under “Top sites linking to this page,” you’ll see exactly who is “recommending” your site. Click on the box with an arrow next to any of these referring sites to go directly to the referring web page that lists your site. By seeing who is already linking to your site, you can map out a strategy to gain more links.
Google Search Console is a useful tool for those who want to dig more into their web traffic.