How to Configure Your WordPress Site to Google Search Console?:- If you have an WordPress website and want to rank it on the top of Google then you should be needed optimization of your site through SEO. Google search console is one of the best way to optimize your website for SEO.
If you want to know that how can configure your WordPress website in Google Search console then this article is very beneficial for you.
For you kind information Google search console is one of the free tools which are provided by Google. This offers some specific tools to help website owners monitor and maintain their search engines presence and rankings.
What is Google Search Console?
For learn how to add your site in Google search console firstly you need to know that what is Google search console and why use it? So, Google search console is a free tool which offered by Google and helps to owner in monitor their website’s presence in Google search results.
Google Search console helps in track your website’s search engine rankings and helps in finding your site errors, security issues, and indexing issues. You can fix these issues that may affect your website’s search performance.
If you really want to grow your website ranking then you need to add it to Google webmaster tools from day one.
Add Your WordPress Site to Google Search Console
For setup Google webmaster you need to go on Google Search Console website and click on “Start Now” Button. Sign in with your Gmail account. Once you logged in then you asked to enter for your website URL. Here you can see the two methods for site verification domain or URL prefix. You can choose URL prefix method because that is more flexible.
Please enter correct website URL which is used by WordPress because here is an URL issue arises. For example Google considers an HTTP and HTTPS as two different protocols. There is an easy way to find out your URL which you need to enter. Simply login to your WordPress admin area and go to setting >> general page.
You can see your website URL in the site address field here. After entering your website address click on the continue button and go to the next.
Here you will be asked to verify ownership of your website. There are several methods to verified your ownership but we will suggest the HTML tag method because it is very easy.
Click on the HTML tag and then copy the code inside it.
Now you need to add this Meta tag in WordPress, so Google can verify that you are the owner of this website. You can enter this code in the header.php file in your WordPress theme and add the code above the <body> tag.
Sometimes we don’t recommend this method because if you update or change your theme, then you HTML tag will disappear. We will tell you second method to verify ownership which is Insert Headers and Footers plugin.
For this you need to install and activate this plugin. Go to the setting >> Insert Headers and Footers page and the paste the Google HTML tag code inside the “Scripts in Header” box. Don’t forget to click on the save your settings. Now go back to your Google Search Console settings and click on the ‘Verify’ button.
So, you have successfully added your site to the Google Search Console. Now you can click on ‘Go to Property’ link to visit your search console dashboard.
From here you can see your website performance report and index coverage.
Add XML Sitemap to Google Search Console
An XML sitemap is a file format that lists all your website content in XML format, so search engines easily discover and index your content. There is one of the easy way to add XML sitemap to your WordPress website by installing and activating the Yoast SEO plugin.
After activation Yoast Plugin, Go to SEO >> General and switch to the ‘Features’ tab. Here you need to go scroll down to the ‘XML Sitemap’ option and make sure that it is turned on.
Second you need to get XML sitemap link. Click on the question mark icon next to the XML sitemap option and now you will see a link to your XML sitemap.
Click on the link will take you to your XML sitemap and just copy the URL from your browser’s address bar.
Here you have any other option to create you sitemap with activate any plugin. You can directly access your XML sitemap_index.xml at the end of your website address.
For example: https://www.example.com/sitemap_index.xml
Now you sitemap ready, let’s help Google find it quickly. Simply switch to the Google Search Console dashboard and click on the sitemap menu on left side.
After that you need to add your sitemap URL under the “Add new sitemap” section and click the submit button. Google will now add your sitemap URL to your Google Search Console and index your content.
Now you have successfully added your website to Google Search Console.