Have you heard of the Google Search Console? It’s free, it’s made by Google, and it’s a great way to monitor and maintain your site’s Search Engine Optimization (or SEO). Google doesn’t require that you use the Google Search Console to be listed on their Search Engine Results Pages (or SERPS), but it never hurts to have a free tool for optimization that’s made by the search engine itself.

Google Search Console Let’s You

Keep a Close Eye on How You Rank on Google SERPs By:

• Ensuring Google can access your content
• Submitting new content for Google Bots to “crawl” so they will know how and where to list it
• Removing unwanted SERPs content
• Knowing which content gives you the best results
• Keeping up your site with the fewest possible disruptions to search performance
• Easily resolving SPAM and malware issues to keep your site spiffy

Understand How Google Search Sees Your Site By Showing You:

• Which queries caused your site to appear in search results
• Which queries brought you the most traffic
• Whether your prices or business info are highlighted in rich search results
• Which sites have linked to your website
• How your site is performing for mobile users

Anyone can benefit from Google Search Console— and anyone can use it. Even familiarizing yourself with the basics will help you take your SEO a long way. If you need backup, you can always hire a marketing team (or consultant) to show you the ropes, and monitor your console for you. Whatever you decide, using Search Console will help you make much more informed business decisions related to site upkeep, design, and maintenance

Site admins and web/app developers out there will definitely be missing out if they don’t take advantage of Search Console. Admins now have a heavy-hitter in their corner when it comes to protecting their site against SPAM and Malware. App developers can look forward to seamless integration, and web developers will have a lot fewer headaches when it comes to markup and structured data.

And if you’re a specialist in marketing or SEO, Search Console can definitely help you! Not only can you optimize your own rankings with in-depth analysis, you can help your clients gain new insights into their website performance, too.

Bottom line: Google Search console is a free, powerful way to make sure your SEO is the best it can be—and the newest version has even more great features! So we just have one question: what have you got to lose?