Less than 5% of web site owners use Google Search Console (sometimes call Google Webmaster Tools), and of those I suspect less than 5% log in to their account to see what is happening with their web site.
Rookie mistake.
One of the actions I stress on the SEO course is the importance of using Google free search console. It only takes 2 minutes to set up and once you have an account and added your site to it, you get the following major benefits:
a. You can submit your sitemap to Google to make sure Google indexes all your pages. This is crucial if the site is brand new. Tell Google the new site exists via Google Search Console. It also helps Google to index your new pages and blog posts.
b. Google gives you extensive search performance reports tracking what people are searching for, how often, how you rank and what your click-through rate is. You can export that data to a spreadsheet for easier analysis.
c. If your site gets hacked, Google will give you a warning message via the console, show you samples of the bad code and give you the opportunity to resubmit your site once you have it fixed.
d. After a few weeks Google will give you a backlink report. This report tells you which sites are linking to you, how many links there are, what pages are being linked to and what the link text says. Remember, backlinks are the crack-cocaine of the Internet as far as SEO is concerned.
e. If you have a .com domain but want to target Australia, Google Search Console allows you to change the target country to Australia.
Make a diary note, or better yet sign up for Google Search Console right now.
