There is only really one SEO platform that works exclusively with Google and that is the Google Search Console.
For me, this is the starting point of any SEO campaign is to understand what the Search Console is telling me. It will give core data and core information, that will help my website perform better.
Maybe Not The Full Picture With Backlinks
But in more in recent years I believe that Google has become more specific in the backlinks that it chooses to rank your website. So, in better words all the information you get from this online software is not accurate, there may be links going to your website that don’t make any difference to its performance.
If a backlink is shown within the Google Search Console, I think you could be pretty sure that that backlink is making a difference to the performance of your website.
Of course, I like many other SEO professionals believe that Google does not show every backlink that makes a difference to your website so you may still need to use these third-party software options.
Other Pieces Of Information
The Google Search Console is not just about backlinks. It has so many other pieces of information it can tell you. So, for example, what pages are being indexed and what pages aren’t? It also gives you an option to remove pages from the Google Index that have been indexed by mistake. This happens quite regularly when creating WordPress websites.
Adding an XML sitemap is also very useful to help Google find all your pages. There are some plugins, such as Yoast, that you can add to WordPress that as soon as a page or post is created the XML sitemap is automatically updated.
There is a performance tag that gives you an indication or idea of how well your site is performing in terms of visitors and in terms of how many times then those search terms have been searched for. I believe this should only be used as a guide. I don’t think it’s a hundred per cent accurate. Just use it as a guide.
However, there are certain things that you do not get a full picture of. For example, backlinks. Sometimes many professionals would rather use a third-party piece of software such as Arefs or SEMrush. This will give you a more detailed backlink profile of your website. this software will indeed give you a far bigger broader picture of the backlinks going to your website.
The Pages tab within the Google Search Console helps you understand what pages have been indexed and which haven’t but also indexed under a title that will tell you why. For example, what pages have been excluded by the No Index tag, what pages have been not found and what pages have been redirected?
The page experience tab helps you understand your core web vitals and how Google measures the interaction your visitors have with your website. You can gain rankings by having a good customer experience, so the core web vitals give you data to help you understand how well your website is performing. However, you need to have sufficient traffic going to your website before the core web white vitals will work.
There is some more basic stuff for example is your website secure does it use HTTPS also there is a tab that tells you if your website got a manual action against it.
Not A Comprehensive Guide On The Google Search Console
This article is not meant to be a comprehensive guide to the Google search console. It’s only meant as a taster to make you understand why this should be your first port of call when dealing with any SEO project.
The information or data that you have within the Search Console is provided by Google, the very search engine that you intend to rank. not all the data is comprehensive and maybe in some instances it’s a bit out of date but it still gives you an image of how Google sees your website.