How to Set Up Google Search Console for Your WordPress Website

Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that shows how your website appears in Google Search. It reports which of your pages are indexed, the search terms people use to find you, how many clicks and impressions you get, and any problems Google finds, such as pages it cannot index or a site that is slow on mobile.

Setting it up has three parts: add your website as a property, prove that you own it (called verification), and tell Google where your sitemap is. It usually takes about ten minutes. Data starts to appear within a day or two, and builds up over the following weeks.

Before you start

• You need a Google account. If you use Gmail or Google Workspace you already have one. Using an account that belongs to your business, rather than a personal one or an agency’s, means you keep control if people change.
• Have your website address ready, and know whether it uses https:// and www.
• You need to be able to edit your DNS settings (usually with whoever you registered the domain with) or to log in to the WordPress dashboard as an administrator, depending on the method you choose below.

Step 1: Add your website as a property

1. Go to Google Search Console and sign in with your Google account.
2. Click the property selector at the top left, then choose Add property. (If this is your first visit, the add property box appears straight away.)
3. Choose the type of property. We recommend Domain, because it covers every version of your site in one go: with and without www, http and https, and any subdomains. If you cannot edit your DNS settings, choose URL prefix instead.

Step 2: Verify that you own the website

Use the method that matches the property type you chose.

Option A: Domain property, verified with DNS (recommended)

1. Enter your domain without https:// or www, for example example.co.uk, then click Continue.
2. Google shows a TXT record, starting google-site-verification=. Copy it.
3. Log in to where your DNS is managed (usually your domain registrar or hosting company) and add a new TXT record for your domain, with the value you copied. Leave the host or name as @ or blank.
4. Go back to Search Console and click Verify. DNS changes can take a little while to spread, so if it does not work straight away, wait an hour or so and try again.

If we manage your domain or hosting, we can add this record for you. Just send us the TXT record.

Option B: URL prefix property, verified from WordPress

1. Enter your exact website address, including https:// and www if your site uses them, then click Continue.
2. Under Other verification methods, choose HTML tag and copy the line of code Google shows you. It is a meta tag containing your verification code.
3. In your WordPress dashboard, add that tag to the head of your site in one of these ways:
   • If you use Yoast SEO or Rank Math, both have a box for it. Look for the webmaster tools or verification settings and paste in the Google code.
   • With the Site Kit by Google plugin, follow its setup and it can verify the site for you.
   • Otherwise use a header plugin such as WPCode (previously called Insert Headers and Footers). Install and activate it from Plugins > Add New, open its header settings, paste the whole tag into the header box and save.
4. Go back to Search Console and click Verify.

Keep the verification code on your site, or in your DNS, for as long as you want to use Search Console. If you remove it, Google will eventually stop trusting that you own the site.

Step 3: Submit your sitemap

A sitemap is a list of the pages on your site. Giving it to Google helps new and changed pages to be found sooner.

1. In the left-hand menu, choose Sitemaps (under Indexing).
2. Enter the address of your sitemap. WordPress creates one automatically at example.co.uk/wp-sitemap.xml. Yoast SEO and Rank Math both use example.co.uk/sitemap_index.xml instead. Open the address in your browser first to check that it shows a list of links.
3. Click Submit. The status should change to Success.

Step 4: Check your reports

It can take a few days for data to appear. The main reports to look at are:

• Performance shows clicks, impressions, average position and the search terms and pages that bring visitors.
• Pages (under Indexing) shows which pages are indexed and why others are not.
• Experience reports on speed and mobile usability.
• Security & manual actions tells you if Google has found a security problem or applied a penalty.

Google also emails the property owners about serious problems, which is another good reason to use an address that is checked regularly. Our glossary of SEO reporting terms explains the words you will see.

Giving other people access

You can let colleagues or your web team see the reports without sharing your login. Open Settings > Users and permissions and choose Add user. If you are an O’Brien Media customer and would like us to include your site in our SEO monitoring, see how to give us access to Google Search Console.

If you would rather not do this yourself, contact us and we will be happy to set it up for you.