Google Search Console is a free tool separate from Google Analytics that shows you what terms people searched for before landing on your website.
A couple of years ago, as part of a regular client data audit, we pulled the search terms people were using to get to their website and found something interesting. There were a lot of people searching for a product they didn't sell online. They sold a custom version of it, that you could reach out and talk to someone about and eventually get a quote, but they didn't have a ready-to-order online product. The data was showing us that there was a real demand for a buy now product, and a lot demand among businesses specifically. As I did a little further research, I found that none of their competitors was offering a product like that either.
We created that product that Google Search Console showed us there was clear demand for. It did six figures in sales in its first year.
This is the value of looking at your data. This opportunity was hidden everywhere else, but by diving into Search Console we identified an opening in the market and went for it.
This post explains what Search Console shows you, what the data means, how to check whether you already have it connected, and how to complete the setup if you do not.
What is Google Search Console and what does it show you
When someone finds your website through Google, they typed something into the search bar first. Search Console records that query, tracks whether your site appeared in the results, notes your ranking position, and records whether the person clicked through to your page. That data sits in a report called Performance, and reading it for the first time tends to be genuinely surprising for most business owners.
The queries table in the Performance report shows every search term your site has appeared for, along with four columns of data for each term. Clicks tells you how many people came to your site from that query. Impressions tells you how many times your site appeared in search results for it. CTR is the percentage of impressions that turned into clicks. Position is your average ranking in the results.
Pay attention to the gap between impressions and clicks. An impression is recorded every time your site appears in a search result, whether or not the person scrolls far enough to see it or clicks it. A page with 5,000 impressions and 50 clicks has a 1% click-through rate, which means 99 out of 100 people who saw your listing chose not to click. That gap tells you something specific about whether your problem is visibility or relevance, and those are different problems with different solutions.
Beyond query data, Search Console includes a Pages report under Indexing, previously called the Coverage report, which flags pages Google cannot crawl or index. A page with a crawl error is invisible in search results regardless of how good the content is, and GA4 will never surface that problem because it only records visits that actually happen. The Pages report is where you find out whether Google can see your content at all.
The Links report shows which external sites are pointing to your pages. Inbound links remain one of the primary signals Google uses to evaluate how authoritative a page is, and knowing which pages are earning links is relevant to understanding how your site performs in search over time.
How to check whether you already have Google Search Console set up
Search Console requires its own verification process and is entirely free to use. Having GA4 installed does not mean Search Console is connected. To check, go to search.google.com/search-console and sign in with the Google account associated with your website. If your site appears as a verified property, you can access the data immediately. If nothing appears, you will need to add it.
How to set up Google Search Console step by step
The setup takes about five minutes once you have the right login details in front of you. The part that trips people up most often is finding the login for their domain registrar, which is the company where they originally registered their domain name. GoDaddy, Namecheap, Google Domains, and similar providers are all structured differently. If you registered your domain years ago and cannot locate the login, check old email for a domain registration confirmation, or look up your domain at lookup.icann.org to identify which registrar holds it.
Once you have access to your registrar account, here is the full process.
Go to search.google.com/search-console and click Start Now. Log in to your Google account if you're not already in. Select the Domain option, which covers all versions of your site including http, https, and any subdomains under a single property. Enter your domain name and click Continue.
Google will provide a TXT record for verification. It will look something like google-site-verification=ABC123XYZ. Copy the full string exactly as it appears.
Log into your domain registrar and look for a section called DNS Management, DNS Settings, or Advanced DNS. The exact label varies by registrar but it is usually found under the domain settings for your specific domain, sometimes tucked inside an Advanced or Manage tab rather than on the main dashboard. If you are unsure where to find it, search for your registrar's name plus "add TXT record" and follow those specific instructions.
The DNS step looks more complicated than it is. You are following a defined sequence of steps, not making technical judgment calls. Read the instructions, work through them in order, and you will be fine.
Before you add anything, look at what is already in your DNS settings. If you see a list of records with types like A, CNAME, MX, and TXT, you are in the right place and can add the record directly here. Create a new TXT record and fill in the fields as follows:
- Host or Name: @
- Value: paste the verification string Google provided exactly as given
- TTL: set to the lowest available value, usually 300 or 600 seconds
Save the record.
If instead you see that your nameservers are pointing to a hosting provider, something like ns1.bluehost.com or ns1.hostinger.com, it means your actual DNS records are being managed by your web hosting company. In that case, log into your hosting account instead, find the DNS settings or DNS Zone Editor inside the hosting control panel, and add the TXT record there. Enter @ in the host field, paste the verification string into the value field, set TTL to the lowest available option, and save.
Paste the value exactly as Google provided it. The only thing that causes verification to fail is a typo or an incomplete paste. Return to Search Console and click Verify. The process usually completes within a few minutes, though DNS changes occasionally take up to an hour to propagate depending on your provider.
If you have GA4 already installed and want to skip the DNS route, choose URL Prefix at the property setup step instead of Domain, then select the Google Analytics verification option. Google will verify ownership automatically through the existing GA4 tag.
How long before Search Console shows data
After verification, Search Console does not show data immediately. Google needs time to crawl your site and process what it finds. You will typically start seeing initial data within 24 to 48 hours, but the Performance report takes around a week to show a meaningful picture. Search Console also does not backfill historical data from before your verification date, so the earlier you get it connected, the more data you will have available when you need it.
During the first week, the most useful thing to do is check the Pages report under Indexing to see whether Google has been able to crawl your site successfully. Any pages flagged as errors or excluded from indexing are worth investigating before you have significant traffic data to review.
How to connect Search Console to GA4
After verification, you can connect Search Console to your GA4 property so that search query data appears alongside your other acquisition reporting. Open GA4 and go to Admin. Under the property column, look for Search Console Links. Click Link and follow the prompts to connect your verified Search Console property.
Once the link is active, a Search Console section will appear under Acquisition in GA4, showing landing page performance filtered by organic search.
Where to start once you are in
Open the Performance report and read through the queries list. It shows you the search terms people are actually using to find your site, ranked by how often they appear. Some of those terms will confirm what you already know about your audience. Others will surprise you, and the surprises are the interesting part. A query showing up hundreds of times that you've never thought about is a signal that there's demand you haven't deliberately addressed yet.
Also look at queries where your position sits between 8 and 15. Those are terms where your site is on or near the first page of results. A modest improvement in ranking for those terms would produce a meaningful increase in clicks without requiring new content. They are usually the highest-return SEO opportunities available to an established site.
Going further with your analytics
Search Console and GA4 answer different questions about the same website. Reading them together gives you a more complete picture of what is driving your organic traffic and what visitors do after they arrive. The 28-Day Analytics Sprint covers both tools as part of a structured approach to building that skill over 28 days, in the order that makes each piece of knowledge useful rather than overwhelming.