What is Google Search Console?

Understanding Core Web Vitals:

Core Web Vitals are a subset of metrics that Google considers essential for evaluating the user experience of a website. They focus on three key areas: loading, interactivity, and visual stability. These metrics include:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which measures the time it takes for the largest element on a webpage to load;
• First Input Delay (FID), which assesses the time it takes for a webpage to respond to user interactions; and
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), which measures the visual stability of a webpage.

Verify your website and access Search Console:

Start by verifying your website ownership in Google Search Console. Once verified, you can access a wealth of data and insights about your website's performance, including Core Web Vitals.

Monitor Core Web Vitals in Search Console:

Within Search Console, navigate to the Core Web Vitals report, which provides an overview of how your webpages are performing based on the LCP, FID, and CLS metrics. This report identifies any issues that may negatively impact your website's user experience and provides suggestions for improvement.

Diagnose and address issues:

Review the individual URLs flagged with poor Core Web Vitals performance and assess the specific issues affecting them. Common culprits include large image files, excessive JavaScript execution, or slow server response times. Address these issues by optimising images, minifying code, or leveraging caching techniques.

Utilise PageSpeed Insights:

In addition to Search Console, utilise Google's PageSpeed Insights tool to gain further insights into your website's performance and identify areas for improvement.

PageSpeed Insights provides detailed recommendations for optimising Core Web Vitals, such as leveraging browser caching, optimising CSS delivery, and compressing images.

Seek professional assistance from your digital agency:

Enhancing Core Web Vitals can be a complex task that requires technical expertise. Your current website design agency or SEO company should be able to help you understand how to use Search Console.

In the ever-evolving landscape of website optimisation, Core Web Vitals have emerged as a critical factor for enhancing user experience and search engine visibility.

By monitoring Core Web Vitals, diagnosing issues, and implementing necessary optimisations, website owners can significantly improve their website's performance.

What is a Site Map?

XML Sitemap and HTML Sitemap are two different types of sitemaps used in web development and search engine optimization. Here's an explanation of their differences:

XML Sitemap:

An XML (Extensible Markup Language) sitemap is a file written in XML format that provides search engines with information about the pages on your website.

It is specifically designed for search engine crawlers to easily discover and index the content on your site. XML sitemaps are not meant for human visitors and are primarily used by search engines to understand the structure and hierarchy of your website.

Key characteristics of XML Sitemaps include:

1. Designed for search engines: XML sitemaps are created for search engine crawlers to help them navigate and index your website efficiently.
2. Machine-readable: They use XML markup language, which is easily parsed by search engines.
3. Includes metadata: XML sitemaps can provide additional information about each URL, such as the last modification date, priority, and change frequency.
4. Submitted to search engines: XML sitemaps need to be submitted to search engines via tools like Google Search Console to ensure they are recognised and utilised.

HTML Sitemap:

An HTML sitemap, on the other hand, is a page on your website that serves as a navigational tool for human visitors.

It lists all the pages on your site in a hierarchical manner, providing a convenient overview of the site's structure. HTML sitemaps are primarily created to enhance user experience and help visitors find the desired content on your website.

Key characteristics of HTML Sitemaps include:

1. Designed for human visitors: HTML sitemaps are created to assist website visitors in easily navigating through the pages and finding the information they are looking for.
   Human-readable:
2. HTML sitemaps are presented in a user-friendly format, typically as a list of links, and can be accessed and understood by anyone visiting the website.
3. Navigation aid: HTML sitemaps can provide a comprehensive overview of the website's structure and organisation, making it easier for visitors to locate specific pages or sections.
4. No submission required: Unlike XML sitemaps, HTML sitemaps do not need to be submitted to search engines. They are typically linked from the website's footer or navigation menu for easy access by visitors.

In summary, XML sitemaps are specifically designed for search engine crawlers, while HTML sitemaps are created to assist human visitors in navigating a website.

XML sitemaps provide vital information to search engines, helping them index your site more efficiently, while HTML sitemaps enhance the user experience by offering an organised and accessible navigation tool.

To submit an XML sitemap to Google Search Console, follow these steps:

Note this process is technical in nature and you can seriously affect the rankings your website achieves if you make a mistake in Google Search Console. We recommend that you instruct your current provider to do this for you, if not already done.

Process:

Step 1: Access Google Search Console

Sign in to your Google Search Console account. If you don't have one, you can create a new account for free.

Step 2: Select Your Property (website)

Once logged in, select the website property you want to work with from the list of properties associated with your account. If you haven't added your website yet, you'll need to do that first.

Step 3: Open the Sitemaps Section

In the left-hand menu, click on "Sitemaps" under the "Index" section. This will open the Sitemaps section where you can manage your sitemaps.

Step 4: Add your XML Sitemap

Click on the "Add/Test Sitemap" button located at the top-right corner of the Sitemaps page.

Step 5: Enter Your Sitemap URL

In the pop-up window, enter the URL of your XML sitemap in the provided field. The URL should be the exact location where your XML sitemap is hosted (e.g., https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml).

Step 6: Submit Your Sitemap

Click the "Submit" button to submit your XML sitemap to Google Search Console.

Why should you submit an XML sitemap to Google Search Console?

Improved Indexing:

By submitting your XML sitemap, you provide Google with a comprehensive list of URLs on your website, making it easier for search engines to discover and index your web pages. This increases the chances of your content appearing in search engine results.

Quicker Indexing of New Pages:

When you add new pages or make significant changes to your website, submitting an updated XML sitemap helps search engines identify and index the changes faster. This ensures that your new content is included in search results as quickly as possible.

Better Crawling Efficiency:

XML sitemaps provide important metadata about your web pages, such as the last modified date and priority. This information helps search engines understand the structure and importance of your content, enabling them to crawl your website more efficiently.

Error Identification:

By submitting your XML sitemap, you gain access to valuable insights and feedback from Google Search Console. It alerts you to any potential errors or issues that might hinder proper indexing of your website, such as broken links or crawl errors.

Enhanced SEO Performance:

Submitting an XML sitemap is an essential SEO best practice. It helps search engines understand the organisation and relevance of your content, improving your website's visibility and potential rankings in search results.

In conclusion, submitting your XML sitemap to Google Search Console is crucial for ensuring that search engines can easily crawl and index your website. It enhances your website's visibility, helps with faster indexing of new pages, improves crawling efficiency, identifies errors, and contributes to better overall SEO performance.

Be careful though, if you are not sure what you are doing, ask your digital agency to check this for you and ask them when the XML sitemap was last indexed by Google.