how to add google search console to shopify

every Shopify store is using Google,analytics but not everyone is using,Google search console I think because,analytics is pretty easy to connect,there's a place in the Shopify dashboard,where you add your Google analytics code,or ID whereas for search console there's,nothing like that so people maybe get,confused and just neglect it just forget,about it but it's actually really,important that you set up search console,if you want to be found organically,through Google search so if you found,this video I'm assuming you already know,what Google search console is the rest,of this video is going to be a tutorial,however I'll quickly spend one minute to,recap the three main functions of Google,search console just in case the first,function is of course SEO research so,search console will let you see the,exact phrases that people are typing,into Google and then finding your site,it'll let you see which Pages they're,landing on most of all which Pages the,most popular in Google search results as,well as which countries people are from,which devices they're using when they,search for your store and that way you,can understand if maybe there's a,specific blog post or a specific product,that is attracting most of your traffic,and then you can double down on that,content right so SEO research is the,first thing the second thing is to,communicate directly with Google so,search console is kind of a tool that,lets you inform Google about changes you,make on your website or just when you,set up a new website you can ask Google,to index and crawl that website faster,than it usually would if it just found,you out there on the internet and the,third main function of search console is,to alert you about any kind of SEO,issues on your website you'll actually,get emails from Google when they detect,that there's something wrong with your,website that you can maybe fix for,example broken links 404 pages right,maybe duplicate pages on your website,maybe to debug structured data or Rich,Snippets if you're setting that up know,what I'm talking about,um and even small usability issues,especially on mobile things like the,text being too small to read the buttons,being too close together or if you have,pop-ups showing on mobile and covering,your content and you can't close the,pop-up or something like that that,should not be happening Google will,actually email you about things like,that so that you can get them fixed ASAP,so that's it those are the three main,reasons that you need Google search,console the rest of this video is going,to be a tutorial on how to set it up one,last thing that I'll mention is that,your website needs to be live in order,to set up search console because Google,needs to be able to see what's on your,site it can't be behind a password page,or a coming soon page if you're not,ready to launch just yet but you want to,set it up then I recommend that just,publishing for like 15 minutes while you,follow this video and set it up and then,hide your website again when that's done,so that's all let's jump into my,computer and get done for your site,right now okay guys so to get started,the first thing you want to do is just,search for the words search console the,first result will be the Google search,console landing page that's,search.google.com search console about,and you'll land on this page hit the,start now button and it'll prompt you to,sign in to your Google account now once,you sign in you'll be inside of Google,search console but you won't see this,screen just yet because you need to add,your website so to do that you're going,to click on this drop down here and,there's going to be a button that says,add property click on that button and,you'll be shown two options two,different methods to add a property now,this method the domain method is without,a doubt the better method now in 2022,it's the more modern method of doing it,and partly the reason I'm making this,video is because I looked on YouTube and,even the official Shopify helps Center,YouTube channel is just showing the,older method of doing it through the URL,prefix so I'm actually going to show you,both methods firstly this one and I'll,also explain briefly why the domain,method is better and what this actually,means so if you notice on this website,bianco.com.au I have four properties for,this website and that's because if you,have a website on Shopify on many other,platforms you usually have four,different versions of your website you,have the HTTP and also the https,versions and then you have both of those,with the www we might understand that,that's the same website as humans but in,the eyes of Google and other machines,they see this as four different websites,and what you used to have to do is go to,add property and if you wanted Google to,be aware of every version of your,website you would manually add a each of,those four versions doing this again and,again four times now we can actually add,simply your domain your.com without the,URL prefix without the https or the www,and it would automatically keep track of,all versions of your website so that's,why the domain property method is,definitely better in 2022 it is just,slightly more difficult because you need,to edit your DNS records in your domain,registry so you might be using namecheap,like me you might be using GoDaddy or,crazy domains or you might have actually,purchased your domain and it's managed,through Shopify in that case it will be,in settings domains but basically we're,just going to be adding a DNS record,with the verification code that Google,gives us I'm going to demonstrate for,you right now okay so I'm going to show,you the domain method now and I'll show,you the URL prefix method a little bit,later for the domain method I'm going to,need a site that I don't have in my,search console yet so I'm actually going,to use my girlfriend's website that is,christina.marketing her site by default,uses the www and with https of course,and we would have to worry about which,version her primary domain is if we were,using the URL prefix method but because,we're not we can actually just grab the,actual domain totally ignoring the URL,prefix so we're just using,christina.marketing,and adding that here click continue,and Google will give you a short little,snippet of code which you can copy and,add this to your DNS records so now I'm,going to go into my namecheap account I,have christina.marketing managed here,these are all my domains and I'm just,going to click on manage for this domain,in namecheap you have to click on,Advanced DNS,to change your DNS records,scroll down and you can see your DNS,records ignore a records CNM records MX,records all of that don't change any of,these records all you want to do is add,a new record,you're going to look for a txt record,for the host,you're going to type the ad symbol,that's if it even asks you that in,Shopify I think this is called name,rather than host it's the same thing so,just the add symbol or leave it blank if,that's possible next for the value,you're going to paste that verification,code from Google,and next you'll have the TTL time to,live,you can leave this on automatic if you,have that option if not 60 Minutes is,usually the default or if it doesn't ask,you this at all then that's great don't,touch it at all it's not very important,and then we're going to save that and,that's all we really need to do here in,the DNS records of course you might not,be using namecheap like me but I hope,that process is clear to you because,it's going to be almost exactly the same,whether you're using namecheap or,GoDaddy or even the Shopify managed,domain if you are using Shopify managed,domain there's this page that tells you,how to add a DNS record and I'll put,this link in the description of the,video as well once you've added the DNS,record you can go back to search console,back to this screen and click verify,it'll check your verification this might,not work straight away my verification,worked right away because I actually,waited like five minutes before,recording this next clip but for you may,take a few minutes if you click verify,and it doesn't work don't panic just,wait a bit and now we can go to that,property and start using Google search,console that's all you need to do,there's nothing that you actually need,to do inside of Shopify if you used the,domain verification method with a DNS,record now I'm going to show you the,second method for adding a property,using the URL prefix if you are,following along with this video and,you've already done the domain,verification method then you don't need,to watch the next part feel free to skip,ahead in the video to the part where I,talk about adding your site map and the,other First Steps in Google search,console now with the URL prefix you have,to be a little bit careful here here's,my website Ed dot codes and if I,highlight this and hit left then you'll,see the URL prefix and it's just https,without www unlike Christina's website,that has www as the primary domain my,primary domain is just the https right,so that's kind of important even though,your website is still accessible through,the other ones those are going to be,secondary and they're going to still,redirect to the main one so anyway for,the sake of demonstration I'm going to,show you with another website that I own,this is alliance.com it's also using www,in the primary domain so I'm actually,going to highlight and copy all of that,and I'm going to add that to the URL,prefix field hit continue and it's going,to give me a few different options for,verifying and these options are going to,be completely different from the DNS,options that we saw before the default,is to add a HTML file into the files of,your website if you're on Shopify you're,not going to be able to do this this,isn't an option for us on Shopify stores,the option that you want is the HTML tag,this is simply adding a meta tag into,your theme.liquid file we're just going,to copy this and then you're going to go,onto your Shopify store and go to online,store themes if your store is behind a,password then you're not going to be,able to verify it because Google can't,actually see it so if your store is,behind a password then go to online,store preferences and then disable the,password I'm not going to be able to do,that because my store is a development,store it's not a real store I just use,it for tutorials but on your store you,will be able to disable the password go,back to themes and then we're going to,go to actions edit code on your main,published theme we're going to go to the,theme.liquid file you can also search it,if you can't find it straight away and,then somewhere here inside of the head,you're going to see these meta tags and,we're just going to add our own meta tag,from Google and hit save and that's all,you need to do now you can go back to,Google search console hit verify and you,should be verified and ready to go now,as I mentioned before if you're using,this URL prefix method then the best,practice is usually to add every single,version of your website which is both,the HTTP and https with and without www,and also if you have other subdomains,like maybe,blog.yourwebsite.com then you would add,that as a property as well once you've,successfully set up search console the,first thing that you'll always want to,do is add a site map if used to other,platforms where you need to generate a,site map you don't have to do that with,Shopify your site map is already,included it's built in all you need to,do is go to your home page and then in,the URL type slash and,sitemap.xml onto the end of your URL and,you will find your site map don't be,alarmed that your sitemap only has like,four lines here you're probably,expecting it to have like every page on,your site it does they just split into,these kind of categories for example you,can access your pages site map like this,copy and paste this into the address,field and you will find all the pages on,your site listed out don't worry though,all Google needs is this top level,sitemap it's smart enough to go in and,look into each one of these so back here,you're just going to enter that entire,address including the URL prefix your,domain and Slash sitemap.xml,foreign,submit,and that's it you've added your sitemap,you've told Google this is my website,and this is a list of all the pages on,my website the next thing that you might,want to do is connect your Google,analytics account with search console so,that Google analytics has all of the,data that search console collects and,you're able to see this through,acquisition and under the search console,drop down here,if you don't have this set up yet then,go to acquisition search console click,on anything here and you'll see that you,don't have it set up yet so you have,this button setup search console data,sharing and this just lands you on your,general property settings right inside,Google analytics which you can also,access simply by going to admin in the,sidebar and then here going to property,settings it's the same page down here,you'll find a button saying adjust,search console click on that,he wouldn't even notice this but this is,a very small button saying add and that,takes you to Google search console where,you can select the property that you,just set up make sure you select the,right one for the right website again,inside search console this shows you all,your Google analytics properties so,we're going to select the Google,analytics account now that we want to,associate hit continue and it's just,confirming that search console data will,now be visible in Google analytics and,also some Google analytics data will be,visible in search console so that's,great click associate,and you're done now when we go again in,analytics we go to acquisition search,console and we look at something here,now we should actually have data so now,we can actually see how many people,landed on these pages from Google search,though to be honest if you're like me I,don't know Google analytics that well so,if you're not a marketer or SEO person,you might prefer to just use the view in,search console because this is a lot,more simplified a lot easier to,understand than Google analytics so,usually what I will do is briefly look,at the queries that are bringing people,to my site but kind of ignore the,numbers here because when you look at,queries it's not the real numbers you'll,see more realistic numbers when you go,to Pages here,as you can see these numbers are much,higher because this is a more reliable,View and Google doesn't share all of the,queries that people are using so yeah I,generally look at pages to see which,pages are doing best,and I also look at countries you know,devices this is pretty useful also keep,in mind that you won't see all of this,data straight away it needs time to,actually gather all of this data and for,these things to actually happen for,people to be clicking and visiting your,store right so Google search console is,not something that used daily or even,weekly it's more like once a month you,might go in here to check what's going,on any new queries any new pages that,are getting more popular you would also,go into search console whenever you make,changes to your website so if you've,added new products or new collections,that's a good time to log into search,console and re-upload your site map what,you can also do for new pages new,products or collections is click here on,URL inspection and you can grab a link,to a product page this is just a demo,product and paste that in here the,entire URL and then Google is going to,see if it,page indexed if it's a new page then it,won't you'll see that for my page that,the URL is on Google but if you do this,for a new page it will say URL is not on,Google and then what you can do is click,the request indexing button and that,might actually index the page faster,than it otherwise would so as you can,see indexing is requested and the URL,was added to a priority crawl Q,on this page you'll also see some other,interesting checks for example on my,product page I have a YouTube video,embedded and Google actually detects,that and it means that when people,search and this page comes up it might,come up with that video in a little,thumbnail so that's known as a rich,search result or a type of Rich search,results you'll also have this product,Snippets section here and this is also,for Rich Snippets for example products,with reviews might have stars on the,search results page in Google and you,can check here if everything is working,okay one little thing that I'll mention,is that this yellow non-critical issues,is nothing to worry about you should be,worried when they're red and then it,will call it an error rather than a,non-critical issue you'll also see,checks like mobile usability that I,mentioned in the intro of this video and,you can check all of these in bulk as,well for example Mobile usability by,clicking here in the sidebar and seeing,if all of your pages are usable on,mobile or if there are some pages that,have some problems on mobile okay guys I,think that's enough for one video it's,already a lot longer than I expected,if you have any questions if I missed,anything please let me know in the,comments if you have any questions about,Shopify SEO in general I'd love to,address that in future videos I want to,make more videos on SEO in general,because there's a lot of people with a,marketing background talking about SEO,on YouTube but not a lot of technical,people with like a web development,background talking about that technical,side of SEO so I think I can add a bit,to that and yeah that's it if you found,this video helpful please leave a like,subscribe if you haven't already check,out the Discord group you'll find the,info in the description and also if you,want to hear more from me please sign up,to my newsletter which you'll also find,in the description of this video until,next time bye,foreign

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