Install Google Search Console for your Substack Newsletter - 2023
And track your search rankings for your posts
Here is a new and updated article I just wrote in April to get your Substack working with Google Search Console:
Steps to Install Google Search Console for Substack
Here's a step-by-step guide to install Google Search Console for Substack writers: 1. Sign Up/Login to Google Account: Visit the Google Search Console website (https://search.google.com/search-console/) and sign in with your Google account. If you don't have one, you'll need to create an account.
Early in 2023, Substack added a few SEO features to help writers get their posts seen by anyone doing a Google search.
Following is a way to get Google to place your Substack posts in their search results. When you optimize these results through SEO (Search Engine Optimization) you will get more clicks and more subscribers:
After reading the above, you want to then install the Google Search Console.
But…
Not all Substack writers have the search console option available as seen in the picture below. (Advertising analytics). It seems that they removed that option from the dashboard. Do this, and read the comments below:
Installing Google Search Console for your newsletter can help you track the performance of your website on Google search results pages. Here are the steps to install Google Search Console for your newsletter:
Go to the Google Search Console website (https://search.google.com/search-console/about) and sign in with your Google account.
Click on the "Add Property" button and enter the URL of your newsletter website. My property URL is https://pau1.substack.com
Verify ownership of your website by following the verification process provided by Google. There are several ways to verify ownership, such as adding an HTML file to your website or adding a DNS record.
Add the link to the HTML file to your Substack account, where it asks for Google Site Verification: Go to Dashboard > Settings > Advertising analytics:
The Substack Analytics Settings you can Submit to Google Once your ownership is verified, you can start using Google Search Console to track your website's performance on Google search. You can see how many clicks and impressions your website receives, which keywords are driving traffic to your website, and more.
That's it! By following these steps, you can install Google Search Console for your newsletter and start tracking its performance on Google search. I think Substack may add this step to one of their “On Substack“ newsletters soon!
Reach out if you have any questions.
PS: Meta Descriptions are now available in the SEO dropdown in your preview section before you publish a post. Here is an article from the horses mouth (Google) on Meta tags or descriptions. If you read the whole article, it will give you some great SEO knowledge: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/snippet#use-quality-descriptions
UPDATE:
Install your Google Search Console and add Bing to start including your Substack to be seen with Bing Search.
Now that you have a Google Search Console account, here’s how to add your site to Bing with your Google Search Console in Microsoft Bing Webmaster Tools:
Click Import under the import your sites from Google Search option.
Click on Continue
Select the Google Account that your Google Search Console is set up with
Allow Bing.com access to your Google account
Select the website you want Bing to track and click import.
Click Done.
…more:
Hi Matthew. The fact that you are getting clicks from Google is a good thing. If you do nothing, chances are your Google clicks will grow organically by themselves. Try to install Google Analytics and tag manager instead:
https://pau1.substack.com/p/add-google-analytics4-and-tag-manager
Great post I'm gonna do this right now. 👍🐬🚀