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Set up Google Search Console

Search Console is Google telling you, for free, exactly which searches show your site, where you rank, and what people click. Every business with a website should have it verified — it is the ground truth every SEO decision starts from.

Add and verify your site

  1. Go to search.google.com/search-console and sign in with your business Google account.
  2. Add a property. Choose Domain (covers every subdomain and protocol) if you can edit DNS; otherwise URL prefix for your exact site address.
  3. Verify: Domain properties verify with a DNS TXT record at your registrar; URL-prefix properties can verify by HTML tag, file upload, or your existing Google Analytics.
  4. Verification can take a few hours after a DNS change — retry if it fails at first.

Do these two things right away

  • Submit your sitemap: under Sitemaps, submit yoursite.com/sitemap.xml (most site platforms generate one automatically). This is how Google finds new pages fast.
  • Check Coverage/Pages once data arrives: it lists pages Google could not index and why.

How to read it (the part that matters)

  • Data lags 2-3 days and is noisy daily — judge trends over 28 days.
  • The Performance report is the goldmine: filter to queries where you rank positions 5-15. Those pages win the most from small improvements — better titles, a clearer answer, an extra section.
  • Rising impressions with flat clicks = a title/description problem: you are shown, not chosen.

Connect it to Huuve

In Huuve, open Connections and press Connect next to Google Search Console, then sign in with the Google account that owns the verified property and approve read access. Huuve pulls your queries, clicks and trends into its intelligence — your briefings and strategy proposals then reason from what actually ranks, and blog drafts target queries where you are close.

If something fails

  • The property is missing in the chooser: the Google account you connected with is not an owner/user on the Search Console property — add it under the property's Settings, then Users and permissions.
  • No data: fresh properties take a couple of days to fill.