Google Search Console is helpful to understand what terms customers search for and click onto your website from. However, it's not helpful if you're looking for deep competitive insight on search terms people are using and how that impacts your website.
It's best used for small to mid-sized businesses that need to track a modest number of keyword phrases - perhaps 100 to 500 - across multiple search engines, in a limited number of geographies, against three or fewer competitors. It's less useful for large enterprises or small businesses that need multiple SEO functions handled by a single tool.
More training resources would be an asset. A beginner is given the power to completely destroy a sites search results at the push of a button. Likewise it is a powerful tool to enhance search results also.
An option to take care of multiple versions of the same site simultaneously would be helpful. An option to use the same validation script across all versions and administer them simultaneously would be a time save (i.e. non-www, www, http://, and https:// versions of the same site).
Google Search Console is a simple program that allows organizations to get a solid understanding of the way their site functions and how users land on it. It can be used for making critical business decisions regarding marketing budgets and that within itself is why it deserves a 10.
As with all Google software, your primary source of help is their forums, their knowledge base articles, or whatever tutorials you can find on the web. Often answers on their forums are not straightforward and may not address the actual issue you're experiencing. The KB articles are typically written like instruction manuals - for better or for worse. Tutorials on the web may vary, but the odds are good someone out there had the same questions as you and was kind enough to document their experience.
This is an area where AuthorityLabs really shines. It's one of the few Martech or SEO tools vendors about whom I can honestly say I've never had a complaint about their customer support. The team there consistently responds to any questions I've had or issues I've encountered quickly, helpfully, and in a way that feels personal.
SEMRush is a supplementary tool we use to provide competitive analysis. While it does, or should, provide the same data that Search Console does, but I only fully trust Search Console when it comes to basic performance in Google for the sites we develop and own. SEMRush, and other products like it, does provide much more in-depth insights that can help drive business decisions, including site performance on other search engines, along putting organic and paid search performance in one spot. However, SEMRush costs money while Search Console is free.
Very comparative as far as price [goes]. Some of the competitors have different features but you get trade-offs depending on who you are comfortable using.
Given that this is a free tool, the return on investment has been particularly high - we've identified and addressed a few site issues that could have meant a reduction in search traffic.
Our organic search traffic has been on the rise in part due to the insights gained from the search traffic analytics provided within the console.
We did not any process in terms of reporting on ROI in regards to SEO, but we only paid a very small monthly charge so it was a no-brainer to use it. It definitely helped our business.
