Google Search Console + WordPress An Introduction to Google Search Console for WordPress Users

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) isn’t always an easy task. There are a lot of ranking factors to keep track of, and many things you do on your site can inadvertently affect your results. If you want to avoid making mistakes, using Google Search Console  + WordPress together can help you get more control over your SEO efforts.Google Search Console is an excellent, free service that will help you keep tabs on your site’s SEO performance. What’s more, using it alongside WordPress is simple. In fact, we recommend that new websites set up Google Search console as quickly as possible.If you’ve never heard of this service before, don’t worry. In this guide, we’ll introduce you to Google Search Console + WordPress, and discuss how to start using it. Let’s take a look! Type in your site’s main URL, and select Add a Property. Next, you’ll need to verify you actually own the website:There are a number of ways to perform the verif ication. If youre already using Google Analytics, the verification process is basically clicking a button.Otherwise, the next easiest method is to upload the provided HTML file to your site, but you can check out the Alternate Methods tab for other options. Either way, hit the Verify button when you’re ready, and Google will walk you through the remainder of the process.Once you’ve proven that you own your site, you’ll be able to start using the service right away. Your dashboard will be pretty empty right now, but over time youll start to find all sorts of useful information here.Step 2: Familiarize yourself with the dashboardOnce Google Search Console is active, you’re ready to start exploring all its options. Let’s start with the main dashboard:Here you’ll be able to see any new errors, and keep tabs on your basic search analytics results. Plus, you can manage your sitemap or add a new one. In the Search Appearance section, you can make c hanges to the way your content appears in search results:Some of the sections here – such as Structured Data and HTML Improvements – will display errors or changes you can make to improve your content’s SEO. For this reason, it’s worth checking back occasionally to look for new issues or suggestions.Next up, we have the Search Analytics section:Here, you can see how and where your site appears in Google’s search results, and get a lot of information about your traffic. For instance, you can view the click-through rates for specific pages. You can also track the performance of your own links and see what other sites are linking to you, through the Internal Links and Links to Your Site sections respectively.Finally, you might also want to check out the Crawl area:These sections report the results of Google’s attempts to crawl (or explore) your site. You can see if there have been any errors, and view the Googlebot’s overall activity. Th is will tell you whether Google is able to successfully find all of your content.There are a lot of other options in the Google Search Console, some more advanced than others. If you’re ever confused about what a particular section does or what a piece of data means, there is plenty of information available in the official documentation to help you out.Step 3: Integrate Google Search Console + WordPress using Yoast SEOAs you may have noticed, we haven’t made any mention of WordPress so far. This is because the process of adding a website to Google Search Console and using its many features works the same regardless of the platform you’re using.However, there are ways to integrate Google Search Console + WordPress more fully. Some plugins include functionality that connects the two services. Easily the best and most relevant example of this is Yoast SEO: Yoast SEO Author(s): Team YoastCurrent Version: 12.3Last Updated: October 15, 2019wordpress-seo.12.3.zip 9 8%Ratings 200,063,756Downloads WP 4.9+Requires If you’re not aware, Yoast SEO is a must-have plugin for just about every WordPress site. It helps you improve SEO by offering a lot of control over your content’s appearance in search results, and by showing you areas that need to be improved.What’s more, you can connect Google Search Console to Yoast SEO. With the plugin installed, go to SEO Search Console in your dashboard:Select the Get Google Authorization Code button, and you’ll be taken to your Google Search Console account to confirm the integration. Select Allow on this page:You’ll get a key, which you can paste into the corresponding field back in your dashboard. Then, select Authenticate. After, you can select the profile you want to connect to (in case you have more than one), and save it:With that, the integration is complete! Moving forward, you can come back to this section to check for crawl errors on your site. This lets you save time, since you wont have to visit the Google Search Console page separately.Any errors found will be listed in the Desktop, Smartphone, and Feature phone tabs, along with information about when and why the error occurred. For more details on using this feature effectively, check out Yoast’s own article on the subject.ConclusionRanking well in Google search results isn’t an exact science. It takes time and practice, as well as an understanding of some  basic SEO techniques. Fortunately, Google Search Console makes your life a little easier, by letting you know how well you’re doing.To start using Google Search Console + WordPress, you’ll simply need to:Add your website as a new ‘property’.Familiarize yourself with the dashboard.Integrate Google Search Console in WordPress using Yoast SEO.Do you have any questions about Google Search Console + WordPress? Ask away in the comments section below! Google #Search Console + #WordPress: How to get it set up and find important data

The eNotes Blog 6 Budget-Friendly Ideas to Keep Your Students Engaged thisYear

6 Budget-Friendly Ideas to Keep Your Students Engaged thisYear As a teacher, you know firsthand that students often respond to experiential and interactive learning methods, not to mention they often remember these lessons more vividly. Regurgitating information from a textbook might be today’s prevailing academic model, but you understand that students are more likely to absorb this information when they recognize the real-world applications. So, the question becomes: how can you supplement their core curriculum with age-appropriate and cost-effective activities that engage? The obvious answer is through technology, but this medium- despite its visual and hands-on appeal- can be expensive. Fortunately, there are other tools at your disposal to engage students’ attention and arouse their excitement. These budget-friendly ideas, for both inside the classroom and out, will help make each lesson memorable and, therefore, more effective. Make the following â€Å"6 Rules of Engagement† your educational compass this year. Bonus: they all begin with â€Å"E† to promote rapid recall- because teachers already have enough to remember! Encourage Them to Get Moving Physical movement sparks mental focus, so designate classroom time for students to leave their desks and experience a more kinesthetic learning approach. Combine specific actions with academic stimuli through games that correspond with the concept you’re teaching. For instance, to make arithmetic more interesting, supervise a â€Å"chalkboard relay† competition, where students take turns standing at the chalkboard, writing a math equation, then racing against their classmates to see who can get the correct answer the fastest. Emphasize the Value of Teamwork Although the term â€Å"group project† often evokes a negative connotation among both teachers and students, participating in collaborative efforts is a necessary life skill. Intersperse your lectures with project-based learning activities, that bring lessons into the real world and engage students outside of the traditional lecture, read and show-what-you-know style. Give some of these PBL ideas a try. Exit the Classroom Watching a textbook image materialize up close and personal captivates your students and provides the ideal teaching backdrop for you. Unfortunately, field trip funds seem to run lower and lower each year, making it more challenging to get out of the classroom without spending your own money. Luckily, many museums, aquariums and zoos offer free or discounted admission for teachers and students, making the financial burden a little easier. And don’t rule any opportunities out ­- even well-known places like the Philadelphia Zoo and SeaWorld offer these discounts. Check out this list of free and discounted opportunities for teachers from USA Test Prep and then plan a few engaging field trips for your curious students. Experiment with Teaching Styles There are three basic learning modalities- visual, auditory and tactile- but do you use all of them to reach students in the classroom? If not, consider periodically changing your classroom manner to accommodate all three approaches and connect with each type of student. For example, create a visual presentation with eye-catching PowerPoint slides and colorful imagery to inspire the visual learners. Then, assign everyone a different passage from their textbook to read aloud, stimulating the auditory learners. Finally, organize a group activity that incorporates simple choreographed movements, patterns or rhythms to energize the tactile learners. Exchange Post-Lecture Dialogue Lectures quickly become tedious and redundant for the youthful, hyperactive minds staring back at you, so counteract the typical â€Å"zoning out† behavior by reinforcing student participation instead. Prior to a lecture, communicate the topic using just one key phrase, for instance, The Civil War, and then instruct students to write five predictions about what you’ll cover based on their previous knowledge or assumptions. Suggest that they listen carefully to the lecture to see if any of their predictions were accurate. Afterward, have a discussion on how their preconceptions fared against the historical facts. Engineer Role Playing Activities Since test preparation is intimidating for most students, give them a chance to experience a review session from your perspective- by teaching the material they are reviewing. Allow students to rotate back and forth in five-minute intervals so that everyone receives an opportunity to teach the material that will appear on their upcoming test. Encourage a creative delivery of the content, making it digestible for their fellow students. For example, they could pass around fill-in-the-blank study guides and practice quizzes, coordinate an interactive review game or choose volunteers to dramatize a concept. This is a guest post from contributing writer, Jessica Thiefels.  Jessica Thiefels is the editor of  Whooo’s Reading and an education blogger who’s been featured in publications such as EdTech Digest and Daily Genius. Her favorite books growing up were My Side of the Mountain and The Giver, and she hopes to inspire a similar love of reading in students and educators.