Add a user to Google Search Console

Go to search.google.com/search-console.

Sign in with the Google Account that already tracks your website. This is the point that wastes the most time. If you have several Google accounts, a personal one and a work one for example, check at the top right which one is active.

What you should be seeing now.

• Curves showing clicks and impressions. You are in the right place, move on to the next step.
• A screen offering to declare a website. Your website is not connected yet, so that has to be done first. Write to us, because this is a step we take care of.
• An empty page or an error message. You are probably not on the right Google Account, so switch account at the top right.

At the top left there is a drop-down menu showing a website address.

Click it and choose the website you want to put in our hands. If you only have one, it is already selected and there is nothing to do.

Watch out if you see 2 lines that look alike, one with the 3 w and one without. Those are 2 separate properties as far as Google is concerned. Take the one showing figures, because that is the one Google actually uses. If in doubt, add us on both, as it costs nothing.

Go right to the bottom of the left-hand menu, then click Settings.

On a phone, that left-hand menu is folded away. Tap the 3-line icon at the top left to bring it out, then scroll down to Settings. If the display feels too cramped, ask for the desktop version in your browser menu.

On the page that opens, click the Users and permissions line.

You can now see the list of people who have access to your website. It contains your own address at the very least, marked Owner.

A word on wording. Google renames its screens regularly. If you read Users and authorisations instead of Users and permissions, it is the same page. Trust the meaning rather than the exact word.

Take the chance to read through it. If an old agency or a former supplier is still there, now is the moment to remove them.

At the top right, click the Add user button.

A small window opens with 2 fields.

• In the email field, paste the technical address we sent you. It is long and ends in .iam.gserviceaccount.com, which is normal. It is not a mailbox but a read-only account, which knows how to do exactly one thing, read your figures.
• In the Permission field, choose Full, or Restricted if you would rather limit us to reading.

Click Add.

If Google refuses, saying the address is invalid, it is almost always a space stuck to the front or the back of it. Type it out by hand rather than pasting it.

Our address now appears in the list. The access is immediate, there is no invitation for us to accept and nothing else to do.

Your SEO and GEO Agent can get to work. In practice, it records which words you already show up for, which pages Google has never displayed even once, and which ones are seen without being clicked, something a simple title change often fixes.

Those figures then flow into your client area through the Search Console API, without you having to open anything at all. They refresh every day and you follow your progress in the same place as everything else.

You keep control of everything. To remove this access one day, you come back to this page and click the menu to the right of our address.

One access often goes with another. If your tracking tags go through Google, the method is the same and takes 2 minutes, give access to the tag manager.