Connecting to Google
  • 08 May 2024
  • 4 Minutes to read
  • Dark
    Light
  • PDF

Connecting to Google

  • Dark
    Light
  • PDF

Article Summary

Registering your website to Google is a crucial step that we highly recommend you do once your website is live if you’d like to use Google in your marketing strategy.

This process includes registering your website with Google to ensure you appear in Google’s search results. You can do this directly from within the system itself via a simple step by step guided process and your Google account which this article will outline, including some recommended next steps.

Being connected to Google also allows you to take advantage of invaluable information that can feed into your marketing strategy. Some of the benefits include:

  • Automatic resubmissions of your SiteMap so you appear in Google’s search results

  • Report of your daily website visitors

  • Retrieval of your Top Search Queries, Top Keywords & Top Search Pages

  • Tracking your Citation growth each month

  • At a glance, see which Citations contain missing or incorrect information that are hurting your search engine rank

Google Account required

You must have a Google Account set up in order to complete this process.

If you have multiple email addresses set up with Google, please ensure you use the same Google Account email address for this process. e.g. if you have already set up a Google Business Profile under a particular email address, ensure you use that same email so this process will link up to it (and not create a duplicate).

Also ensure that your Google Account has sufficient permissions set up. They should be sufficient by default, but if you’ve had any marketing companies involved with your website, for example, then they may have revoked certain access from your Google Account. To check your permissions please refer to the Google Business Profile article.

Connecting to Google

This guided process will step you through how to register with Google, which includes setting up Google Analytics, Google Search Console and your Google Business Profile. In addition this will allow you to:

  • Register your Google tracking tags

  • View your Google Analytics data

  • Retrieve Search Console recommendations 

  • Get your Business Profile recommendations

  • Register your website's sitemap with Google

  • Receive and reply to Google Reviews

Steps

  1. Navigate to the Marketing menu

  2. Click on Register Website with Google (previously Connect to Google)


3. Click Connect to begin the process  


4. Choose your Google account


5. Click Allow to allow your BookingTimes website access to your Google Account

6. If you don't have any existing Google Analytics properties, click Create analytics account button. This will create a Google Analytics account for you. (Note: a property is simply a generic term for a website that you have added to your Google Analytics account).


7. Click Refresh Properties button under the table for the updated properties to show and then click Connect 

8. If you don't have any existing Search Console properties, click Create new property button, or click Connect if existing properties are already set up. This will create a Google Search Console account for you. (Note: a property is simply a generic term for a website that you have added to your Search Console account).


9. If you don't have an existing Business Profile, click Create business profile button, or click Connect if an existing profile is already set up.

10. Enter your business profile details, and click Check for profile. This is important to ensure you do NOT create a duplicate Google Business Profile. 


11. If no other profile is found, click Create profile link


Note

Once this process has been completed it can take several days for Google to be connected to your website. If the Register Website with Google button re-appears a few minutes after this process, please see the Google Business Profile article to ensure your Google Account has sufficient permissions.

Once it's connected you'll see a Connected to Google in the left hand menu when you navigate to the Marketing menu. Then on the main panel of that marketing screen you'll see: Top Search Queries, Top Performing Keywords, Top Pages, Business Listings and other information across the available tabs.


Next steps

The BookingTimes software has been designed with SEO as a priority. It has all the right page structure, the right tags, great performance - all the things that Google loves. This can be thought of as passive SEO.

The next step is looking at active SEO, once you’ve kicked off registration with Google, there are a number of additional steps you can take to maximise your rankings on Google:


Set up Google Analytics manually (obsolete)

Google Universal Analytics (UA) no longer supported

Google has announced that Google Analytics 4 (GA4) has now replaced Universal Analytics (UA). Starting July 1, 2023, standard Universal Analytics properties stopped processing data.

If you need to change your website from using the UA tag to Google G4 Analytics, Google has provided the steps to convert your UA tag here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/13486733?hl=en

Please see section above how to connect your site to Google including GA4.



Was this article helpful?