You access Google Search Console by going to search.google.com/search-console and signing in with a Google account. If you haven't added your site yet, click "Add Property" and choose between domain-level verification (covers all subdomains and protocols) or URL prefix (specific protocol and subdomain only). Domain verification requires adding a TXT record to your DNS, which takes 5–60 minutes to propagate. URL prefix lets you verify via HTML file upload, meta tag, Google Analytics tag, or Tag Manager container—faster but narrower scope. Once verified, the main sections you'll use are Performance, Coverage (now called "Pages" in newer interfaces), and URL Inspection. Performance shows queries, clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position over the last 16 months. Filter by page, query, country, or device to find what's driving traffic or bleeding impressions without clicks. Coverage/Pages reveals indexing errors, warnings, and valid pages—critical for catching noindex tags, canonicalization mistakes, or crawl blocks you didn't intend. URL Inspection lets you test any URL live, see Google's cached version, and request indexing for new or updated content. Common mistakes: ignoring the red spikes in Coverage errors, not filtering Performance by landing page to spot underperformers, and assuming "request indexing" guarantees immediate inclusion—it's a signal, not a command. At Ottawa SEO, we check Coverage weekly across our 500+ domain portfolio because one plugin update or CDN misconfiguration can deindex dozens of pages overnight. We also cross-reference Performance data with Google Analytics to catch discrepancies that suggest tracking gaps or bot traffic inflating impressions. If you manage multiple properties, use the property selector dropdown at the top left and consider setting up a property set to aggregate data across HTTP/HTTPS or www/non-www variants. Search Console won't show keyword-level data for every query—Google hides low-volume terms—but it's still the most accurate source for organic search performance, far more reliable than third-party rank trackers for Canadian local queries.