This will be the year that brands start to get serious about integrating Web3 (aka blockchains and cryptocurrencies) into the mass marketing ecosystem; mark my words.In 2023 there are three things that will change the brand experience landscape: marketing spend, hiring and metaverse brand open source standards (which I’ll explain later).
Want to get ahead? Here are three simple steps.
1. Allocate marketing spend.
Despite sitting on the precipice of a recession, the uncertainty around cryptocurrency value and safety of blockchain, and the admittedly confusing use of language in Web3 – for example, “NFTs, or non-fungible tokens,” really just means digital asset ownership – we’re about to see a major shift in how brands interact with customers.
According to data from Sitecore and Statista, some 80 per cent of brands plan to spend almost a third of their marketing budget (30 per cent) in Web3 in 2023. Web3 for brands is a world in which sales go much further for the consumer in terms of value – you can read specific examples of what this looks like and how Web3 will impact consumers across virtual worlds here.
The buzzwords reflect the principles behind Web3: community, value, experience and collective wealth. Building community and collective wealth together through supercharged loyalty programmes, for example, the opportunity to earn digital goods for virtual words and entertainment in virtual worlds connected to real-life experiences – beyond the product and the brand itself. In turn, consumers feel a part of the brand and, as more brands do this, will grow to expect more from a brand when they make a purchase. It happened with social media, and now social media is the cornerstone of consumer engagement.
Early examples of brands who have experimented with this include Starbucks Odyssey and Nike with its Web3 marketplace swoosh.nike . In 2023, Nike will start to experiment with digital product sales and things like IRL token-gated events or virtual activities.
2. Consider hiring for Web3 roles.
Second, expect a rise in hiring for Web3-specific marketing roles in-house. New positions, such as chief metaverse officers, metaverse marketing leads and Web3 community managers, are already being created in-house within major corporate brands like Disney, LVMH and Telefonica.
We’ll see these first recruits on the corporate side begin to build the marketing models of Web3 into their brand planning models and marketing funnels to define how to measure the success of activations as a result. While your business might not have budget for this just yet, it’s a wise idea to monitor the recruitment of these kinds of roles, with an eye on the future. LinkedIn is a good place to start.
3. Plug into CES 2023.
The main criticism of metaverse and Web3 from brands? The amount of work it will take to realise the vision of so-called ‘interoperability,’ a word used to describe the coming together of mixed reality, where everything you create or own can be used both online and offline.
The transferability of owned assets across the virtual world and experiences will require partnerships, and cooperation among brands, technology companies, and any business really. While this vision will take time, 2023 is the year in which this topic will be at the forefront of the industry conversation.
Be sure to plug into CES 2023, the annual conference dedicated to all things AI and robotics which kicked off yesterday, the Metaverse Standards Forum will unveil its plans for the ‘Road to the open metaverse’. They will discuss how the industry is moving forward with protocols for brands and builders to advance an interoperable Web3. Their site teaser states: “Achieving a metaverse for all will require unprecedented cooperation. Leaders from the industry will share their vision for an open and inclusive metaverse”. Just like every year, we’ll see the hot topics from CES continue to evolve throughout the year, it’s a must for anyone interested in learning more about Web3 for their brand this year.
The takeaway
A final word from me, if you’re intending to spend some of your marketing budget on Web3, don’t wait until it’s too late. Test and iterate as you go. Don’t do it alone. Partner with people who understand the space and with the Web3 technologies that already exist.
As you take the first steps, focus on the principles behind the buzzwords: community, value, experience and collective wealth for your customers, and you’ll be at the forefront of the evolution. Integrating this into your existing brand ecosystem is a way to balance both brand safety and bravery as you dip your toe in the Web3 water.
As part of our series of design in 2023, How&How founder and creative director Cat How offers her view on what might happen in branding over the next year.
What do you think 2023 will hold for branding design?
I’m always highly sceptical about ‘trends’ in design. I’m very much of the mindset that fashions fade, while true design (where form follows function) is eternal. A good logo, therefore, should never follow (or be inspired by) a particular zeitgeist. It would not be the purest representation of itself, or the strategy behind it, if it did. So my future trend predictions lie mostly around ‘moods’ or themes that we’ve found emerging in the creative industry as a whole.
Metaverse
I’m seeing a glut of futuristic fonts, impossible 3D renders, and quirky sci-fi gradients emerging as a way of (sardonically?) talking about the known-unknowns of the Metaverse. Part joke, part next big thing… the jury is still out, but I’m really liking the retrofuturist humour.
Light Mode/Dark Mode Websites
We’re increasingly designing colour systems which work in light mode and dark mode as a way of future-proofing the websites of the brands we build. Not only that, but dark mode websites are more energy efficient than light mode ones, which is partly connected to my next point.
Beyond Green
As we’ve been designing more and more climate-tech and sustainability brands over the past year, we’ve found that conventional green as a brand colour is losing traction. Gone are earth tones, soft treatments and hippy-vibes. Eco-branding is moving into a more minimal, futuristic direction with simplified monochromatic colour palettes (see our On The Edge rebrand) which speak more to Gen Z. These new brands want to talk about climate in a minimal, aspirational and future-focused way.
Purpose or Mission-First Branding
After the insecurity of the last few years, people are desperate for authenticity, transparency and honesty from the brands they interact with. They demand more from brands in terms of what they say as well as what they do. Brands have always helped people keep companies accountable, but this has never been more true than today. Brands that misrepresent their products and clash with the values of their audience are quickly swept away.
What was your favourite branding project from 2022 and why?
One of our big pushes last year, as well as in 2023, will be to get more women in design, be this through a scholarship initiative, mentoring or internship programs for young female designers. It goes without saying, then, that one of my favourite design projects of 2022 was from a young designer called Tais Kahatt for Gulp Sichuan Chilli Oil. Such a fun little project with super-simple, but effective illustrations, edgy art direction and a mono palette centred around one punchy, spicy red. For such a young designer I was really impressed by Tais’ craft in bringing everything together. As well as this one, I loved Caterina Bianchini’s new rebrand for Bunch too. Super fun!
You don’t need consultants but you do need to brush up on your problem-solving.
The line between success and failure in business can be razor-thin, and sometimes the difference comes down to the amount of attention that a company can attract.
Unfortunately, a lot of companies try to attract the wrong kind of attention.
I’m not talking about tasteless advertisements or sketchy funding gimmicks–well, not that alone. I’m talking about wasting effort, resources, and dollars on promoting any kind of attention that doesn’t generate revenue.
It’s a problem that’s exacerbated for unknown companies with unproven products. But unfortunately, a lot of startup leadership tends to believe that attention is a self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words, they think that if they can just generate a lot of awareness around the company, sales become a foregone conclusion.
That’s true. Kind of. And it’s why marketing experts and brand consultants get paid. Usually a lot.
However, it’s true only in a certain context, and that context rarely includes new ventures — even from well-known companies. We were all very aware of CNN+, Google Glass, and the Amazon Fire Phone.
Were those brands powerful? Absolutely. Were those products branded poorly or marketed incorrectly? No, not egregiously so. Should your company emulate them? Most definitely not.
So what went wrong?
Save Branding for Later
The product that “only needs attention” to succeed is a product that is already successful. That may sound a little Catch-22, but that’s because brand marketing is best suited for expanding market reach, not gaining market traction, let alone defining a target market and finding product market fit. Those milestones aren’t random and they don’t happen by process of elimination. Not without spending a ton of money.
Can a terrible brand sink a potentially successful product? Yes, especially when inferior competition has a robust marketing machine behind it. But lack of branding is definitely not a death sentence. Once a product is viable, has found market fit, and is gaining traction, then and only then should a company’s focus be on brand marketing to expand its reach.
Furthermore, brand attention is fleeting attention. As I said, everyone knew CNN+ was coming, everyone knew when it arrived, and 28 days later, everyone knew it was folding.
So if attention is what your company needs, but that initial market success hasn’t happened for you yet, check these other boxes first.
Your Solution Is Your Attention Ice-Breaker
If you want attention, you need a good opening line. Your best opening line is always your solution.
Your solution is not about your company and certainly not about your brand. It’s not your product–that’s just the packaging for your solution. It’s not even your offering, which is just the packaging for your product. In short, your solution is the thing your product does that solves the customer’s problem.
Once you have that defined, that needs to be the core of how you get attention. If your solution is strong enough, you can just talk about it, to anyone, and you’ll get the attention you want. Of course, in the real world, you’ll need branding and marketing to connect the message to your company and amplify it.
But don’t spend time, energy, or money on that branding or marketing if that message is just going to result in a shrug.
Your Product Is Your Attention Land Grab
The customer’s problem is the thing they want to throw money at to make it go away. And if the first layer around the customer’s problem is your solution, the next layer is the product, the thing that houses and presents the solution.
Spending time and resources here can make a world of difference out on the market.
But beyond just awareness, a great product also generates outsized viral attention. And since there’s no better and cheaper way to acquire a new customer than via an existing customer, giving existing customers something to crow about will provide the highest return on any attention it generates.
And then finally, an existing customer base is also the easiest to convert to upgrades and even new products and product lines.
Low Price Attention Begets Low Results
The final layer out from the customer is your offering, which is your solution packaged in a product for a price. But the attention that’s gained by a low price usually results in low conversions, low margins, and low lifetime value.
For every company leader I know that wants to be the low-price leader, very few of them make purchases based on price alone. Furthermore, the products they buy when price is a factor are usually commodities, and the buyers are often hard-pressed to remember the name of the company or the brand attached to it.
And even when you win on price, you only win until a competitor undercuts you.
Standing out isn’t just about amplifying a message, it’s about amplifying the right message to the right market. You can use one large megaphone or a bunch of smaller ones, and you can spend a lot or a little along the way. Just don’t waste that spend on messages that don’t land and markets that don’t produce.
The era of predictable unpredictability is not going away. Intense uncertainty is still a key theme. With Jim Power and Chris Johns.
PLACES ARE FILLING FAST!
We have had a great response so far for our next #Toolkit webinar: The era of predictable unpredictability is not going away. Intense uncertainty is still a key theme. We are delighted to welcome Jim Power and Chris Johns to take part in our next Toolkit session on Wednesday February 1st at 9AM.
The era of predictable unpredictability is not going away. Intense uncertainty is still a key theme. The global economy faces enormous challenges, from energy and food shocks, inflation, debt and a downturn in stock markets and economic growth. There is also a need to be conscious of Brexit and the potential negative impact on Irish trade with the UK.
Despite the global challenges and general negativity, there could be a possibility of growth surprising on the upside.
For some companies, a brand is something that helps slightly boost customer engagement and sales. But for others, including some of the largest companies in the world, a strong brand is one of their most valuable assets.
This animated graphic by James Eagle uses the annual brand rankings from Interbrand to track the world’s most valuable brands from 2000 to 2022.
Measuring Brand Value
One of the difficulties of brand valuation is its subjectivity.
In accounting, the value of a brand is sometimes represented as an intangible asset called goodwill on the balance sheet. That’s because the brand power associated with a company (i.e. brand recognition, brand loyalty, customer base, reputation, etc.) often makes a company more valuable than just the sum of its tangible assets like land, buildings, or product inventory.
This works for accounting purposes but is still a rough estimation, and doesn’t precisely quantify a brand’s true value.
For Interbrand’s studies, a consistent formula for brand strength was utilized which is based on a company’s financial forecast, brand role, and brand strength. It uses estimates of the present value of earnings a brand is forecasted to generate in the future.
The Top 10 Most Valuable Brands Since 2000
When the 2000s started, the internet was top-of-mind in terms of both markets and customer perception. The Dotcom bubble was driving the world’s largest companies, and brand value at the time reflected tech’s popularity:
Rank
Brand
Value (2000)
Industry
1
Coca-Cola
$72.5B
Beverages
2
Microsoft
$70.2B
Tech
3
IBM
$53.2B
Tech
4
Intel
$39.1B
Tech
5
Nokia
$38.5B
Tech
6
General Electric
$38.1B
Energy
7
Ford
$36.4B
Automotive
8
Disney
$33.6B
Media
9
McDonald’s
$27.9B
Restaurants
10
AT&T
$25.6B
Telecom
Half of the top 10 most valuable brands at the time were in tech or telecom, including Microsoft, IBM, and Nokia.
Others were classic American brands and companies at the top of their fields, including Coca-Cola, General Electric, Ford, and McDonald’s.
But over the next 20 years, much of the old guard was replaced by new and rising brands. By 2022, only three of the top 10 most valuable brands from 2000 remained at the top:
Rank
Brand
Value (2022)
Industry
1
Apple
$482.2B
Tech
2
Microsoft
$278.3B
Tech
3
Amazon
$274.8B
Consumer
4
Google
$251.8B
Tech
5
Samsung
$87.7B
Tech
6
Toyota
$59.8B
Automotive
7
Coca-Cola
$57.5B
Beverages
8
Mercedes-Benz
$56.1B
Automotive
9
Disney
$50.3B
Media
10
Nike
$50.3B
Consumer
Apple’s brand is now worth an estimated $482 billion, even though the company didn’t even crack the top 10 list back in the year 2000.
In fact, four of the top five brands on the 2022 list are directly in tech, and even Amazon (#3) is often considered a tech giant. Not surprisingly, brand value in the top 10 has grown almost across the board, though Coca-Cola is a notable exception, dropping $15 billion in estimated brand value over 22 years.
How will the most valuable brands continue to evolve over the coming decades?
Annual wraps remind me I’m tethered to my phone like a sad puppy. So give me a round-up from the app with the plainest of truths
Over the last few weeks a particularly pernicious form of alert has been clogging up our phones. It is the beast with many heads – all of which are designed to attack me specifically – morphing into different shapes and appearing in the least expected of places. It is the year in review: the content sent out by our favourite and least favourite apps to confirm how much we have depended on them in the past 12 months; how much we are tethered to them like sad puppies waiting for treats (notifications) from our masters.
Spotify is the progenitor of this degrading trend: its annual Wrapped began in 2016, when seeing all your data crunched by a corporation was “fun” instead of “a haunting reminder of surveillance capitalism”. With its aggressive kookiness and promises of personal branding, it became a hit among those of us who defined our entire lives by consumption – not the chic kind that befalls a waify Victorian heroine, but a consumption far more prosaic. Suddenly, listening to your depression playlist on repeat 50 times wasn’t just cause for concern, it was also a shareable, snackable badge of pride.
Unfortunately, Spotify became a gateway for a host of other apps to follow suit with their own annual wraps. I am here to say: enough! No more! To Grindr I declare: I do not need to know that 10,000 horny gay men have been listening to Sam Smith. To Strava: I definitely do not need to know that in all of last year I embarked on a sum total of two runs and both were abandoned halfway.
Beem It calls its version the “Beem Bundle”. Why is an app that I use only perfunctorily to send and receive money trying to psychoanalyse my financial habits? I do not know, but when I finally click on its notification in the final, bleary-eyed week of 2022, it jolts me awake with with an overly enthusiastic greeting: “Hey Beemer!” This is definitely a slur, I decide – and that’s before it tells me my “Beemsona” is a “Beemfluencer”, which are two words that make me want to die instantly.
But because it is a new year – a time of forgiveness and growth etc etc – I will expunge these year-end humiliations from my system and instead take this opportunity to consider the apps I do want to receive an annual report from in 2023.
MyGov
The only time I have ever felt anything akin to national identity is when people talk about the unbridledterrorthataccompaniesanunexpectedtextmessage from MyGov; in these moments I feel truly unified with my fellow countrymen, one nation under panic. MyGov, in turn, should take ownership of its fearsome command: how many anxiety attacks will it induce within its users this year? As part of its year in review it could also (if you are an ATO agent please immediately stop reading this) shame me for filing my taxes five months late. I have mocked it up like so:
MyGov take note: this is what your end-of-year wraps could look like. Illustration: Michael Sun
Depop
If you have a 19-year-old in your life, or indeed if you are a 19-year-old, you will know the power this clothing resell app wields over 25-year-olds whose glory days have long passed them and wish they were once again 19 (not speaking from personal experience or anything). The stats that Depop could collect in 12 months are certainly shameful – ie the number of times I have been scammed by someone hawking a $5 op-shop find for $70 – but at least this shame is productive. Maybe I will finally gain one crumb of self-respect and stop buying Y2K slogan tees from savvy teenagers. Unlikely to happen but regardless I am counting this as a win.
Google Maps
I am very geographically challenged, which means I spend more time on Google Maps than I do talking to my mother (sorry and I promise I’ll call). In 2023, it could catalogue all the time I have spent wandering the streets of Sydney like an urchin, head tilted up at 45 degrees to gaze forlornly at each passing street number and wonder why it does not match the one I have entered into the search bar. Luckily, this would also provide a watertight excuse the next time I am late to an event. “Sorry! I got lost!” I will plead to my friend while pointing at my Google Maps Wrapped, when in reality it is because I spent 50 minutes lying on my bed for no discernible reason.
New York Times crossword
About two years ago, I was part of a 20-large group chat where everyone dutifully played the NYT mini crossword daily: a free 5×5 grid that we would race to finish fastest. Because I am insane, I shelled out for a subscription to access the archives not for any sense of leisure or enjoyment, but purely to train in the way a runner might do laps, except much, much nerdier and with no physical exertion. I devoured 10, 20, 50 a day until (sorry to humblebrag) I could fill in the crossword within nine seconds, barely reading each clue as my fingers blurred across the screen. My training regimen, at last, was complete.
Unfortunately by this time most people had left the group chat or, worse, stopped replying. Every day I sent out reminders into the void: please play with me, today’s crossword is so fun, hello is anyone listening. But no one was listening. I was finally winning, but at what cost? There is a lesson here but I am choosing to ignore it. Instead I would like the NYT crossword app to send me a mathematical analysis of my mini crossword time in 2023 so I can reclaim some – any – of the sporting pride I once felt.
Screen time
Let us stop obfuscating: when all is said and done, the real reason why annual wraps are so terrible is because they remind us of the inanity of our own habits; they remind us that scrolling is not just part of our life, but our life itself. Therefore, we should simply go full hog and receive a year in review from the app with the plainest of truths: Screen Time, the iPhone function which exposes us at our ghastliest, as disgusting little cretins hunched over in bed, illuminated only by the glow of our devices for hours and hours. Go on, then. Tell us just how much time in a year we have spent using and complaining about all of our apps: how many days, weeks we could have been canoodling with our lovers or laughing with our friends or picking up our children one last time before they became teenagers and went to university and forged their own path in the world, leaving us alone and barren and reliant on our phones as a last means of salvation from the miserable detritus of our lives. Or maybe I’m being dramatic.
Late-stage startups are facing major fundraising headwinds, but early-stage investing is still a bright spot for startups until they hit Series B rounds.
Traditional venture capital dollars are harder to come by these days, but institutional investors are still looking for smart investments, and industry watchers are hungry for the good news a new round of financing suggests. While the market is uncertain, founders need to be ready to use their capital infusions as an asset that extends beyond the cash it represents.
In any market environment, a fundraising event can act as a vote of confidence or validation from investors, supporting your company’s growth via talent acquisition and brand awareness. No matter the size of the round, securing external investment is a key milestone in many companies’ journeys, and it often takes a tremendous amount of effort. However, after putting all that work in, many founders make the mistake of letting a funding moment pass by without extracting all the value they could have.
Over the course of my 20+ years as a marketing leader at startups, venture capital firms and large tech companies, I’ve helped dozens of companies announce funding news, ranging from $1 million pre-seed rounds to $50 million raises.
Here’s my playbook for founders looking to make their “big money” moments go farther:
Rethink assumptions about fundraising news
Publicizing funding news lets you create incremental value beyond the capital investment by highlighting your momentum and driving brand awareness.
Founders may overlook the value of announcing funding news for several reasons, but the biggest one is assuming the round isn’t “big enough” to warrant attention. When you see other companies raising hundreds of millions of dollars, it can be easy to think no one will be interested in hearing about your startup’s much smaller round.
Fortunately, that isn’t true. While big numbers may draw splashy headlines, smaller rounds can still drive interest if the announcement is executed well and you can connect the news with some larger industry/technology/societal trend.
Another reason founders hesitate is if all or part of the new capital is through a debt investment. Though it’s becoming more common, especially as VC investors pump the breaks, there is still some stigma around debt funding, and founders may worry they’ll be penalized for adding debt to their balance sheets.
If you believe the rumours, Apple’s top-secret mixed-reality headset has been beset with delays over the years. Now, it looks like it could be postponed even further.
That’s because reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has revised his prediction for when the headset will see the light of day, pushing it back to later in 2023.
Previously, Kuo had maintained that the device could ship to customers in the second quarter of 2023, which covers April to June. Now, Kuo believes it will go on sale either late in the second quarter or into the third quarter, which comprises July through to September. That lines up roughly with a report from DigiTimes that predicted mass production would begin in March 2023.
The change also affects the date of the media event at which Apple was expected to reveal the product. In previous reports, Kuo had stated Apple would hold a January event, but with continuing delays plaguing the headset, he now believes an event in the spring or at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) event is more likely.
At first glance, the new dates seem to make a lot of sense, largely due to WWDC falling in June. This show would be a perfect opportunity for Apple to introduce the device to an audience of developers, many of whom will be looking to build apps for this entirely new platform.
However, that all depends on whether Apple can fix the problems that are causing the delay in the first place. According to Kuo, the headset has been pushed back because of “issues with mechanical component drop testing and the availability of software development tools.” That last problem could be a key hurdle to launching at WWDC.
Kuo’s report seemingly rules the headset out of Apple’s rumoured March event, though. Given the problems Kuo has disclosed, anything earlier than April might be a little too soon.
Apple’s headset is expected to combine virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) capabilities, allowing users to fully immerse themselves in a virtual world or have digital imagery overlaid onto the real world. It might also be able to run iOS apps in a 2D mode.
According to previous leaks, it looks like Apple is going to go all out, decking the headset out in a ton of high-end components. That includes super-high-resolution displays, a plethora of cameras, and a featherweight design that nods to other Apple devices. All that quality adds up, though, and the price could be as much as $2,000 or $3,000. Let’s hope it’s worth the wait.
WhatsApp now lets you evade government clampdowns with this handy new feature.
Many governments around the world crack down on internet services, be it due to political unrest, protests in general, or for other reasons. Thankfully, WhatsApp has a solution with its latest feature.
The Meta-owned company has announced proxy support in WhatsApp, allowing people to stay connected to the messaging service if it’s blocked or disrupted by authorities.
“Choosing a proxy enables you to connect to WhatsApp through servers set up by volunteers and organizations around the world dedicated to helping people communicate freely,” the company explained. WhatsApp also noted that messages sent and received via a proxy still offer end-to-end encryption, but cautions that your IP address will be shared with third-party proxy providers.
Want to connect to WhatsApp via a proxy? Then the team suggests that you first search the web or social media to find a proxy from a reputable source. You’ll then need to visit Settings > Storage and Data > Proxy > Use Proxy > Set Proxy. From here, you’ll then enter the desired proxy address and tap save.
It’s worth noting that this solution won’t work if internet connectivity is completely shut down in a country. So you’ll have to rely on peer-to-peer messaging apps instead. But this is still a handy tool for people in authoritarian regimes.
To add the HTML tag with an SEO plugin, some will only need the characters between the content quotations, whereas others require you to paste the entire code in:
Once added, go back to Search Console and click on VERIFY.
Your search data will start showing up after a few days. Note that you’ll need to keep the HTML file or meta tag in place to keep verification active.
3. Alternative methods: Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager
These methods are fairly straightforward if you’ve already added Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager to your WordPress site.
That’s because you’ll get a verified popup for the respective Google service when you add your property to Search Console.
If you want to verify Google Search Console this way, here’s how to add the code in WordPress.
For Google Analytics 4, navigate to your Web Stream details and view the tag instructions. You see your code like this:
Copy the code and paste it directly after the HEAD tag in your WordPress theme:
Again, make sure you’re editing a child theme and not the main theme.
You can install a child theme easily by using a WordPress plugin called Child Theme Configurator.
If you prefer using Google Tag Manager, here’s how you can add the code manually.
Add your property in Tag Manager, and you’ll see this popup:
Copy the first box and paste that directly below HEAD the tag. Then paste the code from the second box below the BODY tag.
You’ll now see the verification boxes above when you add your property in Search Console.
How to View Search Console Data Inside WordPress
If you want to see Search Console data inside your WordPress admin, then you’ll need a plugin for that.
The best we have come across is Rank Math, which lets you see up to 90 days of Search Console data for free.
But you’ll need the pro version if you want more data, like a keywords report overview.
What if you’re using a different SEO plugin, like YoastSEO? If you really want to see Search Console data in WordPress, then we recommend MonsterInsights.
MonsterInsights isn’t free, but it means you’ll be able to use it with Yoast.
The other option would be to change SEO plugins to Rank Math, just make sure you know what you’re doing. Otherwise, you can change how your metadata is displayed.
Why Add Google Search Console to WordPress?
The main reason you would add Google Search Console to your website is to measure organic search performance.
Other benefits include:
Adding an XML sitemap
Check which pages are indexed
Monitor Core Web Vitals
Here’s what you’re able to track regarding Google search rankings
Google search impressions and rank positions
Search clicks
Google search CTR
Ranking keywords
Google search impressions show how many times your website is seen in Google search results. The average position is the overall position your entire site shows up at.
You can see the average impressions and position for individual pages under the pages tab:
Total clicks are the number of times people click through to your website from search results:
Average CTR is the percentage of clicks compared to the number of impressions. So if you get 100 impressions and 10 clicks, your CTR would be 10%.
Ranking keywords are the terms your website has shown up for when people have searched for those terms in Google.
You can get an overview of all the keywords or select a specific page from the pages tab, then go back to the Queries tab.
Keeping track of this data every month will help you make improvements to your site’s search engine optimization.
How to Add an XML Sitemap to Google Search Console
Adding an XML sitemap to Google Search Console helps Google find all the pages and articles on your website.
To add your sitemap, you must install a plugin that automatically generates one.
Most SEO plugins will do this. For this example, I’ll show you how to do it with RankMath.
Search for, install, and activate the RankMath plugin from your WordPress admin:
Once you’ve configured the RankMath settings, go to the Sitemap settings option and copy the sitemap URL:
Then head back to Google Search Console and navigate to Sitemaps under Indexing:
Then, type or paste the sitemap slug in the URL field and click on SUBMIT:
You’ll see a box with some details of when it was submitted, the status, and the number of discovered URLs:
Google bots will crawl the sitemap each time you add new content to your site, which will help keep your Search Console data up to date.
How to Associate Google Search Console Data with Google Analytics 4
In your Google Search Console account, go to the Settings page in the sidebar and click Associations:
Then click the ASSOCIATE button where it says “Connect a Google Analytics property to this property”.
You’ll see a popup with all of your available Google Analytics accounts. Choose the one that matches the GSC property, click CONTINUE and follow the prompts.
Next, go to your GA4 property and navigate to Reports > Library:
Then in the Search Console box, click on the 3 dots and click on Publish:
A Search Console option will appear left sidebar menu with links to display your search queries and Google organic search traffic inside Google Analytics:
Conclusion: Add Google Search Console to WordPress
As you can see from this post, adding Google Search Console is fairly straightforward when you know how.
