PageSpeed Insights offers similar (though far more technical) insights for developing websites and testing their mobile performance. There's also a Mobile Friendliness measurement in the new Google Search Console. These tools all work together and are all useful when measuring …
I think this is a great addition to other search tools and a really quick and easy way to check how your pages work on mobile to ensure your users have the best experience.
I mean, it is a simple, no-frill test that gives your OK or NOT OK and highlights where it is. It is just a temperature check, this has to be used in conjunction with other tools for it to be useful. Since it is free I recommend running it as a check always.
Google Search Console is helpful to understand what terms customers search for and click onto your website from. However, it's not helpful if you're looking for deep competitive insight on search terms people are using and how that impacts your website.
Google's suggestions are sometimes vague or unhelpful.
The test doesn't offer multiple screen sizes or shapes. Though this isn't a huge issue, it would be nice to make sure a site using media queries stays mobile friendly throughout size changes
More training resources would be an asset. A beginner is given the power to completely destroy a sites search results at the push of a button. Likewise it is a powerful tool to enhance search results also.
An option to take care of multiple versions of the same site simultaneously would be helpful. An option to use the same validation script across all versions and administer them simultaneously would be a time save (i.e. non-www, www, http://, and https:// versions of the same site).
Google Search Console is a simple program that allows organizations to get a solid understanding of the way their site functions and how users land on it. It can be used for making critical business decisions regarding marketing budgets and that within itself is why it deserves a 10.
As with all Google software, your primary source of help is their forums, their knowledge base articles, or whatever tutorials you can find on the web. Often answers on their forums are not straightforward and may not address the actual issue you're experiencing. The KB articles are typically written like instruction manuals - for better or for worse. Tutorials on the web may vary, but the odds are good someone out there had the same questions as you and was kind enough to document their experience.
I think this is a great addition to other search tools and a really quick and easy way to check how your pages work on mobile to ensure your users have the best experience.
SEMRush is a supplementary tool we use to provide competitive analysis. While it does, or should, provide the same data that Search Console does, but I only fully trust Search Console when it comes to basic performance in Google for the sites we develop and own. SEMRush, and other products like it, does provide much more in-depth insights that can help drive business decisions, including site performance on other search engines, along putting organic and paid search performance in one spot. However, SEMRush costs money while Search Console is free.
Given that this is a free tool, the return on investment has been particularly high - we've identified and addressed a few site issues that could have meant a reduction in search traffic.
Our organic search traffic has been on the rise in part due to the insights gained from the search traffic analytics provided within the console.