What to Pay Attention to in Google Search Console by John Jants Read more in Duct Tape Marketing
Are you using Google Search Console for your business? If not, now is the time to verify your domain so that you can dive into the mountains of useful data available to you via Console’s reports.
Since there is so much valuable data to sort through, it can be difficult to know where to start if you are new to the platform. Don’t worry, I’m here to tell you all about the most important reports, filters, and numbers to pay attention to.
search analytics report
You should start working with Search Analytics reports. This will give you valuable information about how your site performs in Google searches. You can chop and truncate this data in many different ways, but these are the most important elements to consider.
raid
Impressions measure how many times your site has appeared in search results. Now, this number has no qualifiers—Google will count any presence as an impression, even if your site was on page ten of the SERPs and probably wasn’t actually visited by the searcher.
Still, this number can give you a general idea of ​​how broad an audience your site is reaching, and it can help you set realistic goals as you try to get attention by more people. .
clix
Clicks refers to the number of times someone has clicked on your website from Google SERPs. This number may be a bit inaccurate because Google doesn’t tell you all of your clicks—they’re unclear why, but some cite privacy concerns. However, like impressions, clicks can give you a general sense of interest in your website coming through in search results.
Click through rate
Click-through rate (CTR) is the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions. This number can help you understand how relevant your pages are to certain search terms. High CTR means that your page title and description are grabbing the attention of searchers. But don’t worry if your CTR is low; Because few impressions are for searches where you were on page 10 of the results, this number does not always indicate a poorly optimized meta description.
Post
Position is all about where your page ranks in search results. Each page of Google’s organic results has 10 links, so if your position count is 10 or less, it means your website is showing up on the first page of search results.
search query report
Search analytics reports can help you understand how your site stacks up against competitors on the results pages. On the other hand, the Search Query report helps you see how people are finding your site in the first place.
This report is valuable because it tells you about the real-world words, questions, and phrases your pages are ranking for. Sometimes there are some real surprises here, and knowing what customers are actually doing at Google can help you refine your SEO and even make your products and services their real people. can be changed to better address the needs.
go to landing page by landing page
One of the major benefits of Google Search Console is that it allows you to break down all this data by individual landing pages. You can see what search terms are ranking for each individual page, which is extremely valuable.
If you have a low CTR for a given page, it could mean something. Either your title and meta description aren’t compelling, your SEO is off and you’re ranking for a term that doesn’t really make sense for the query, or the term is generic (and therefore competitive) and you Need to find a better way to stand out.
On the other hand, a high CTR can tell you that you have acquired gold. Maybe it’s not a word that you thought would speak to customers, but something about it is clearly resonating and getting results. Once you see the term for which the landing page is ranking, what else can you do to make that page’s content even more relevant to that search term? And are there ways to make other pages on your website speak more directly to the intention behind the term?
Find and fix errors
The mobile usability and crawl reports on Google Search Console are also helpful in identifying issues with your website and making it more user-friendly.
Mobile usability allows you to see which pages on your site don’t perform well on mobile. Elements may be messed up or the type is too small; Whatever the case, the site is not suitable for small devices. Once you know it, you can fix it (which is important, because most searches today start on mobile devices).
Crawl reports allow you to understand what Google sees when crawling your website. Google crawls websites to learn what a site is about, and the information they find on their crawl affects how you rank in their results. If your site is difficult to crawl, you may lag behind in the rankings, even if the content of your website looks great in human terms. Use this report to make your site as attractive as possible to the Google computers that are indexing websites to give your site the best shot at ranking well.
Google Search Console is one of the most powerful tools available to small business owners. Unfortunately, some are unaware of its benefits or are intimidated by the wealth of data it provides. However, when you know which reports to run and what numbers to pay attention to, it can completely change your approach to SEO and marketing.
If you liked this post, check out our Small Business Guide to SEO.
