Google Search Console is a free service that shows how your site appears in Google search results. Its reports can look technical, but a few indicators are enough to draw useful lessons.
The four indicators of the “Performance” report
- Clicks: the number of times a user clicked through to your site from search results;
- Impressions: the number of times a link to your site was shown in results;
- CTR (click-through rate): the share of impressions that led to a click;
- Average position: the average position of your site in results, for the searches where it appeared.
Queries and pages
Under the chart, the “Queries” tab lists the searches that made your site appear, and the “Pages” tab the pages concerned. Cross-checking the two tells you which page answers which search.
Practical leads to draw
- Many impressions but few clicks: the page’s title and description probably deserve reworking.
- A page losing clicks from one month to the next: check whether its content is still up to date.
- Unexpected queries: they reveal your visitors’ questions, to be answered in dedicated content.
The indexing report
The “Pages” report shows which pages Google has indexed, and which it has not, with the reason. It is the first place to look if an important page does not appear in results.
What to keep in mind
The data covers the last sixteen months. Some rare queries are not shown, to protect users’ privacy. Finally, the average position is an average: it varies with location, device and how the search is worded.
Follow your data more simply
Bringing your Search Console data together with a page editor designed for search visibility is what Boussole does, one of my personal projects.