There are more SEO tools than good reasons to use them. And sadly I feel like most of it is not fit for purpose.
There are some notable exceptions, however, and one of the best is often ignored by organizations, unusually powerful, and misunderstood by most. It's also free.
the tool isGoogle search console. And unlike many others, it doesn't try to scrape, reverse engineer, or guess Google's data. instead,esData from Google and therefore probably more accurate than other tools you may use. Terms and conditions apply, but it's still a tremendously useful and accessible tool.
I'm a big fan of Google Search Console and I think a lot of businesses are ignoring the valuable and actionable information that Google is willing to send them.
However, Google Search Console suffers as a resulta big handicaptwo main disadvantages.
The first problem is that there is a lot of information available and it is too easy to drown in the huge amount of data that Google provides.
But as someone who spends hours in Search Console every day, I know your system. And routinely know where to find the most actionable information and where to check that there aren't any fires that need to be put out.
This post is not intended to be an exhaustive guide to Google Search Console.
Instead, I'll show you what you can do with the tool, what to do when time is short, where to find the juiciest fruit, and what to keep in mind when using it.
There are literally hundreds or even thousands of actionable pieces of information in a typical account, but it's really worth investing time and focusing on three categories:
- Ways to increase the number of targeted visitors you get from Google
- An SEO health check (sort of)
- A roadmap to focus your efforts when you're short on time but want some form of productive SEO
Understand what works and what doesn't: performance
What you can find:
The overall trend of your organic traffic volume, overall and individual positions in organic results, keyword opportunities, page opportunities, and more.
How to find it:
It's often a good idea to open up the date range a bit to get a wider range of dates:
Focusing on the average position can help to:
Comparing two ranges of data can be extremely useful. For example, compare how this quarter compares to last:
For example, if you're comparing two time periods, you can also sort by lost or gained clicks or impressions:
What to keep in mind:
The first is that keywords only tell part of a story, as they only report the keywords that your site ranks for to a certain extent. But it can't show you the keywords your site could and should rank for.
Second, the accuracy of the data is sometimes questionable.Some of the data is very imprecise. For example, you can find keywords that have an average position of 90+. If that were true, you would be on the 10th page of Google search results.
Also, Google was recently alerted to how inaccurate the data could be. Watchwhy the data is less accurate than we thought.
Know what you don't know: coverage
What you can find:
Pages on your site that cannot be indexed, pages with problems, pages indexed by Google, and pages that you have intentionally blocked.
How to find it:
What to keep in mind:
If you have content on your site that Google can't find or see, whether on purpose or otherwise, then it can't and won't be included here.
Ask Google for Feedback: Core Web Vitals
What you can find:
How Google decides the performance of each of its pages, based primarily on performance factors that affect user experience.
How to find it:
What to keep in mind:
Google based its results onReal world usage data– that is, real users who visit your pages.
If the page is new or Google doesn't have enough data, just report itdata not available.If you see this, use thePageSpeed Insights Toolinstead of this.
Is there a (big) problem? Manual actions and security issues
What you can find:
A manual action is when a human reviewer at Google determines that some of your pages don't meet quality guidelines.
Security issues occur when Google thinks your site has been hacked or is doing something that could harm a visitor's computer.
Both are obviously bad news, and you're looking for that big healthy green checkbox next to it.No problems detected.
How to find it:
Keywords with the highest potential: performance
What you can find:
Keywords that are (1) highly relevant to your business and (2) already ranking forreasonablegood in search results.
How to find it:
What to consider:
The point here is to identify relevant keywords that already have ranking positions between 4 and 8, for example. The idea is that if a page already ranks fairly well, tweaking it to move it up a bit, say, from position 6 to position 4, is not only realistic but could also produce visible results.
Why isn't this page getting organic traffic? URL inspection
What you can find:
The reason why some of your content is not getting organic traffic at all. From time to time.
How to find it:
What to keep in mind:
This isn't an exhaustive diagnosis, but if one of your pages isn't getting any organic traffic at all, it can tell you why. Or at least rule out some issues you don't need to investigate.
But at the risk of sounding harsh, a page can't get hits from Google just because it's not very good.
Analytics back then only showed us keywords that had produced resultsclicksto our site. This was only one side of the image, but at least we got qualitative information for each side, e.g. For example: bounce rate, time spent, page views, etc. Google then decided that this type of information was too private to share and removed it.
Then Google Search Console brought back impression data; in other words, the number of times your content was shown in Google searches, whether it was clicked on or not.
So, for each keyword or URL, you can see the number of clicks, the number of impressions, the average position, and (oddly enough) the average CTR.
But there is a catch.
Here's how Google defines what counts as an impression:
„An impression means that a user saw (or possibly saw) a link to your site in Search, Explore, or News.
In general, an impression is counted when an item appears on the current page of results, regardless of whether the item scrolls or not, as long as the user doesn't have to click to see additional results (for example, by clicking " Show more" should be clicked). to see the link).”
The problem is that you often see output like this:
If this information is correct, the featured keyword received 27 impressions with an average position of 100. Without going into the intricacies of how it works, a rank of position 100 would appear on page eleven of the results.
And when was the last time you looked at page two of the results, let alone page eleven?
I spoke to Google about this issue at one of their events in 2019 and they confirmed that searches by bots, crawlers, or scrapers would not be included in this data.
Make your own conclusions.
More importantly, be careful with blind dates.
The keyword data in your search console only shows you the keywords for which they appear somewhere in the search results.
But what about keywords for which it doesn't appear at all? Keywords that are absolutely relevant to your website, but don't rank for at all?
Imagine a scenario where the keywords you knowingly target are only a minority of the relevant searches performed every day.
Search Console can't show you the keywords you're usingshould appear forbut not.
That's why you have to use a credit card at some point
Because Google Search Console, as powerful as it is, can only take you so far.
The only way to find the missing keywords is to use a special tool, such asSERankingoahrefs. This is the only way to find worthwhile terms and phrases from your known and unknown competitors. The keyword opportunities you are missing.
And the only way to thoroughly and completely check your website is to use a dedicated tool. Something likeroom light bulb.
Also, the data is less accurate than we thought.
There was an interesting post on the ahrefs blog a few weeks ago that demonstrated this.On average, around 50% of searches in Search Console are hidden.
Where does that leave us?
In my opinion, Google's partial data is probably better than third-party interpreted data. And when you add that the data and setup are free and easy, I still rate Google Search Console data as the best starting point for your SEO efforts. For now.