Are You Making The Most Of Google’s Search Statistics
Posted on January 2, 2008
Filed Under Search Engine Optimization, Web Tools |
Your stats show you what searches people used to find your blog, and how many clicks you’re getting for each of those searches. But what they don’t show is what clicks you’re missing out on. They wont tell you about the searchers who get one of your pages in their search results, but who don’t click on your link.
Who knows more about what people are searching for than Google? So why not go to the source? I’ve written about Google Webmaster Tools before, but there is a feature I missed when I reviewed them the first time. It’s called Top Google Searches.
You can navigate to Top Google Searches from the Google Webmaster Tools Dashboard by first selecting your website, then clicking on “Statistics” followed by “Top Search Queries”. This will give you a page with 2 reports on it.
Top Google Searches Report:
Top Google searches This lists the 20 top Google searches in which your site appeared, along with your site’s average ranking in those search results.
Why is this useful? People may be searching on keywords for which you didn’t realize you had a ranking. For example, you may have successfully targeted the search term red widgets and be receiving traffic for it because you’ve reached the first page. What you may not realize is that you’re ranking in position 12 for the search term blue and red widgets - just off the first page! You may not have considered this search term previously and because you hadn’t received any traffic, you weren’t aware of your ranking for the term.
Now having identified your ranking for blue and red widgets, you may decide to modify your search engine optimization strategy to try and get onto the first page for this term as well.
Top Search Clicks Report:
Top search clicks This lists the 20 top Google searches in which users clicked your site.
What can you do with this information? Well, as I said at the outset, your stats may tell you what clicks you are getting from Google, but when used in conjunction with Top Google Searches, Top Search Clicks will tell you what you’re missing out on.
Continuing on from our previous example, you may find out from Top Google Searches that you rank in top 10 (ie. on the first page) for the search term large read widgets. But the Top Search Clicks report isn’t showing you the clicks you would expect to see. This may point to a problem with how your page looks when presented in the search results. Changing the Title or Description of your post may help to address this (but be aware the changing the Title tag may have an impact on you position as Google uses it in it’s ranking algorithm).
The real power of these 2 reports is realized when they’re used together. Compare and contrast the results to find out what traffic you’re missing out on.
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Wow, great tip, Once in a way I have just viewed these statistics for my blog in webmasterstool but I didn’t know how to use it to my advantage. Thanks so much for this info.
You’re welcome. Thanks for the feedback.
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