The Search Queries Analytics Cannot Show You

Two words where the keywords should be

Open the organic search keywords in Analytics and most of the list is a single entry: (not provided).

For several years Google search has used secure connections, so search terms no longer pass to the site. Analytics knows a visit came from Google search, but not what was typed.

So owners guess, usually assuming visitors search the way they would themselves, and plan pages and advertising around it.

The searches are not lost, though. Google's free Search Console shows them from the other side: what people searched for when your site appeared in the results.

What Search Console shows

Its Search Analytics report covers the last 90 days, broken down by search.

• The query, in the words people actually typed or spoke.
• Impressions, how often your site appeared for it.
• Clicks, how often someone chose your result.
• Click rate, the share of impressions that became clicks.
• Average position, roughly where your result sat on the page.
• The page that appeared for each query.

The second is the one Analytics can never show. Analytics sees only visitors; impressions count the people who saw your result and went elsewhere, which is where most of the missed opportunity sits.

Setting it up

Search Console needs the site verified, which proves you control it. If Analytics is already installed and you have edit rights there, it can usually confirm ownership in a couple of clicks.

Add the version of the address your visitors actually see. Search Console treats http and https, with and without www, as separate sites, and reports only on the one you add.

Then link it to Analytics in the property settings, and Search Console reports appear under Acquisition, beside the visit figures you already know.

The figures run a few days behind, so the most recent days always look thin.

Reading the queries

Sort the queries by impressions and read the top fifty. They usually fall into three groups.

Searches for your own name, from people who already know you. Searches for what you do and where, from new customers finding you. And searches you never expected.

The first group flatters the totals. A site whose search traffic is mostly its own name is being found by people who would have found it anyway.

The third group holds the surprises: a service you mention once that people want, a question a page half answers, a place name you never thought to include.

Pages, not just queries

Click a query to see which page appeared for it, or filter by page to see every query that page appears for.

Mismatches show up quickly. A blog post appearing for a search the services page should answer. The home page appearing for everything, because no other page is clearly about anything in particular.

Each mismatch is a hint about which page needs to say more plainly what it is for.

A worked example

A wedding videographer working mostly alone has a site of about fifteen pages: home, packages, a page of films, contact, and a blog with a post about each wedding, titled with the venue's name.

Analytics showed search visits rising through the spring, nearly all of them (not provided). She assumed couples were finding the packages page by searching for a wedding videographer in her region.

Search Console showed otherwise. Most impressions and clicks came from venue names: couples looking up the lodge or winery they had booked, landing on the post about a wedding there.

Searches for a wedding videographer plus the region showed the packages page on the second page of results, where hardly anyone clicked.

Two changes followed. Each venue post gained a short paragraph near the top pointing to packages and availability, since its readers were couples with a booked date.

And the packages page got a title and opening sentence naming the region.

She now downloads the report on the first Monday of each month, because it only reaches back 90 days.

Many impressions, few clicks

A query with plenty of impressions and few clicks means people saw your result and chose another.

Look at what they saw. The blue headline is usually your page title, and the text beneath it is often your page description, cut off at around 160 characters.

A title giving only the business name, or a description opening with a welcome, offers no reason to choose you. One naming the service and the area, with a description answering the obvious question, does.

Position matters too. A result averaging eighth sits near the bottom of the first page, where few people look, and no rewritten description fixes that alone.

What the numbers leave out

Average position is an average. A page that appears first for some searchers and twentieth for others lands on a figure neither group saw.

Rare searches are left out to protect privacy, so the query list rarely adds up to the total clicks.

And a click is not an enquiry. Search Console shows what brought people to the site; Analytics, with goals set up, shows what they did after arriving. You need both.

A monthly routine

Once a month, download the queries and pages to a spreadsheet and keep each file. Within a year you have the history Search Console will not keep for you.

Then spend twenty minutes reading: what is new in the top fifty, which pages gained or lost impressions, which queries have many impressions and few clicks.

Write down one change to make, and check next month whether its query moved.

The counter-case

For some businesses the queries report has little to say yet.

A site with only a handful of search visits a month will show a short list, mostly its own name; a quarterly look is enough until it has more pages for search to find.

Where most work arrives by referral, the search data may mostly confirm what the owner already knows.

For any business that depends on search, though, this is the only place the searches themselves are visible, so connect it and read it monthly.

Once a month

1. Prove you own the site in Search Console.
2. Add the version visitors see, https or http.
3. Link Search Console to Analytics.
4. Download the queries on the first of each month.
5. Read the top fifty by impressions.
6. Check which page appears for each.
7. Change one title or page per month.

Step four is the one that cannot be made up later. The report forgets after 90 days, and a year of monthly downloads is what turns a guess about your searches into a record.

Making sure the Analytics side counts each visit only once is covered in two Analytics codes on one page.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.