Getting it set up
Search Console is free. Add your site at Google's Search Console, prove you own it (a DNS record covers the whole domain, including every subdomain and both http and https), and data starts collecting from that day. It doesn't fill in history from before you added the site, so set it up early, even if you won't look at it for months.
The four numbers
| Number | What it means |
|---|---|
| Clicks | How many times someone clicked through to your site from Google search. |
| Impressions | How many times a link to your site appeared in results someone saw. |
| Click rate (CTR) | Clicks divided by impressions: of the people who saw you, how many clicked. |
| Average position | Where your link usually appeared. 1 is the top; positions 1 to 10 are roughly page 1. |
Reading them without fooling yourself
- The latest days are incomplete. Google's figures usually trail by two or three days. Comparing "this week" with last week can make a healthy site look like it fell off a cliff.
- Compare like with like. Compare 28 days with the 28 days before, or with the same period last year for seasonal businesses. Single days are noise.
- Average position is an average. If you rank 3rd for one search and 40th for another, you'll see about 21. Look at positions per search, not the site-wide figure.
- More impressions can lower your click rate. Appearing for new, looser searches adds impressions that rarely click. A falling click rate isn't always bad news.
- Brand searches flatter you. People searching your business name will click whatever you do. Look separately at searches that don't include your name; that's where growth comes from.
Where the quick wins hide
Open the Performance report, show all four numbers, and look at the searches (queries) and pages tables.
- Searches just off page 1. Positions 8 to 20 with plenty of impressions are the cheapest gains. The page is already relevant; a stronger answer, a clearer title and a few internal links often move it onto page 1.
- Pages seen a lot but rarely clicked. High impressions with a low click rate for their position usually mean a weak title or summary in the results. Rewrite them to say clearly what the page offers.
- Two pages for one search. If the queries table shows two of your pages swapping places for the same search, they're competing. Merge them, or make each clearly about something different.
- Pages Google won't show. The Pages (indexing) report lists pages Google found but didn't index, with a reason. Pages that should be in search but aren't are a straightforward fix.
Sitemaps and checks
Submit your sitemap under Sitemaps so Google finds new pages quickly, and check the indexing report after big changes, such as a redesign or a move to a new domain. If many pages suddenly drop out, it's usually a redirect, a "noindex" tag or a robots rule added by mistake.
Doing this for every site you look after
Checking Search Console by hand for one site is manageable; for twenty client sites it rarely happens. TideStat connects Search Console once for your account, shows each site's clicks and positions next to everything else it checks, and with Search Growth lists the quick wins above automatically and turns them into a 90-day plan.
