Google sends website performance report every month to the administrator of Search Console account. This report includes important data like top keywords and pages to get an overall insight about your web property. Recently Google introduced Search Console Insights which is similar to website performance report sent in email. In this article, we will explain how to use Google Search Console Insights and make maximum benefit from it.
Accessing Google Search Console Insights
Remember, in order to use this feature, you should have already added and verified your website in Search Console account.
- Login to your Google Search Console account.
- Select the website from the dropdown list. Remember to select correct property URL like https://www.yoursite.com instead of domain property.
- Go to “Overview” section and click “Search Console Insights” link.
Connect Search Console Insights with Analytics
Search Console Insights will open in a new tab and you will land on “Site Overview” page. If your property is not connected to Google Analytics, then you will see a notification mentioning “Sub-optimal Setup”.
Connecting to Google Analytics
We recommend connecting the property to Google Analytics so that you can get complete data insights from Search Console and Analytics together.
- Click on the gear icon available on top right next to your profile icon.
- It will show a “Google Analytics association” pop-up.
- Click on the “Associate now” button.
- This will take you to the Association settings page where you can view previously connected associations with the property. If you have no previously connected association, you can add a new association here. Click on “Associate” button.
- In the pop-up that appears, select the property to connect with Search Console Insights section and click “Continue” button.
- Click “Associate” to confirm the association.
Now the “Site Overview” page will show plenty of useful cards getting data from Google Analytics. You can anytime change the association to link different Analytics property.
Using Search Console Insights
Unlike “Performance” section in Search Console or other reports in Analytics, this Search Console Insights will show you many useful details. The advantage here is that you can get the most important details quickly combined with Analytics data. For example, “Google Search” card in the insights will show the details of page views, average duration and number clicks received from Google Search. You can filter the data for most searched and most trending queries. You can also find the number of search result position and the clicks you received for each query. This is super useful to understand what type of queries your site is ranking top in Google.
You can use the top queries to optimize your site further and create strong authority around that key phrase by publishing related articles. Similarly, each card contains valuable details that you can use for optimizing your website’s performance.
Getting Page Level Details
Most of the cards will show you site level overview without further drilldown. However, some cards like popular content will have an option to get page level details. Click on the page title to view details of the page similar to site overview.
Understanding Data Available in Search Console Insights
The cards will show you the data collected for the past 28 days. Here are some of useful data set you can find in the insights:
- Pageview – you can find the number of page views in each card like for 28 days page views.
- Average duration – find how much time user stayed on your site in an average or on an individual page. You will also see a batch indicating if the page’s average duration is higher compared to overall site’s average duration.
- Traffic channels – source of traffic like social, Google Search, etc. You can also get detailed report on search traffic from Google.
- Find most popular and newly discovered content.
- Most searched and most trending queries in Google Search with average search position. You will see a badge showing a cup with top 5 results indicating your page is in the top 5 results.
- Unlike Analytics reports that show page URL, Search Console Insights will show page title which will be user friendly.
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Getting Help
Each card will have a small help icon showing on the top right corner. Click on the icon to learn more about the card.
The help section contains two tabs:
- About the data – here you can find the meaning of each item used in the card.
- Tips – get useful tips to improve the performance of your site for that selected metric.
Final Remarks
Google Search Console Insights is a useful tool to understand what readers are interested in your site. You can find how your site is performing for top queries and the details of top pages. We hope, Google will allow customizing the cards and add more insights in future to take this tool to next level.
