How to Use Google Search Console Performance Reports to Optimize your SEO and Plan Better Blog Content

Let’s talk about SEO for a minute.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the practice of optimizing your website or online content to increase its visibility and ranking in search engine results pages. The goal of SEO is to improve the quality and quantity of organic (non-paid) traffic to your website from search engines, such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo.

SEO involves a variety of techniques and strategies, such as keyword research, content optimization, link building, and technical optimization. By implementing these techniques effectively, you can improve your website's visibility and ranking in search engine results, attract more targeted traffic to your site, and ultimately drive more conversions and revenue.

Now, I do not claim to be an expert on SEO by any stretch of the imagination, but I am a student of it, and having been in the blogging and online marketing space for a number of years I’ve learned a few simple techniques to help me rank for terms in my field and gain leads via Google search results.

One of the simple things I’ve learned about SEO is that being active on your blog (posting relevant content regularly) is important. But the question often remains, what should I post about? What do people want to read? What type of content will attract the right search audience?

Enter Google Search Console. 

Google Search Console is a free tool that allows you to monitor and maintain your website's presence in Google search results. You can sign up for regular emails from them to keep tabs on how your site content is performing or check in on it at any time on your dashboard.

These performance reports can provide you with valuable insights into how your blog content is performing in search results, which can help you plan better content for SEO purposes. 

Here are some practical ways I use my Google Search Console performance reports to optimize and plan my content:

1. When I see that a piece of content is already doing well, I go in to update and optimize it often to give it an even bigger boost. 

2. I watch for what searches are landing people on my site and brainstorm what other similar content I can create around those search topics.

3. I watch for search terms that are bringing up my site on results pages but not getting clicked on and tweak my titles and descriptions to make them more appealing and relevant in hopes of getting a better click-through rate (CTR).

By analyzing my blog's performance and keeping tabs on these Google Search Console reports regularly, I’ve been able to identify opportunities to optimize my existing content and create new content that targets high-performing search queries and I’ve watched my blog’s SEO performance improve exponentially!

Here’s how you can too:

1. Log in to your Google Search Console account and select your website.

2. From the “Overview” page, click on “full report” on the "Performance" section.

3. Click on the "Queries" tab to see which search terms people are using to find your blog. 

4. Click on the "Pages" tab to see which pages on your blog are getting the most clicks. 

I also recommend enabling monthly email reports as an easy way to check in on your performance regularly!

1. From any page within your Google Search Console account, click the “User Settings” icon on the top right of the page.

2. Click “email preferences” and check “enable notifications by email”

3. You may also need to go back to the previous page and click “choose console in search results” to enable your particular page.

Once you have saved your preferences, you will receive a monthly email from Google Search Console with performance data for your site. It’s a great way to monitor your website's performance and identify areas where you can improve your SEO strategy regularly!

Questions about SEO and Google Search Console? Drop them in the comments!