3 Useful Analytics Lessons of Google Webmaster Tools

It’s probably not the first tool you’d think about to help your web analytics efforts, but Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) provides more data than most webmasters and online businesses know that can really provide value to their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) initiatives. And Google Webmaster Tools is getting better, with regular updates and new data. However, GWT data alone isn’t necessarily what you’re looking for, but cross-referencing GWT data with your regular analytics tool can provide powerful insights.

If you’re not familiar with Google Webmaster Tools, check out Google Webmaster Tools and SEO. If you’ve heard of GWT before, let’s move on.

Google Webmaster Tools report: Top Search Queries

The Top Search Queries report in GWT provides a ton of value. The idea behind this report is simple – Google shows you for which keywords your site’s pages shows up for in the SERPs and which ranking position the page has, per month and per Google domain (international versions of the search engine). The Impressions table shows you the top Google searches your pages show up for, while the Clickthrough table shows you the percentage of searches during which users actually clicked on one of your pages in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Lesson #1: SEO isn’t just about rankings, it’s about usability and relevance too!

There are plenty of SEO “gurus” out there that will try to make you believe that this game is just about rankings. It’s not. Two of the fundamental rules that Google sticks to are relevancy and usability. Simply reaching for top rankings doesn’t guarantee you reel in most of the traffic for a particular keyword. Your top rankings are a waste if your search result isn’t relevant and user-oriented, for two reasons:

1. All that hard work to get to #1 is put to shame by content that doesn’t seem to work for the user (and they don’t convert on your site)
2. Google can detect hits to the Back browser button and that sends off a bad signal about your content (ultimately degrading your top ranking). You can build links all you want, but particularly for competitive search terms this means you’re shooting yourself in the foot!

You can detect instances of great rankings vs low clickthrough rates by opening up the Top Search Queries report in GWT and looking for discrepancies between Impressions and Clickthroughs. If you get a high number of impressions for a keyword (left column), yet for that keyword you only get a small % of clickthroughs (right column) you need to work on your content to better connect with the user’s intent. Start by optimizing your page title and meta description (which are used to display in the SERPs) and consider re-writing content if that doesn’t help.

Lesson #2: Traffic opportunity and geographical targeting

Using the Top Search Queries report in GWT, you can map keyword positions vs visits, from Google Analytics (or whatever other analytics program you may be using) you can figure out which keywords offer the best opportunity in terms of traffic (quantity but also quality – keywords that bring in visitors with a high conversion rate). This isn’t an exact science, but if you see that a #8 ranking gets you 500 visits a month, it’s a pretty good sign that a much higher ranking equals much higher traffic (if you get Lesson #1 right, that is).

Also, if you know your most valuable search traffic comes from the United Kingdom (for example), you can map SERP ranking info (from GWT) vs visits data for that specific country (from GA) and find out what opportunity you have to increase search traffic for targeted keywords. If a page on an international site (not locally targeted) converts well for UK visitors, you can try to get inbound links to that page from .co.uk sites/blogs for starters, to help you rank better in Google UK SERPS.

Lesson #3: Spotting keyword trends in terms of clickthroughs

Simply monitoring visits per keyword doesn’t give you a reliable view of how well you’re doing in terms of search engine traffic. Search volume for keywords changes over time, specifically for keywords that are tied to seasonal trends. The closest you can get to measuring how well your search traffic does is monitoring trends of clickthroughs from the actual SERPs and Google helps you with a chunk of useful data in GWT.

The Top search queries report shows you the impressions (appearances in search results) of the top 100 search phrases per month, with data of the past six months. You also get a table that shows you the top 100 clickthroughs – actual clicks to your site’s pages. In Excel you can map “conversions” from impression, to clickthrough, to clickthrough on your site, to conversion on your site. Trending this data over 6 months can answer questions like :

• Has your competition improved on relevancy or conceived of a clever way of luring away the visitors that are “rightfully yours” with better title & meta description? Reclaim your stake!
• Has Universal search hit your high traffic-driving keywords? Clickthrough trends can give you an indication and give you a wake up call to change your strategy to compete better for the user’s click (by targeting universal search, for example).

Most Important Lesson: USE Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools provides relatively little data but there’s a LOT you can learn that can directly contribute to more search engine success. Simply sign up, submit your sitemap and start analyzing!