Search Analytics   «Prev  Next»

Missing expected search queries

If you sorted by clicks, and are surprised that certain queries were missing from the list, you might begin investigating why, by asking yourself the following.
  1. How does your site rank and appear for the query?
  2. If not appearing at all, see if your query-relevant pages are indexed through a "cache:" or "inurl:" search.
    [cache:http://example.com/page.html]
  3. If not indexed, check "Crawl Errors" in Search Console and then try "Fetch as Google".
    a) Is the search results display compelling?
    b) How do your competitors look?
Information about improving the title and snippet display in search results can be found at https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35624
Note: The link above is a 6 year old video by Matt Cutts and still contains useful information.
After we have investigated sorting by clicks, the next step is to sort by CTR or Click through rate

SEO Workbook

Sorting by CTR

Currently CTR is the third check box from the left in Search Analytics.
  1. High CTR means your page has a compelling search result appearance and display for the query
  2. Low CTR: If your website has low CTR (when your site has good ranking) maybe you should investigate search result appearance for improvements [means you want to improve your search results display.]
Take note of which queries are not performing as expected. Investigate how your site appears in the search result for the query.
Is the 1) title and 2) snippet compelling to click on?
Does it show a unique value add to the searcher?
With an understanding of the terms that were previously defined,
  1. query
  2. impressions
  3. average position
  4. click
  5. CTR
  6. Qualified query, qualified traffic
start categorizing your queries using the following criteria.