In another new development for Google Analytics, there is a newer version of the Search Console report now being rolled out, which helps to provide users with more detail about search traffic coming from Google. This continues to be a valuable report and a good insight into search engine optimisation (SEO) activity, as the traditional keyword report remains limited with over 95% of search visits still being shown as ‘not provided’.
For many years, Google has enabled the linking between the Search Console (previously Webmaster Tools) account and Google Analytics, so that organic search visitor activity has been accessible in the Acquisition section of Analytics, under the Search Engine Optimisation menu. However, data has been quite limited, until now, as Google is now enabling a deeper integration of data between the 2 accounts, and renaming the menu item as ‘Search Console’, with 4 sub-reports being made available.
This new development shows the Search Console metrics combined with Google Analytics data in the same reports, so that users can now see a full range of Acquisition, Behaviour and Conversion metrics for your organic search traffic. You can therefore review organic search data with user behaviour to get more useful insights and to see which search terms generated the more engaged visitor traffic to the website.
The most valuable of the new reports is the Queries one, showing the search terms people used on Google to find your website. The landing pages report is also useful to identify the most common pages people found on Google, plus there are reports for visits by country, and a new one by device. You can therefore gain new insights into the organic search traffic coming via Google and review how visitors engage with this site, to reflect good, relevant search terms, and possibly landing pages which are not performing well.
These reports also help to identify new opportunities for search traffic, either through low ranking positions for good search terms, or pages on the website that could benefit from improved optimisation or content. In addition, the data being collected in Google Analytics can also be downloaded automatically each month by email, which is important to do as the Search Console data is still currently only available for a rolling 90 day period.
You can read more about these new reports here and to access these new reports you need to have a Search Console account set up and linked to your Google Analytics account. If you need help with this, or would like further information about how these reports can be used, please contact is for more information.