Ask David! Question
What’s your favorite SEO tool, and what feature do you find most useful?
David’s Answer
My favorite SEO tool is Google Search Console. It’s free, and it gives me data directly from Google about how a website is performing in Google Search. If I want to investigate organic search traffic, see which queries are bringing people to a page, or figure out what changed when traffic drops, this is where I start.
Paid SEO tools can be useful for keyword research, competitor analysis, and backlink research, but Search Console lets me examine how my own pages actually perform in Google Search, rather than relying solely on third-party estimates.
The feature I find most useful for checking and tweaking SEO is the filtering in the GSC Performance report. Our guides, How to Check Clicks, Impressions, and Rankings for a Specific URL in Google Search Console and How to Check How Your Web Page or Blog Post is Ranking in Google, explain how to check and use this data.
With this feature, you can examine an individual page and its search queries associated with it. That helps you answer a more useful question than simply asking whether website traffic went up or down: What changed for this page, and which searches account for that change?
Say a blog post has been getting steady search traffic and then starts losing clicks. I don’t immediately rewrite it or assume Google has lowered its ranking. I compare its performance over time and look at the queries bringing up the page. Did impressions fall? Did the average position change? Are people seeing the page in search results but clicking less often? Did the change affect all its queries or just a few?
Those are different situations, and they call for different investigations.
If impressions have dropped for several important queries, I’ll look at the page’s visibility for those searches and whether the content still addresses what people are looking for. If impressions remain steady but clicks fall, I’ll examine the search results and the page’s title and description. If only a particular group of queries has changed, I’ll focus on those instead of making unnecessary changes to the entire page.
I also use the report to find opportunities. Sometimes a page receives impressions for relevant queries that aren’t adequately addressed in its content. That gives me something specific to evaluate. I can determine whether the page needs a better explanation, more useful information, or a clearer match with the searcher’s intent.
Of course, Search Console doesn’t tell you exactly why every change happened. Average position is an aggregate metric, CTR depends on the search results and query, and a change in clicks doesn’t automatically mean a ranking problem. But you can use the data to narrow down the possibilities, then investigate the likely causes.
If you haven’t started setting up Google Search Console for your website, read How to Set Up Google Search Console for Your Website: A Step-by-Step Guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Google Search Console enough for SEO?
For many essential SEO tasks, it’s the first tool I’d use. It provides search performance data, indexing reports, and information that helps diagnose technical issues. Other tools can be useful for competitor research, backlink analysis, keyword discovery, and broader site audits, but you don’t need to pay for an SEO subscription just to understand how your pages perform in Google Search.
Does Google Search Console show every search query that brings visitors to my site?
No. Google Search Console omits some queries to protect user privacy, so the queries shown in the Performance report won’t necessarily account for all reported clicks. See Why Does Google Search Console Clicks Count Differ from Keyword Clicks? for more details.
Why can a page lose clicks even when its impressions stay the same?
Check its average position and the queries involved. Search features, competing results, changes in search intent, and the wording of your result can all affect clicks. The metrics help narrow down the possibilities, but they don’t establish the cause by themselves.
Should I update a page whenever its Google rankings drop?
No. First, establish which queries and pages have changed and whether the decline is sustained. Look at the time period, the scale of the change, and any relevant technical or content issues. A temporary fluctuation doesn’t necessarily require an update, and changing content without identifying a problem can make it harder to understand what affected performance.
Should I update a page even when Google has me ranking on top?
Sometimes! Does your website content need to be updated? If it does, you should do it, even if your page is ranking on top. A high ranking doesn’t mean the information is still accurate, complete, or useful to visitors. If something has changed or the page is missing information people need, update it. Don’t change content just to make it look fresh, though. Make changes because they improve the page. This will help your page stay on top.
Related Articles
- How to Use Google Search Console’s New Generative AI Data to Improve Your SEO
Explore how newer search data can help you investigate how people find your website. - Google Search Console vs Google Analytics: What’s the Difference?
Understand the difference between measuring search visibility and analyzing what visitors do after arriving on your website. - Discovered vs. Crawled Not Indexed in Google Search Console: What’s the Difference and How to Fix Each
Learn how to interpret two common indexing statuses and investigate why a page might not appear in Google Search.
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