If you’ve read anything about Search Engine Optimization or Google Ads, you’ve undoubtedly come across the term “keyword.” Keywords are the words that people use to search on a search engine like Google or Bing, before they land on your ad or website. A website written with rich content including keywords that are relevant to your business or organization is a big part of any solid SEO strategy.

However, did you know that Google has a tool that takes the mystery out of what keywords your customers and website visitors are actually using to get to your specific website?

What once was Google Webmaster Tools became Google Search Console (GSC) a few years ago. This tool was recently revamped in January 2018 to include even more functionality. With GSC, you can easily see what words your website visitors are looking for when they find you on Google. If you want to be optimized for a specific word, you can simply monitor the rise of that keyword from a Google Search Console report.

Google Search Console allows you to have better insight into your website visitors’ behavior and interests. One important thing to note is that Google Search Console is very different than Google Analytics. Google Analytics can pull information from the beginning of your website’s existence at any given time, but Google Search Console can only pull reports as far back as when it was originally set-up and connected to your website. If you truly want to understand your website visitors, you should have Google Search Console as a tool to understand the keywords being used to access your website. It’s also not unreasonable to ask a vendor to provide reports from your website’s GSC report as part of your SEO campaign’s reporting metrics. It really provides for the greatest transparency possible with a topic that seems a little mysterious and hard to understand for the typical small business owner or organizational leader.

Now you can know with great certainty if you are actually achieving measurable results with your SEO campaign, besides increasing website traffic, because website traffic alone is not a good indication that your SEO efforts are successful. You don’t want just any website visitor; you want the RIGHT website visitor, one that becomes a customer for your business or donor for your organization, not just one that happens along your site and bounces as quick as they got there. Ask your SEO specialist about Google Search Console reports today. Don’t have an SEO specialist working on your website? Contact us today for a quote!