Phase 1: SEO audit

How to read Search Console data

Seoga guide · Last reviewed 12 October 2026 · 7 min read

What clicks, impressions, CTR and average position really mean, how to set up the reports, and how to turn the numbers into a short list of pages to work on.

What Search Console tells you

Google Search Console is Google’s free report on how your site does in its search results. It is the only place that shows, from Google itself, which searches your pages appeared for, how often people clicked, and which pages Google left out of its index. Analytics tools tell you what visitors did once they arrived; Search Console tells you what happened before they arrived.

Set it up properly

Add a Domain property if you can. A Domain property covers every version of your site at once: http and https, with and without www, and every subdomain. It is verified by adding a TXT record at your domain’s DNS provider.
Or add a URL-prefix property. This covers only addresses that start exactly as you type them, such as https://www.example.com/. It can be verified with a file, a meta tag, or your analytics account.
Submit your sitemap. Under Indexing, Sitemaps. It helps Google find your pages and gives you a reference list to compare with what is indexed.
Add the people who need it. Under Settings, Users and permissions. Give read-only access unless someone needs to change settings.

Data starts from the day the property is created, so set it up early. Google keeps up to 16 months of performance data.

The four numbers in the Performance report

Open Performance, then Search results. The chart at the top shows four numbers. Each has a precise meaning, and most misreadings come from guessing it.

What each number in the Performance report means
Number	What it counts	Watch out for
Impressions	How many times a link to your site appeared in results someone loaded.	An impression does not mean the person saw it: a result low on the page still counts.
Clicks	How many times someone clicked through from Google to your site.	Clicks are not the same as visits in your analytics. The two never match exactly.
CTR	Clicks divided by impressions, as a percentage.	CTR falls when you start appearing for more searches lower down. That can be good news.
Average position	The average of your highest position in each result, where 1 is the top.	An average hides a lot. A page at 3 for one search and 30 for another can average 16.5, a position it never held.

Below the chart, the table splits the numbers by Queries, Pages, Countries, Devices, Search appearance and Dates. Clicking a row filters the whole report to it. Compare mode (in the date filter) puts two periods side by side.

Why the totals don’t add up

Google hides very rare searches to protect people’s privacy. They count in the chart totals but don’t appear in the Queries table, so the table usually adds up to less than the chart. That is expected, not an error.

Turn the numbers into actions

The numbers become useful when you read two of them together. Impressions tell you how often Google offers your page; CTR tells you how often people accept the offer. Put each page or search into one of four boxes:

Read impressions and clicks together. Each box suggests a different next step for the page.

Find pages close to the first page of results. Filter to the last 3 months, open the Pages tab, and sort by impressions. Pages with an average position between about 8 and 20 are often the quickest wins: Google already rates them, and a better page could move up.
Find searches you rank for by accident. In the Queries tab, look for searches with many impressions that no page on your site really answers. Each one is a candidate for a new or improved page.
Compare phones and computers. Open Devices. A much lower CTR or position on phones often points to a phone problem: slow pages, or a title cut short on small screens.
Spot drops early. Compare the last 28 days with the 28 days before. A drop on one page is usually about that page; a drop across the whole site is more often a technical fault or a change in how Google ranks results.

See which searches each page answers

The most useful view in Search Console takes two clicks. In the Pages tab, click one of your pages; the whole report is now filtered to it. Then open the Queries tab. You now see every search that page appeared for, with its own clicks, impressions and position.

Read that list with the page open beside it. Does the page answer the searches it is shown for? If the top searches are about prices and the page never mentions a price, you have found a gap. If two of your pages show up for the same searches, they may be competing with each other, and one clear page often does better than two half pages.

Split brand and non-brand searches

People who search for your business name already know you. To see how you do with new people, filter them out. Add a Query filter, choose “Custom (regex)”, pick “Doesn’t match regex”, and enter your brand name and its common spellings, separated by a straight line, for example examplegarden|example garden. What is left is your non-brand search: the searches you won because of what your pages say, not who you are.

The other reports worth a weekly look

Pages (under Indexing): which pages are indexed, which are not and why. Our crawl and indexing check explains the reasons.
Sitemaps: whether Google could read your sitemap, and when it last did.
Core Web Vitals: your pages grouped by real-visitor speed. See our Core Web Vitals guide.
Manual actions and Security issues: both should say no issues detected. If either shows a problem, deal with it before anything else.

The data is a little behind

Performance data usually lags by a couple of days, and the most recent days can still change as Google finishes counting. When you judge a change you made, wait for full weeks of data before and after.

A simple monthly routine

You don’t need to live in Search Console. Twenty minutes once a month covers most of what matters:

Compare the last 28 days with the 28 before, for clicks and impressions. Note any page that dropped sharply.
Open the Page indexing report and check that the number of indexed pages has not fallen without a reason you know.
List five pages with many impressions and a low CTR, and review their titles and search descriptions.
List five searches with many impressions that no page answers well, and decide whether one deserves a page of its own.

Write down what you change and when. Next month, the same report shows whether it helped.