How to read Google Search Console in five minutes a month

The only free tool that tells the truth

Google Search Console is Google's own report on how your site appears in its results. It is free, it is not an estimate, and it is the source of every number in my monthly reports. If someone is doing SEO for you and never shows you Search Console, ask why.

Setting it up takes a few minutes: add your domain, prove you own it with a DNS record or a file on the site, and wait a day or two for data. If I build your site, it is connected before launch. Then, once a month, open the Performance report and look at four numbers.

The four numbers

Impressions: how many times a page of yours appeared in results. This moves first. When new pages get indexed or rankings improve, impressions climb before anything else does. RHYMEBOOK's impressions went from 88 a day to over 100,000 in 57 days; clicks followed.

Clicks: how many times someone chose you. This is the number that becomes enquiries. Compare it to the previous period, not to yesterday; search traffic has weekly and seasonal rhythms, and a Tuesday-to-Sunday comparison tells you nothing.

Average position: where you appear on average across all the searches you showed up for. Lower is better, and it is noisy, because appearing at position 60 for a hundred new searches pulls the average down even as things improve. Treat it as a trend, not a score.

Click-through rate: clicks divided by impressions. If impressions are high and clicks are low, you are visible but not chosen: the title and description on that page need work, or you are ranking for searches you do not really serve.

The two reports worth opening

In the Performance report, click the Queries tab. This lists the actual searches that showed your site. Look for two things: searches you want that are getting impressions but few clicks (fix the page), and searches you want that are missing entirely (build the page). This tab is where most of my SEO work comes from.

Then the Pages tab. Sort by impressions and see which pages carry the site. If one page does all the work, you are one algorithm update away from trouble; the fix is more pages that each earn their own searches. If a page you care about has no impressions, check the Indexing report to see whether Google has even seen it.

Everything else in Search Console is useful occasionally and ignorable monthly. Core Web Vitals tells you if the site is slow. The Indexing report tells you if pages are missing. If either shows a problem, it is a technical fix, and it is mine to make.

How to know if it is working

Compare the last three months to the previous three. Impressions up and clicks up: it is working. Impressions up and clicks flat: visibility is improving and the pages need to earn the click. Both flat after six months of "SEO": something is wrong, and you should ask for the queries list and the pages that were built.

That is the whole monthly check. Four numbers, two tabs, five minutes. My reports are built from exactly this view, so you can always open Search Console yourself and see the same thing.