Google Search Console is one of the most useful free tools for search engine optimization. Google’s popular “Performance” section shows you your site’s rankings, sources of organic clicks, and other information.
- Most trafficked pages
- The best performing search queries,
- Pages and Queries Traffic volume decreased (After Google update).
But the performance section gives you a lot more information, and here are three underused reports to help you improve your SEO.
Visitor’s device
Smartphones are becoming more Top Devices This leads to more visits and more conversions, but every site is different – some sites have more desktop users than mobile users.
Search Console reports the number of visitors who searched for and arrived at your site on mobile and desktop devices. Go to Performance > Search Results:
- Click New to create a new filter.
- Select “Devices”
- Click on the “Compare” tab
- Applies to “Desktop” and “Mobile”.
The example below shows a site where visitors primarily search and click from desktop devices, so the SEO for this site should focus on the desktop version.
The performance section of Search Console shows you the devices your visitors are using, and in this report, most visitors are using desktops. Click on image to enlarge.
Traffic from images
Google image search results and image packs can generate a lot of clicks. But there’s no easy way to identify which ones are performing best. Search Console under Performance > Search Results can provide some insights.
- Select “Search type: Image”
- Click in the Query column
- Sort the results by “Clicks”.
Then search those queries in Google Image Search to find images that rank and generate clicks. In my experience, there is no better way to see how your site is performing in image search.
Pay attention to image optimization techniques (alt text, file type, size, etc.). Adjust your strategy accordingly.
Filter by “Search Type: Image” to see traffic (clicks) from that source. Click on the screenshot to enlarge it.
Visitor’s Country
Searchers who access English-language sites are likely to be from the United States, which has the largest English-speaking population, but other countries also have great e-commerce potential.
To see your visitors’ countries, use Performance > Search Results.
- Click on the Country column
- Sort by “Clicks”.
To create filters to gain deeper insights from this data, Translate search results Your site requires users to translate into their native language before they can access it, and countries that receive more clicks from translated results indicate markets that are better served in that language.
- Click New to create a filter.
- Select “Search Appearance”
- Select “Translated results.”
In the example below, visitors from Indonesia translated search results the most.
In Search Console, you can report on the number of visitors who translated first in search. Click on image to enlarge.
