Rankbird
1How do I read Google Search Console for my webshop?
Search Console is free and the most reliable source on your visibility in Google. Focus on the 'Performance' report, with its four metrics:
- Impressions: how often you appeared in the results.
- Clicks: how often someone clicked through.
- CTR: the percentage of impressions that turned into a click. See improving your CTR.
- Average position: where you ranked on average.
Then click 'Queries' and 'Pages' to see which keywords and pages bring in traffic. Filter on positions 11 to 20 to find your striking-distance keywords. And check under 'Pages' whether your important pages are indexed.
2Why has my webshop dropped in Google?
A drop almost always has an identifiable cause. Go through this list:
- A Google update. Check whether the drop coincides with an announced core update.
- Technical changes. A new theme, changed URLs without redirects, or pages blocked by accident.
- Seasonality. Compare with the same period last year, not with last month.
- Competition. A competitor has published better content.
- Lost links or outdated content.
In Search Console, compare two periods and see which pages and keywords have dropped the most. That's where you'll find the cause.
3What are striking-distance keywords?
Striking-distance keywords are keywords you already rank for in positions 11 to 20: just on page 2. Google already sees your page as relevant, but not quite relevant enough.
These are your quickest wins. A small improvement, such as a better title, a more extensive section or a few internal links, can push them onto page 1, where almost all clicks happen. You can find them in Search Console by filtering on positions greater than 10. Rankbird looks them up for you automatically every week.
4How do I improve my CTR in Google?
You improve your CTR by making your search result more appealing than the ones around it:
- Write a title that promises what the searcher is looking for, with the keyword near the start.
- Use the meta description as ad copy: a concrete benefit, not a list of keywords.
- Add structured data for star ratings, prices and stock.
- Aim for a featured snippet. See how to get a featured snippet.
Start with pages that have lots of impressions but a low CTR. That's where a better title brings in extra visitors right away.
5What is the difference between branded and non-branded traffic?
Branded traffic comes from people searching for your brand name: they already know you. Non-branded traffic comes from people searching for a product or question who discover you that way.
Non-branded traffic is the real measure of SEO growth: these are new customers you would never have reached otherwise. In Search Console, you filter for it by excluding queries that contain your brand name. On our overall score, you can see that for our clients, most of the growth comes from non-branded traffic.