Enhancing Content for Google with Search Console Insights

Do you want to understand the behavior of your traffic and know the type of content that performs best? Then the Google tool released in June 2021 is what you've been waiting for! Indeed, Search Console Insights allows you to discover this data with precision in a simple and intuitive way. But how does this platform work and how to analyze the information provided to improve your content?

👨‍🏫 What is Search Console Insights?

Search Console Insights is a Google tool designed to help you understand the type of content that interests your audience the most. By gathering a number of data provided by Google Search Console (GSC) and Google Analytics (GA), this new interface offers a simple and effective way to analyze the performance of your content. The report provided allows you to have a global view of your audience's behavior and identify the most appealing texts.

It is therefore an essential ally for all players on the Web: copywriters, bloggers, publishers, SEO specialists, and website owners. By perfectly targeting your readers' interests and behavior, you can significantly improve your content strategy in the long term. This tool can undoubtedly save you valuable time!

Moreover, you are well aware that creating quality content is the best way to retain your readers. Especially since Google MUM and Google EAT have appeared! Search Console Insights is definitely a free tool not to be overlooked to refine your communication and improve your readership's engagement rate.

For a complete description of Google Search Console, here is their presentation article published in June 2021: https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2021/06/search-console-insights. It should also be noted that, according to information provided by the search engine leader, the tool is currently still in Beta version.

🚪 How to access Search Console Insights?

Before describing this new Google tool in detail, here's how you can access it quickly. To have access to the complete data, your site must be associated with GSC and GA. In addition, these two tools must also be connected to each other. Here is a screenshot of the location where you can associate Google Analytics with Google Search Console.

It should also be noted that it is possible to generate data even if you do not use Google Analytics. However, you will not have access to all the information. Once these settings are done, you can access Search Console Insights directly from one of the two aforementioned tools.

Access to Search Console Insights from GSC

Access to Search Console Insights from GA

However, from GSC, you are redirected to the full Google Search Console Insights page. While from GA, you only have access to a summary of the data provided by the tool.

Another simple method is to use this link (consider adding it to your favorites for quick access): https://search.google.com/search-console/insights/. Finally, you also have the option to use the Google app for iOS (available by tapping on your profile picture). This feature should also be available on Android soon.

📊 Data provided by Google Search Console Insights to improve content

Now that you know what Search Console Insights is and have made the necessary associations, you can take advantage of essential data to improve your content. The first element displayed is the number of page views since the site's creation.

You will then have access to the statistics of your site during the last 28 days and an overview of the trend compared to the previous month. Below is the detail of the information provided by Search Console Insights.

Site Overview

This first section provides very interesting information to know your readers' interest based on the content you offer.

Page views and average page viewing time

The displayed graph provides an overview of page views over the last 28 days and the average page viewing time. This data is very general and simply helps to understand the current trend of your website.

New content

Here, you can discover the traffic and interest of your readership in your latest articles. By clicking on the images on the right, you have access to detailed data such as:

• Page overview
• Main traffic channels
• Google Search
• Referring links
• Social networks

Most popular content

This is an extremely interesting piece of data to perfectly understand the center of interest of your traffic. A large number of visits, combined with a high average reading time, are the best indicators. Analyze these pages and try to expand these topics to improve your content based on your readers.

How users discover the site

How did users discover your site and your various pages? This is once again crucial information to optimize your content strategy!

Main traffic channels

Discover where your traffic comes from in a global way to refine your content strategies. This first view is general. The following data will be more detailed and allow you to know the most effective content.

Google Search

A lot of important information for the natural referencing of your site is provided in this part. Average viewing time, click-through rate, and average position are very interesting data to refine your SEO strategy. You also have the option to choose between query frequency and popularity to analyze your results in depth.

Referring links from other websites

Getting backlinks is very important for your site's notoriety, but can also bring you traffic. This is what you can observe in this section of Google's tool. By taking this information into account, you can refine your link building strategy.

Social networks

The last piece of information provided by the Search Console Insights tool concerns traffic from social networks. Which platform attracts the most traffic? Having access to this type of data allows you to know which media to focus on for effective promotion of your latest articles.