· @Peak Marketing
Google Search Console is a free keyword research tool that shows the exact searches already putting your site in front of people on Google. To use it, open the Performance report, sort your queries by impressions, and look for terms ranking between positions 8 and 20 or earning impressions with few clicks. At Peak Marketing, this is usually where our keyword research starts, before we open a paid tool.
Third-party tools estimate what people might search. Search Console reports what they actually searched and where your pages showed up when they did. That makes it the most dependable place to find keywords you can realistically win.
Why Is Search Console Data Different From Keyword Tool Data?
Search Console data comes straight from Google, so it reflects real searches tied to your own site. Tools like Ahrefs and Semrush build their volume figures from modeled estimates, and they often report zero volume for long, specific phrases.
That gap matters most for local service businesses. A personal injury firm in Boise may never see “rear end accident lawyer Meridian” in a keyword tool. If the firm’s pages appeared for that search, Search Console will show it, along with how often it appeared and at what position.
Google keeps 16 months of Search Console data. That is enough history to compare the same season year over year and spot terms that are gaining ground.
How Do You Find Keyword Data in Search Console?
All of your keyword data lives in the Performance report. Here is the setup we use:
- Open Search Console and choose your property. If you have both a domain property and a URL-prefix property, pick the domain property so every version of the site is counted.
- Click Performance, then Search results.
- Turn on all four metrics at the top of the chart: total clicks, total impressions, average CTR, and average position.
- Set the date range to the last three months. That is long enough to smooth out weekly swings and recent enough to reflect where you rank now.
- Open the Queries tab below the chart and sort by impressions.
- Export the table to Google Sheets so you can filter and tag queries freely.
The export from the web interface stops at 1,000 rows. Larger sites can pull more through the Search Console API or the Looker Studio connector.
Which Keyword Opportunities Should You Look For First?
The best opportunities are queries where Google already sees your page as relevant but you are not yet collecting the clicks. Three patterns show up again and again.
Queries sitting just off page one
Use the filter icon on the Queries table to show rows with an average position greater than 7. Anything averaging between 8 and 20 is close to page one. The page ranking there usually needs sharper targeting, not a brand new article. Work the exact phrase into a subheading, answer the question more directly, and link to the page from a related post using descriptive anchor text.
High impressions with a low click-through rate
Google’s own documentation suggests looking for queries with many impressions and a low CTR. Picture a query with 3,000 impressions, a 0.6% CTR, and an average position of 4. People are seeing the result and choosing someone else. That is a title tag and meta description problem. Rewrite both to match the searcher’s wording and the answer they expect.
Queries a page was never written for
Click a single URL in the Pages tab, then switch back to Queries. You will often find a page showing up for questions it only mentions in passing. A DUI defense page appearing for “how long does a DUI stay on your record in Idaho” tells you searchers want a dedicated answer. That becomes a new post, linked from the original page.
How Can Regex Filters Speed Up Keyword Research?
Regex filters let you pull a whole category of queries out of Search Console in one step. Click Add filter, choose Query, then select Custom (regex). Search Console uses Google’s RE2 syntax, and you can set the filter to either match or exclude a pattern.
These patterns earn their keep on most sites:
- Question queries: ^(who|what|when|where|why|how|can|does|is|should) surfaces the questions people ask before they hire anyone. These make strong FAQ entries and blog topics.
- Long-tail queries: (\w+\s){4,}\w+ returns searches of five words or more, which tend to carry clear intent.
- Non-branded queries: set the filter to “Doesn’t match regex” and enter your brand name and its common misspellings, separated by pipes. What remains is the traffic you earned through content, not reputation.
- Commercial terms: cost|price|fee|near me|hire|best isolates searchers who are closer to making a decision.
Filters stack. Excluding your brand and then matching question words gives you a ready list of non-branded questions to answer.
What Are the Limits of Search Console Keyword Data?
Search Console only reports queries your site already appears for. It cannot show you topics where you have no visibility at all, so pair it with a keyword tool when you need gap analysis against competitors.
Google also hides rare queries to protect user privacy. Because of this, the rows in the Queries table rarely add up to the total in the chart. Adding a filter drops those anonymized queries entirely, which can make filtered totals look smaller than expected.
Average position needs careful reading. It averages the topmost spot your site held across every impression, so a 9.4 can mean third place for some searches and thirtieth for others. Google’s guidance is to weigh impressions and clicks more heavily than position.
Data also runs about two days behind, so very recent changes will not show up right away.
How Does Peak Marketing Turn Search Console Data Into a Content Plan?
We turn the export into decisions by giving every query one action. Each month, we tag the top queries in the spreadsheet with a single label: refresh an existing page, write a new post, rewrite a title, or leave it alone.
Next, we assign each query to the one page that should own it. If two URLs keep trading impressions for the same search, they are competing with each other. We merge them or sharpen the focus of one so Google has a clear choice.
This is how we pick which pages get refreshed in a given month. A refresh backed by Search Console data starts from a page Google already trusts, so it tends to move faster than a new post.
Four to six weeks after a change, we compare the page’s queries against an equal date range from before. Clicks and impressions tell us whether the update worked.
Start With the Searches You Already Show Up For
Search Console shows you the keywords Google already connects to your site. Sort by impressions, look for queries just off page one, fix titles that are not earning clicks, and use regex to pull out questions and long-tail phrases. Then give each query a page and a job.
If you want help reading your own data, the Peak Marketing team can review your Search Console account and point out the queries worth chasing first. Reach out to schedule a review, and we will show you where your next rankings are likely to come from.
Sources
- Google Search Console Help, Performance report (Search results)
- Google Search Console Help, What are impressions, position, and clicks?
- Google Analytics Help, Queries report (Search Console data retention)
- Search Engine Land, Regular expression filter support coming to Google Search Console performance reports
