Google Search Console

Connect Google Search Console to see clicks, impressions and positions in a project, find page-2 searches worth an article, spot pages losing clicks, and see the searches each article shows for.

Search Console is Google's own record of how your site does in search: how often your pages show up (impressions), how often people click, and the average position. Connect it once and SerpPal shows these numbers in your projects and next to each article in the editor. It works on every plan.

#Connect Search Console

1. Open a project and click the Search Console tab next to Articles.
2. Click Connect Search Console. Google asks you to pick an account and to allow SerpPal to view Search Console data for your verified sites. Leave that box ticked and click Continue.
3. Back in SerpPal, pick the property that belongs to this project's site and click Use this property. SerpPal suggests the one that matches the project's website.

Only the project owner can connect it. Everyone on the project then sees the numbers. The access is read-only: SerpPal never changes anything in your Search Console.

#What you see in a project

• Clicks, impressions, average CTR and average position for the last 7 days, 28 days or 3 months, each with the change against the period before. For position, a lower number is better, so a drop in the number shows as an improvement.
• Clicks per day as a chart. Hover a day to see its clicks and impressions.
• Page 2 chances: searches where you sit at position 6 to 20 and people see you often. These are the easiest wins. Click Analyze to start an analysis for that search in this project, or Open if you already have an article for it.
• Top pages and Top searches, with the article in SerpPal when there is one.
• Losing clicks: pages with at least 20% fewer clicks than the period before. Usually a sign the article needs an update.
• Competing pages: searches where two or more of your pages show up. They compete with each other; merging them or linking one to the other usually helps one rank higher.

Search Console data runs about two days behind, so the newest days are not there yet. SerpPal keeps the numbers for a few hours; the refresh button asks Google again.

#In the editor

Open the Insights tab. The Search Console card shows the article's clicks, impressions and position, and the searches the page shows up for. Searches whose words your article does not use yet are marked not in article. Working them into the text (where they fit naturally) is often what moves a page up.

The card needs the article's target URL (More menu, Target URL), so SerpPal knows which page to look up. Articles published from SerpPal get it automatically.

#Disconnect

Go to Account, and under Google click Disconnect next to Search Console. SerpPal deletes its access and asks Google to remove it too. You can also remove SerpPal's access from your Google account at any time.