Measuring SEO with Search Console and GA4: what to actually look at

Most business owners have Google Analytics installed and Search Console set up, or at least think they do. Fewer look at either regularly, usually because the dashboards are cluttered and it’s not obvious which numbers matter.

You don’t need to become an analyst. You need a short list of things to check, a rough idea of what they mean, and the discipline to look monthly rather than daily.

Here’s a sensible starting point. Interfaces change fairly often, so menu names may differ slightly from what’s described, but the ideas stay the same.

Two tools, two different jobs

• Google Search Console tells you what happens before someone reaches your site: which searches you appear for, how often, where you rank on average and how often people click. It also reports technical problems Google finds.
• Google Analytics 4 (GA4) tells you what happens after they arrive: which pages they visit, how engaged they are, and, if set up properly, whether they enquire or buy.

You need both. Search Console shows whether you’re being found. GA4 shows whether being found is doing anything useful.

In Search Console: the Performance report

The Performance report is where most of the value is. Set the date range to the last three months and compare it with the previous period, or the same period last year if your business is seasonal. You’ll see four numbers:

• Clicks: how many times people clicked through to your site from Google search.
• Impressions: how many times your site appeared in results that someone saw, or could have seen.
• Average CTR: clicks divided by impressions.
• Average position: your average ranking across all the searches you appeared for.

Average position is the most misleading of the four. It’s averaged across every search, including obscure ones where you rank on page six. It can drop when you start appearing for lots of new searches, which is actually good news. Treat it with caution.

The useful work happens in the tabs below the chart:

1. Queries: which searches bring clicks. Are they the ones that relate to your services? Are there queries with lots of impressions but few clicks, where a better title might help?
2. Pages: which pages get search traffic. Are your key service pages among them?
3. Countries and devices: useful sanity checks for a local business.

In GA4: focus on outcomes

GA4 can feel overwhelming. For SEO, narrow it down to three questions:

1. How much traffic comes from organic search? Look at traffic acquisition reports, filtered to organic search.
2. Which pages do those visitors land on? Check the landing page report, again filtered to organic.
3. Do they take action? This is the one that matters, and it only works if you’ve set up key events for things like form submissions, calls from the website and bookings.

If your GA4 doesn’t track enquiries, fixing that is worth more than any other analytics task. Without it, you’re judging SEO on visits, and visits don’t pay the bills.

Rankings and traffic are signs of progress. Enquiries and sales are the result. Make sure you can measure the result, or you’ll end up managing the signs.

Things the data won’t tell you precisely

Be aware of the limits:

• Neither tool gives a perfect count. Cookie consent choices, ad blockers and privacy features mean GA4 won’t see every visitor, and Search Console filters out some rare queries for privacy.
• Phone calls from your Google Business Profile won’t appear in GA4 at all, because the person never visited your site. Check your profile’s own performance data for calls and direction requests.
• The two tools count things differently, so their numbers won’t match exactly. That’s normal.
• Many enquiries involve several touches: someone finds you in search, sees you on social, then types your name weeks later. Credit is messy.

Asking customers “how did you hear about us?” is still a valuable, low-tech check alongside the data.

A monthly 20-minute routine

1. Search Console Performance: clicks and impressions versus last period and last year.
2. Top queries: any new relevant ones? Any important ones slipping?
3. Top pages: are service pages growing?
4. Page indexing and Core Web Vitals reports: any new warnings?
5. GA4: organic sessions, landing pages and key events.
6. Google Business Profile performance: calls, website clicks, direction requests.
7. Write down three sentences: what changed, why you think it changed, what you’ll do next.

That last step is the one that turns numbers into decisions.

Want clearer reporting?

If setting up tracking properly feels like a job you’ll never get round to, our dashboards and reporting service can pull the important numbers into one simple view. And as part of our SEO work, reporting focuses on enquiries, not just rankings.