Most keyword research starts with guessing. You think about what your customers might search for, plug it into a tool, look at estimated monthly volumes, and try to figure out which keywords are worth targeting. It is a reasonable starting point but it has a fundamental limitation: you are working with estimates about searches happening across the entire internet, not with actual data about your specific website and your specific audience.
Google Search Console removes that guesswork for one critical category of keyword research. It shows you the exact queries real people have typed into Google before seeing your website in the results. Not estimates. Not projections. Real searches, from real people, that led to your pages appearing in Google’s results, whether they clicked through or not.
Most keyword research tools provide estimated search volumes, but Google Search Console shows actual data on searches that lead users to your site, ensuring accuracy with real-time SEO data.
That data is a goldmine if you know how to use it. This guide shows you exactly how.
If you are new to keyword research and want to understand what keywords are and why they matter before diving in, our article on what keywords are and why they matter is a good starting point.
What You Will Learn
- What Google Search Console is and why it matters for keyword research
- The four key metrics and what each one tells you
- How to find keywords you are almost ranking for and push them to page one
- How to find keywords driving impressions but no clicks
- How to identify content gaps and new topic opportunities
- How to filter and export your data for deeper analysis
If you want to understand how Google Search Console data fits into a broader keyword strategy, our complete keyword research for small business guide covers the full process from scratch.
What Is Google Search Console and How Do You Access It?
Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool provided by Google that shows you how your website performs in Google Search. It is the most authoritative source of keyword data available to any website owner because it comes directly from Google itself, not from a third-party database of estimates.
To access it, go to search.google.com/search-console. You will need to verify that you own the website by adding a small piece of code to your site or by connecting it through your Google Analytics account. Most modern website platforms like WordPress make this straightforward.
If you have not set it up yet, do that first. There is no other free tool that gives you this quality of data about your own site’s performance in Google Search.
The Four Metrics You Need to Understand
Before diving into keyword research techniques, you need to understand the four core metrics in GSC’s Performance report. Every keyword research insight in this guide comes from combining and filtering these four numbers.
Clicks: The number of times someone clicked on your website from the Google search results for a particular query. This is actual traffic delivered to your site.
Impressions: The number of times your website appeared in the Google search results for a particular query, whether or not anyone clicked on it. A page can have thousands of impressions and very few clicks.
CTR (Click-Through Rate): The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click. If your page appeared 1,000 times for a query and received 30 clicks, your CTR is 3%. Average CTR varies significantly by position.
Average Position: The average ranking position your page appeared at for a particular query. Position 1 is the top result. Position 11 is the first result on page two.
According to 2026 data, the top three positions capture roughly 55% of all clicks. By the time you reach position 11, the start of page two, you are getting less than 1% of the clicks.
Understanding the relationship between these four metrics is the foundation of everything that follows.
Google Search Console’s Performance report provides four core metrics that reveal how often your website appears in search results, how many people click, and how well your pages are performing overall.
Technique 1: Find Your Striking Distance Keywords
This is the highest-value keyword research technique available in Google Search Console, and it produces the fastest results.
Striking distance keywords are queries where your website is already ranking between position 5 and position 15, meaning you are on page one but not in the top positions, or just spilling onto page two. Google has already decided your content is relevant for these searches. You are visible. But you are not getting the clicks because the top three positions capture most of them.
Moving a keyword from position 8 to position 3 is not a 50% improvement in traffic. It is a five to ten times improvement in traffic. These are your fastest wins in SEO because Google already considers you relevant. You just need to prove you are the best answer.
To understand the full range of signals Google uses to evaluate relevance and decide which pages deserve the top positions, our article on top SEO ranking factors covers what matters most in 2026.
How to find them
Go to the Performance report in Google Search Console. Make sure all four metrics are enabled at the top. Set your date range to the last three months. Click the Queries tab in the table below the graph.
Now add a filter. Click the filter icon, select Position, and filter for positions greater than 4 and less than 16. This narrows your view to only the striking distance range.
Sort the results by Impressions, highest first. This surfaces the keywords with the most traffic potential at the top of your list.
What you are looking for: queries with high impressions, moderate to low CTR, and a position between 5 and 15. A keyword appearing 2,000 times per month at position 9 with a 1% CTR is screaming for attention. Moving it from position 9 to position 3 could increase your clicks tenfold from that single query.
What to do with them
For each striking distance keyword you identify, go to the page that is currently ranking for it. Check whether the keyword appears in the page title, the H1 heading, and naturally throughout the content. Often a simple improvement to the page title to include the exact query phrasing, combined with strengthening the content on that specific topic, is enough to push the page into the top three.
Our article on meta title best practices covers exactly how to write page titles that improve rankings and click-through rates. Once you know which keywords to target, our guide to strategic keyword placement covers exactly where to use them on the page for maximum ranking impact.
Striking distance keywords already rank close to page one, making them some of the easiest opportunities to improve traffic through content updates and on-page optimisation.
Technique 2: Find High-Impression, Low-CTR Keywords
This technique surfaces a different category of opportunity: keywords where your page is appearing frequently in search results but almost nobody is clicking on it.
High impressions with low CTR usually means one of two things. Either your page is ranking well but your title tag and meta description are not compelling enough to earn a click, or your page is appearing for a search where the intent does not quite match what you are offering.
Go to the Performance report, remove the position filter, and sort the queries table by Impressions descending. Now look at the CTR column alongside each query. A query with more than 500 impressions and less than 2% CTR at a position above 10 is an opportunity worth investigating.
Click on the query to see which page on your site is appearing for it. Then ask yourself: does this page’s title and meta description clearly tell the searcher that this is the answer to their question? If not, updating those elements is your first step.
An optimised meta description can increase CTR by up to 43%. This is a classic quick test when impressions rise without corresponding click growth.
Our article on how to write page titles and meta descriptions covers exactly how to write meta elements that earn clicks, which is the most direct lever you have for improving CTR on high-impression, low-CTR queries.
Technique 3: Find Content Gaps and New Topic Opportunities
Google Search Console often surfaces queries you never consciously targeted but that Google has decided your content is relevant enough to show for. These accidental rankings are some of the most valuable insights in the tool.
Go to the Performance report and look through your full query list without any position filter. You are looking for queries that are driving impressions or occasional clicks to pages on your site where the query does not obviously match the page’s primary topic.
For example: a Brisbane electrician’s website might have a service page for general electrical work but GSC shows it appearing for the query “smoke alarm installation Brisbane.” If that query is getting impressions but the page barely mentions smoke alarms, there is a clear opportunity. Either update the existing page to better cover smoke alarms, or create a dedicated service page for that topic.
This technique is essentially letting Google tell you what content to create next. The queries that are triggering your existing pages are a direct signal of what your audience is looking for that you could serve better with more targeted content. Once you identify queries you are accidentally ranking for, our guide on how to choose the right keywords for your business helps you evaluate which ones are worth actively pursuing.
Our article on topical authority in SEO covers why building out content clusters around topics your audience is already searching for is one of the most effective long-term SEO strategies available.
Technique 4: Find Keywords Losing Ground and Investigate Why
GSC’s date comparison feature lets you compare two time periods side by side. This is powerful for identifying keywords where your rankings have dropped, clicks have declined, or CTR has fallen unexpectedly.
In the Performance report, click the date selector and choose Compare. Select two comparable periods, such as the last three months versus the same three months the previous year, or the last month versus the month before.
The resulting view shows you which queries have seen the biggest changes in clicks, impressions, position, and CTR. Significant drops in position on previously strong queries signal either a content quality issue, a technical problem, or a competitor who has published something better on the same topic.
When you find a keyword losing ground, click through to the page ranking for it and audit the content. Is it still accurate? Is it comprehensive? Has a competitor recently published something that does the topic more justice? Often refreshing and expanding the content is enough to recover the lost ground.
Comparing two date ranges in Google Search Console makes it easier to spot performance trends, identify declining pages and measure the impact of SEO improvements.
Technique 5: Filter by Page to Find Underperforming Pages
Rather than starting with keywords, this technique starts with your most important pages and checks how they are performing in search.
In the Performance report, click the Pages tab instead of Queries. This shows you which pages on your site are generating the most impressions and clicks from Google Search. Sort by Impressions to see which pages are appearing most frequently.
Now click on any page from the list. The report will filter to show you only the queries that are triggering that specific page. This is valuable for understanding whether a page is ranking for the right keywords. If your homepage is appearing primarily for your brand name, that is expected. If your main SEO service page is appearing for queries about “how to do SEO yourself” rather than “SEO agency Brisbane,” that is a signal that the page content is not aligned with the commercial intent you want to rank for.
Use this view to check that each of your most important service pages is appearing for the right types of queries, and that the queries driving the most impressions are ones that are likely to convert.
How to Export Your GSC Data for Deeper Analysis
The Google Search Console interface gives you a solid starting point, but for more detailed analysis it is worth exporting your data to a spreadsheet.
In the Performance report, click the Export button in the top right corner. You can export to Google Sheets, Excel, or CSV. Once exported, you can apply filters and sorting that are more flexible than the GSC interface allows.
A useful export workflow: filter your queries in GSC to the striking distance range first, then export. Open the spreadsheet and sort by impressions descending, then manually review each row and flag the keywords where the potential traffic gain from a position improvement is highest. This becomes your SEO priority list for the next 30 to 60 days.
How GSC Keyword Data Fits With Other Research Tools
Google Search Console is the most accurate source of data about your own website’s existing performance. What it does not show you is data about keywords you are not yet ranking for at all. For that, you need additional tools.
While Google Search Console is not the most effective keyword research tool for new ideas, it is the best tool for finding quick wins from keywords where you already have some presence.
The best approach is to use GSC in combination with other tools:
- GSC for finding quick wins from existing rankings and identifying content gaps signalled by accidental rankings
- Google Keyword Planner for discovering new keyword opportunities in categories where you have no current rankings
- Free tools like AlsoAsked and Answer The Public for understanding the questions your audience is asking around your core topics
Our article on free keyword research tools covers the full range of no-cost options available in 2026 and how to use each one effectively.
Google Search Console is one of the most powerful free keyword research methods available, but it works best when combined with a few other quick, free techniques. This short covers one of Isaac’s favourite methods for finding keyword ideas fast.
How Often Should You Review Your GSC Data?
For most Australian small businesses, a monthly GSC review is sufficient to catch meaningful changes and act on striking distance opportunities before they are missed.
A simple monthly routine:
- Check the Performance report for any significant drops in clicks or impressions compared to the previous month
- Run the striking distance filter and add any new opportunities to your optimisation list
- Review the Pages report to check that your most important service pages are generating the right types of queries
- Check the Pages report under Indexing to make sure no new pages have dropped out of the index
For businesses with larger sites or more competitive markets, a fortnightly review gives you faster visibility of issues and opportunities. Our article on how long SEO takes gives useful context for understanding the timelines over which GSC improvements typically translate into ranking and traffic gains.
Ready to Start Using Google Search Console Properly?
Google Search Console is free, it is authoritative, and it contains keyword opportunities most Australian business owners are completely unaware of. The striking distance technique alone, done once per month with fifteen minutes of focused attention, can produce more SEO impact than weeks of content creation targeting keywords you have no current presence for.
If you want to understand your current keyword performance and where your biggest opportunities are, our Free Website and Marketing Review includes a review of your Search Console data and a plain-English summary of what it is telling us about your SEO health. Request yours at ape-x.com.au/review. And for a full picture of how keyword research fits into your complete SEO strategy, our SEO service page covers how we approach it for Australian businesses.
