How to Integrate Search Console 101
In 2012, Google stopped including search terms in the Referer header when people click on a Google search. They only send Google as the referrer source instead.
However, you can still access your search terms by setting up your blog on Google Search Console. Once you’ve done that, you can enable the Search Console integration in Inblog to get all your important search results stats under one roof. Google is basically just sending us the information they've already collected on their search results.
Here’s how you can add your site to Search Console and then integrate the Search Console data into your Inblog dashboard:
What Is Google Search Console?
Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool that helps you monitor your site’s search performance and technical SEO health.
It reports on a variety of metrics, from search appearance to user experience. Which can help you improve your site and get more traffic from Google.
Here are just a few things you can do with GSC:
Review how your site is performing on Google
See which pages Google can find and index on your site
Submit sitemaps and individual URLs for crawling
Identify technical SEO errors
The Data You Get When You Connect Search Console
The “Search results” report in GSC displays data for four key performance metrics:
Total clicks: The number of clicks coming to your site from Google organic search
Total impressions: The number of times your pages appeared in Google search results
Average CTR: The number of clicks divided by the number of impressions (multiplied by 100 to give a percentage)
Average position: The average ranking of where your search results appeared on Google (across all impressions)
Search Console provides query-level information on the same four performance metrics.
Queries are the specific search terms visitors typed into Google before finding your site (i.e., keywords). Here is an example showing the top search queries.
Add your blog to the Google Search Console
Important: If your blog is already set up on Google Search Console, you can skip to the "Allow Inblog to access your Search Console" step.
Head over to Google Search Console and click on the "Start now" button.
Select the URL Prefix property type and add your website URL. The URL should be the domain after connecting a custom domain, such as 'https://blog.yoursite.com'or 'https://www.yoursite.com/blog'. Please ensure that 'https://' is included.
Click 'Continue'.
Verify your blog ownership
You'll see different options to prove to Google that you own this website. Inblog use the adding HTML meta tag method to verify your ownership. Please click on the 'HTML tag' area.
Copy the provided meta tag. It will be unique and tied to a specific user.
Paste the verification code into the input field labeled "Step 3: Paste the verification code" within the SEO setup wizard's Site Verification step.
or paste it into the <head> section of the Inblog custom code. Find it under "Blog settings > Code injection > End of the <head> tag" section.
Click "Verify" in Google Search Console.
Allow Inblog to access your Search Console
In the "Step 5: Allow Inblog to access your Search Console" within the SEO setup wizard's Site Verification step, or in the "Blog settings > Integration > Search Console" Section, click on the 'Continue with Google' button which will take you through to Google’s authentication flow to get the necessary permissions.
Choose your Google account to continue with the authentication.
Click "Allow" button to grant Inblog a permission to view your Search Console website data.
References
1. https://plausible.io/docs/google-search-console-integration
2. https://www.semrush.com/blog/connect-google-search-console-analytics/
3. https://www.semrush.com/blog/google-search-console/