In a new video tutorial, Google Search Advocates Daniel Waisberg and Cherry Prommawin explain how to use Google Search Console's reports to manage and optimize news sites.
This video provides comprehensive information on using Search Console data to be more successful on Google platforms.
Performance Reporting: The Key to Analyzing Search Existence
Waisberg begins by discussing the importance of the Search Console performance reports, focusing on the three main reports: Search, Discovery, and News.
Each report provides a different data set to review your website's performance.
“The best way to analyze search results is through the Search Console Performance Report,” explains Wasiberg.
Search Console allows you to view data from the News tab and the main Google search results. You can filter the data to examine the performance of various tabs in Google Search, including Web Pages, Images, Videos, and News.
Unlock the Potential of Data Analytics
Prommawin shares some techniques for evaluating Search Console performance reporting data.
It's worth noting that if you don't see key pages in your performance reports, they aren't getting traffic from Google Search.
Use the URL inspection tool to determine whether individual pages are indexed and crawled correctly.
Additionally, Prommawin explains how to identify opportunities by analyzing search patterns:
“If you see that people searching for sports news are consistently appending your brand name to their queries, it could be a sign that the content is driving a loyal audience to your site.”
Another important metric in performance reporting is click-through rate (CTR).
If a page has more impressions but fewer clicks, it may be an indication that the search snippet is not getting attention.
Improving titles and descriptions can help make snippets more engaging.
Learn more about Google News and Google Search
The Google News report is separate from the Search Performance report and provides data from news.google.com and the Google News app on Android and iOS.
This data does not include information from the “News” tab in Google search results.
Although the data is different, the type of analysis performed using the Google News report is similar to the type of analysis performed using the Search Performance report.
Prommawin recommends:
“An interesting analysis would be to export the data for both reports and try to compare what works on Google Search versus what works on Google News.”
Addressing Variability in Time
Both advocates emphasized the importance of analyzing performance data over different time frames.
Longer analysis periods can highlight a site's evergreen long-term content and major news categories, while shorter analysis periods may reveal more information about current top news stories.
“Looking at a longer time period should highlight your site's more evergreen long-term content and your site's major news categories. Looking at a shorter time period should show you more information about the larger news stories you're currently searching for, ’ explains Waisberg.
Utilize the search console
The tutorial concludes with urging news organizations to use Search Console, which offers several ways to optimize your site's performance on Google Search and Google News.
By following the advice shared in the video, news sites can better optimize their performance, drive more traffic, and succeed on Google's platform.
source: youtube
Featured image: Screenshot from YouTube.com/GoogleSearchCentral, May 2023.
