Google supplies information about Search Query impressions, average position in the SERPs, CTR and qualified queries in the Google Webmaster tools.
When choosing and investigating Search Queries and Keyword Strategy, you need to look at -
- What are the goals of your website and your business?
- What groups are you targeting?
- Where are they locations?
- What devices are they using?
- What are their objectives?
- Can/do their objectives align with your company's business goals?
- Do their query terms match your content?
The answers to these questions will help you further target your on-page keywords and help you decide if a particular keyphrase will actually bring you qualified customers and traffic.
Remember to choose your Search Queries / Keywords by -
- Branded terms (navigational queries)
- Product categories (information queries)
- Conversion-focused (transactional queries)
- Seasonal, promotional
- Reviews, User Generated Content (UCG)
When investigating the 'top queries' that have brought your site Clicks, look at -
- Are these queries I would expect?
- Does it seem like these clicks would be qualified traffic?
- Can the display of my page in search queries (Page Title and Meta Description) be better optimised for this query?
If your site lacks clicks from Queries you think are important, think about -
- How your site ranks and appears for the query. If not at all, see if your query-relevant pages are indexed through a 'cache' or 'inur:' search ie. cache:http://example.com/page.html. If not indexed, check crawl errors in Webmaster Tools and then try to 'Fetch as Googlebot'.
- Is the search results display compelling?
- How do your competitors look?
To optimise your 'Top Pages', remember -
- Try to accept that your top pages for Google searches and Google might not be what you originally imagined.
- Check that all Top Pages are user-friendly and conversion-friendly
- Consider utilising top pages to internally link to your high-quality but lower ranking pages (that are relevant to the user)
Google Webmaster Tools gives you all the tools to help you see the performance metrics and diagnose any issues that visitors may be having when searching.