Google Webmaster Tools is something every Webmaster/ SEO Expert should have in their arsenal. Not only does Webmaster tools allow you to discover crawl errors, duplicate meta tags and googles crawl statistics.
Google Webmaster tools gives you unique insight into those keywords that you are getting SERP(Search Engine Results Page) impressions in terms that you would not know of as they are not what you targeted. It’s a great indication to what you can achieve with minimal effort. If you are ranking for some obscure long tail or short term then how hard would it be to get you to position one?
It may not have great search volumes for this term but you are still giving yourself a better online presence by focusing on your strengths. It’s a small investment of mainly your time to maybe get those couple of extra hits that bring in conversions and allow you to invest a lot in more difficult terms.
Not only does Google allow you to view the impression you get on keywords but it shows your average position and click through rate. What this allows you to do is analyse your keywords and what page is ranking for that keywords. If you are high in rankings but have a low CTR(Click Through Rate) then you need to figure out why.
Things to consider are:
- How are you displayed in the SERP for this keyword?
- How are your competitors displayed in the SERP and what attracts searches to them and not you.
CTR is usually based on your position but also is relative to the amount of PPC on that keyword.
Analysing some data collected it shows that a site ranking number 1 on a keyword that had 720 impressions a month had 110 clicks which equated to 15% CTR. Surprisingly low when you think that this is the number 1 organic result. But we cannot forget you have three PPC ads above this link and 3 PPC ads to the side that take up the visual area above or adjacent to this result.
It all equates to time and investment. You need time and investment to get a good quality score and lower the Cost per click for that term. You also need time and investment for SEO and to get that natural linking. However SEO is a tangible sum it’s much easier from a business perspective to budget for and work the company around. PPC however equates to your performance and how many clicks. This is harder to establish a solid value and to budget around and is not a long term investment.