There is a free tool that can tell you exactly what search terms people are using to find your website—or to try to find it and land somewhere else instead. It can tell you which of your pages appear in search results and how often people actually click on them. It can tell you whether Google has found errors on your site, whether your pages are being indexed, and whether you have broken links that are costing you traffic.
That tool is Google Search Console. If you have a website, you should be using it. Many nonprofits have it installed but have never opened it. Some don’t have it at all. This post is a plain-language walkthrough for anyone who wants to start using it without needing a technical background.
Getting set up
If you don’t already have Search Console connected to your site, start at search.google.com/search-console. You’ll need a Google account. The setup process involves verifying that you own your domain—Google offers several ways to do this, but the easiest for most website platforms is to add a meta tag to your site’s header. Squarespace has a built-in field for Google verification codes under Settings > Marketing > Google Search Console. WordPress has plugins that handle it. Your platform’s documentation will have specific instructions.
Once verified, it takes a few days for data to start populating. Come back after a week and you’ll have something to look at.
The one report that matters most: Performance
Inside Search Console, the report you’ll spend the most time in is called Performance. It’s in the left navigation. Click it.
What you’re looking at is a graph of your site’s search traffic over time, and below it, a table with four columns: Queries, Pages, Countries, and Devices. The default view shows Queries—the actual search terms people used and the click and impression data associated with each one.
Here’s what those terms mean:
- Impressions means the number of times your site appeared in search results for that query.
- Clicks means the number of times someone actually clicked through to your site.
- Click-through rate (CTR) is clicks divided by impressions—what percentage of people who saw your site in results actually visited.
- Position is your average ranking for that query. Position 1 means you appeared first. Position 10 means you appeared at the bottom of the first page.
What to look for
Start with the Queries tab. Sort by Impressions. This shows you what people are searching for when your site comes up, even if they don’t click.
High impressions, low CTR: These are queries where you’re showing up but not getting the click. That usually means either your title or meta description isn’t compelling enough to make someone want to visit, or your result is appearing in a position too low to get attention. Look at these carefully—they represent traffic you could be capturing.
Queries you didn’t expect: Sometimes you’ll see search terms that surprise you—things you didn’t know people were searching for in relation to your organization’s work. These can reveal gaps in your content (questions people have that you’re not answering well) or opportunities to be more explicit about services you offer.
Your organization’s name: Search for your organization name in the query filter. How well are you ranking for your own name? If you’re not the first result for your own name, that’s worth addressing.
Service and location terms: Search for terms like your service area, your city, the kind of help you provide. How often do you appear for those searches? What position? If you’re a legal aid clinic in New Haven and you’re not appearing in the top few results for “legal aid New Haven,” that’s a gap worth working on.
The Pages tab
Switch to the Pages tab in the same Performance report. Now you can see which pages on your site are getting search traffic—and which ones aren’t.
Your homepage likely gets the most traffic. But look further. Are your services pages appearing in search? Are your resources and guides being found? Are there important pages on your site with zero impressions, meaning Google either hasn’t indexed them or they’re not appearing for any searches?
A page with zero impressions could mean several things: it’s too new to have been indexed, it’s not linked from anywhere Google can find it, or there’s no search demand for the content on it. Each of those has a different solution.
The Coverage and Indexing reports
In the left navigation, you’ll find an Indexing section with a Pages report. This tells you which pages on your site Google has indexed—meaning it knows they exist and can include them in search results—and which have errors or have been excluded.
Look at the “Not indexed” section. Pages there might have a status like “Crawled - currently not indexed” (Google found it but decided not to include it), “Discovered - currently not indexed” (Google knows it exists but hasn’t visited it yet), or “Blocked by robots.txt” (something on your site is telling Google not to index it).
If important pages—your services page, your about page, key resource pages—are not indexed, that’s a problem worth investigating.
The Links report
Also under Indexing, there’s a Links report. It shows you which pages have the most internal links pointing to them (useful for understanding your site’s structure) and which external sites are linking to you.
External links from other sites are one of the most important factors in search ranking. If you work with partner organizations, have been mentioned in press, or have been cited in reports, look for those links here. And if you’re not being linked to from anywhere, think about whether there are organizations or directories in your sector that should be listing you.
One thing to do this week
If you do nothing else after reading this: open Search Console, go to the Performance report, look at the Queries tab, and find the five queries with the highest impressions but the lowest click-through rate. Those are the conversations happening around your work where your website is showing up but failing to bring people in. Understanding why—and addressing it—is one of the most direct ways to get your services in front of more people who need them.
If you’d like help interpreting what Search Console is telling you about your site, or figuring out what to do about it, I’m happy to work through it with you.