The Search Keywords panel in Analytics reveals which search terms drive traffic to your site from search engines, helping you optimize your content strategy based on actual user searches.

To access this data:

1. Open Analytics
2. Click Traffic
3. Select Search Keywords
4. Choose Google or Other search engines
5. Set your desired date range (data available from January 2014)

Google Search Keywords Analysis

To view Google search data, verify your site with Google Search Console. After verification, wait 72 hours for data to populate. The panel shows four key metrics:

• Total clicks: Number of clicks from search results
• Total impressions: Times your site appeared in searches
• Average click-through rate: (Clicks ÷ Impressions) × 100
• Average position: Your average ranking in search results

The trend graph displays top four keywords' performance over time, while the table below shows detailed metrics for up to 200 keywords, including:

• Search terms
• Clicks and click-through rates
• Impressions
• Average position

Other Search Engines

The "Other search engines" tab shows traffic from platforms like Bing and DuckDuckGo, displaying:

• Search terms driving visitors
• Number of times each term was used
• Source search engines for each keyword

Using Search Keywords Data

To optimize your site:

1. Target content using popular search terms
2. Improve pages with high impressions but low click-through rates
3. Add performing keywords to relevant product descriptions
4. Consider verifying your site with additional search engines

Note: Some search data may be masked as "Not provided" for security reasons, and searches over 80 characters are excluded. If data seems incorrect, verify it against Google Search Console directly.

For best results, focus keywords on areas where visitors are already finding you and align your content with their search language and intent.

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