If you’re not sure what Google Search Console is, you can head there right now.
It’s Google’s official tool that shows you, among other things, how much traffic you’re getting from organic searches, as well as the keywords users searched to find your content.
It’s an invaluable source for any SEO, but many content leaders who don’t focus on SEO don’t know it exists, or have seldom accessed it if they do.
Once you have your GSC account set up (or you may just need to ask someone in your organization for access), come back to finish reading this post.
Connecting GSC to GA4
There are three prerequisites to this step:
- You need access to GSC (hopefully you took care of that above) as a verified site owner
- You need to be logged into the same Google account on GSC as you are on GA4 (i.e. using the same email address)
- You need the correct GA4 property permissions (“Edit” or higher)
If you’re not sure if you check all those “boxes,” it will become evident pretty quickly as you follow along.
(Here’s a Reel I made to outline these steps.)
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1. Go to the Admin section of GA4 then scroll down on the right and click Search Console links under Product links
If you see something like this, your accounts have already been linked! You can skip to the next section (adding GSC data to GA4).
If not, continue with the following steps.
2. Click the blue Link button on the right.
3. Click the blue Choose accounts link
4. On the next window, you should see at least one Google Search Console property to which you have access as a verified site owner.
Each GSC property can only be linked to one GA4 property. In the following screenshot, you’ll see that the first five GSC properties to which I have access have a link symbol on the left side of the row. That means they’re already linked to other GA4 properties. (You may not see this on your dashboard.)
The GSC property you want to connect to your GA4 property should have an empty checkbox to the left instead. Click that so it turns blue with a white checkmark, like in the screenshot below.
(If the GSC property you want to link to GA4 has a link symbol next to it, it’s already been linked to another GA4 property. You’ll need access to the already linked GA4 property to unlink it and make it available for this property.)
Once you click the checkbox, click the blue confirm button on the top right.
You should now see something like the second screenshot in step one above. That is, your GSC property and GA4 property should be successfully linked, allowing you to import that search console data into Google Analytics 4.
That’s what we’re going to do in the next step.
Adding GSC Data to GA4
I have good news about adding Google Search Console data to your Google Analytics 4 dashboard: all you have to do is activate it.
That is, the report is pre-made.
1. In your Reports tab sidebar, scroll to the bottom and click Library
2. Use the navigational arrows to scroll to the right within the collections until you see the one that says “Search Console.”
Click the three dots, then select Publish. (In the following screenshot, you’ll see that it says Unpublish since I already published this collection.)
That’s it! Your pre-populated dashboards should now be live in your Reports dashboard.
Now let’s talk briefly about what these two reports show within the Search Console topic in the Search Console collection.
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Search Console Queries Report
This report will show data about your content when it shows up in someone’s Google Search Results. Here’s what each of the four default metrics mean:
Organic Google Search clicks
How many times someone clicked on an organic (i.e. not a paid ad) link to your content on Google.
Organic Google Search impressions
How many times your content appeared on someone’s screen in Google results based on the query for which they searched. They do not have to have clicked.
Organic Google Search click through rate
Clicks divided by impressions. The percentage of times your content is clicked when it shows up in Google organic search results.
If your CTR is particularly low (compared to your average) for a query where you have a high volume of impressions (again, relevant to your average), it could mean one of two things:
- Your content is showing up, but for whatever reason – title tag, meta description, brand recognition – users aren’t enticed to click through to your site.
- Users found all the information they need in the search results and don’t click through to anyone’s site. (This is called a zero-click search, and happens for inquiries like “When is ‘[celebrity]’s’ birthday” or “What time is the Super Bowl?”
Organic Google Search average position
Your average ranking on the search engine results page (SERP) among organic positions.
I would take this one with a grain of salt because SEO tools like Semrush and Ahrefs will show you much different numbers.
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Search Console Google Organic Search Traffic Report
This dashboard has a lot of overlap with the queries dashboard. The default versions, however, have two major differences.
Additional standard GA4 metrics are included. Whereas the queries report sticks to SEO-related metrics focusing on the SERP, this report sprinkles in things like active users, engagement rate and key events.
The primary dimension is landing page + query string instead of search query*. This is useful to know exactly what page users first landed on when they came to your site from Google. (This dimension can be used in conjunction with other channels, sources and mediums, too.)
What you can’t do – and this is mind-blowingly stupid – is use Organic Google Search Query as a secondary dimension along with landing page + query string, so you don’t know exactly which search term led to each session.
*FYI: This isn’t the place to go into more detail on the topic, but “query” strings and search “queries” have nothing to do with each other.
As with any other reports in your dashboard, these can be customized to your liking, but this is how they appear “out of the box.”
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