What is a Google Search Console dashboard?
A Google Search Console dashboard is an interface tool that consolidates data from Google Search Console to track and display key performance indicators (KPIs) such as impressions, clicks, and average position, enabling teams to monitor website performance in search results and create presentations for stakeholders.
Google Search Console dashboards are typically built using flexible tools like Google Looker Studio, Power BI, or Google Sheets to enable high customization and integration of data from Google Search Console.
What to include in a Google Search Console dashboard?
An actionable Google Search Console dashboard balances context and specificity based on the audience (executives, managers, and analysts) and their use cases.
Executive Google Search Console dashboards
Executive dashboards for CMOs, CEOs, and clients show the impact of search visibility on business goals. Reviewed weekly, monthly, or quarterly, they include:
- Search performance analysis: by query, page, and country to understand visibility and traffic sources.
- Click-through rate (CTR) analysis: to evaluate the effectiveness of search snippets.
- Keyword ranking trends: to track changes in search positions over time.
- Add text for additional context to translate metrics for non-technical audiences. Present in slide decks and simplified Looker Studio reports.
Manager dashboards
Manager dashboards provide detailed views with drill-downs to see performance by query, page, country, and device. They help align teams, define tactics, and include:
- Search query reporting: overall performance by query and page.
- Goal tracking: compare current performance vs objectives.
- Site audits for identifying and prioritizing technical issues.
- Competitive analysis for search visibility and keyword opportunities.
- Topic and keyword research for content optimization.
Operational Google Search Console Dashboards
Operational dashboards for analysts and SEO specialists have granular, customizable KPIs to solve technical issues. Monitored hourly, daily, or weekly, they cover:
- Search performance: impressions, clicks, CTR, and average position.
- Technical SEO: crawl errors, mobile usability, and page speed insights.
- Backlink analysis: to monitor and evaluate link profiles.
Operational Google Search Console dashboards are highly customized, built in flexible tools like Google Sheets or Looker Studio to enable data cleaning, blending, annotations, and integrating multiple sources.
How to build a Google Search Console dashboard?
To build a Google Search Console dashboard, connect your data sources, choose a template on Looker Studio or Sheets, build your queries by selecting metrics and dimensions, choose charts to visualize your data, customize the dashboard, design and share via link, PDF or email.
Here’s the breakdown:
Connect data sources
Define and connect the data sources to bring to your dashboard. The primary source is Google Search Console for search performance data.
To connect your data sources, go to portermetrics.com, choose the data sources to bring to your dashboard.
You can follow these tutorials on connecting your data:
Choose a template
Choose from dozens of Google Search Console dashboard templates in Google Sheets or Looker Studio, designed for use cases like search performance monitoring, keyword analysis, and technical SEO insights.
Learn to copy Looker Studio templates.
While templates are the starting point, make them specific for your business or agency. Map your specific metrics, especially custom queries, page data, and all the fields and metrics that you define as "key performance indicators".
Depending on your reporting tool—Google Sheets or Google Looker Studio, pick any of the dozens of templates created by our team and customers to solve your Google Search Console reporting use cases, such as search performance monitoring, keyword analysis, and technical SEO insights.
Select metrics, dimensions, and charts
Once your dashboard template is downloaded, you may 1) modify it or 2) create a blank page to build it from scratch. Whatever the case, setting up a query always follows these steps:
- Select the data source and the account connected to it
- Choose metrics (e.g. Impressions, Clicks, CTR, Average Position, etc.).
- Choose breakdowns to segment your data (e.g. by date, query, page, country, etc.)
You can follow these tutorials on adding data to your dashboards
Design
To make your Google Search Console dashboards truly white-label you can add logos, colors, fonts, and styling to mirror your brand.
Follow these tutorials to design your Google Search Console dashboards:
Share
Share your Google Search Console dashboards via links, PDF, schedule emails, and control permissions.
KPIs to include in a Google Search Console dashboard?
Google Search Console dashboards should include a mix of visibility, engagement, and technical metrics to fully understand the performance of your website in search results. They include:
Visibility metrics measure how often your site appears in search results:
- Impressions: the number of times your site appears in search results.
- Average Position: the average ranking of your site in search results.
Engagement metrics measure user interaction with your site in search results:
- Clicks: the number of times users clicked on your site in search results.
- Click-through Rate (CTR): the ratio of clicks to impressions.
Technical metrics help identify and resolve issues affecting search performance:
- Crawl Errors: issues preventing search engines from accessing your site.
- Mobile Usability: issues affecting mobile user experience.
- Page Speed: insights into page load times and performance.
To analyze these KPIs, segment them by:
- Query: specific search terms driving traffic.
- Page: individual pages on your site.
- Country: geographic location of users.
- Device: desktop, mobile, or tablet.
