Use Looker Studio to Improve SEO Reporting
If you’re tracking, measuring and reporting out on SEO performance you’ve likely run into Google Search Console (GSC) limitations. When using the GSC user interface (UI), users are limited to 1,000 rows when viewing search queries and landing pages. This is also true when exporting data from GSC to CSV or Excel. This can be a challenging limitation to deal with for large websites. Thankfully there’s an easy solution.
Connecting Looker Studio & GSC
Looker Studio (formerly known as Data Studio) is a free Google tool that allows users to create interactive dashboards using various data sources.
Connecting your Search Console data to Looker Studio is quick and simple. When you begin creating a new report a pop-up will appear asking you to add a data source. Simply search for search console and click on the connector created by Google (screenshot below).
The advantage of using Looker Studio for GSC data
The advantage of using Looker Studio for viewing and export Search Console data is the increased query limit. Google allows you to view and export up to 50,000 rows of search query and/or landing page through Looker Studio.
Looker Studio supported up to 5,000 rows until late March 2022 when Google announced an increase to 50,000. This increase means Looker Studio’s row limit now aligns with Google Search Console’s API daily limit of 50,000 rows per data per site per search type.
Visualize data with customizable reports
Using Looker Studio also allows you to visualize your SEO data with customizable reports. Looker Studio offers numerous types of graphs and charts, many of which are interactive. Data controls can be added to reports allowing users to filter data by predefined segments. You can also add images, text and links to your reports.
You can share access to reports you build in Looker Studio with anyone that has a Google Account (similar to their other products). And if you need to export your report to a PDF Looker Studio, has you covered there as well.
Blending data
Google Search Console isn’t your only source of SEO data. Site engagement data and other sources are also critically important to measure and report out on. Thankfully Looker Studio can blend data from other sources into a single report. Google offers a free connector for Google Analytics 4 (GA4) similar to the GSC one referenced above. SEO tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush also offer connectors too, however there could be costs associated with using them. You can also build your own connector if you’re a developer.
Blending organic search data from multiple sources will improve your ability to measure and report on the impact of SEO efforts. And digging deeper into data from sources like Search Console could help you uncover hidden opportunities.