Using Google Webmaster Tools to Generate Content Ideas

Google Webmaster Tools is designed for website managers – it is a service that points out diagnostic issues on your website as well as letting you see how you appear to Google.

Used in combination with Google Analytics, GWT is extremely useful as a content marketing tool. In this article I will show you how to use GWT to find ideas for content.

What is Google Webmaster Tools and how to use it?

Webmaster Tools can be accessed here. If you don’t have administrative access to it, speak to your webmaster. Show them this article to explain what you are trying to do.

If you have access to your site’s Google Analytics account and if Analytics has been linked to the GWT account, you will be able to view the data you need within Analytics.

Whether you are in GWT or Google Analytics, what you need to view is the Queries data. This will show you how many times your website has appeared in search results for specific search terms.

Export this data to a spreadsheet, so you can view it all easily.

Queries data, average positions and click-through ratios

The queries and the traffic are not the same. A query means someone searched for a specific phrase and your website appeared somewhere in the results. GWT also shows you the click counts and a click-through ratio, as well as average positions.

Now, let’s compare this data with overall market data to see how many times people use these search terms.

Comparing Webmaster Tools queries data with Google volumes

Go to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, which you don’t need to log into. Paste your list of queries into the box, select the exact match option – on the left – and submit. The Keyword Tool will show you the average number of searches per month for each search term.

Here, I’ll demonstrate that visually. Below is a table from the Keyword Tool showing search volumes for a number of terms related to office partitions.

Now compare that list with these two items from GWT, showing the number of times the site actually appeared in results.

‘Glass office partitions’ is searched for around 170 times per month, on average, but it only appeared 70 times in search results. The good news is that it is appearing more than in the previous month and climbing up the rankings.

Action 1: Create more content on the website to support this phrase and keep it climbing up the rankings.

‘Louvre blinds’ is searched for 260 times per month but it only appeared in search results 50 times. It is also climbing but needs a push to make it climb further.

Action 2: Create content about louvre blinds on the site to make it more relevant for the phrase and to improve rankings.

Higher rankings will, most likely, increase click-throughs. There’s more to it than that because you need to understand how to optimise your content to make it achieve the results you need.

Hopefully, this article at least gives you some ideas for enhancing your content marketing strategy with data-driven ideas that are based on evidence rather than guesswork.