How to Connect Google Search Console to Google Analytics? [+2 Reports]

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Connecting Google Search Console to Google Analytics 4 is easy. It’s also a smart move from a data collection point of view. The 2 search console reports in GA give you valuable insights on the performance of your website in Google. Ready to roll up your sleeves?

Before following the step-by-step instructions, it may be good to have a look first at the other topics of this article. These will help you decide if the effort is worth your time. (Spoiler alert: it ab-so-lu-te-ly is.)

Before you start, make sure you

Ready? Open your GA account and follow the 12 steps below.

Make sure you select the right GA account and then click on the clog in the left bottom of your Google Analytics 4account.

In the Propertycolumn of your admin panel, you now scroll down to Product Links.

Here you click on Search Console Links.

Click on the blue button Link.This will open a configuration screen with 3 simple steps.

Click on the Choose accountsbutton.This will open a list of accounts you can add to Google Analytics accounts.

Needless to say, but doing it anyway. Make sure you pick the right account. And then hit the blue Confirmbutton in the right top corner.

Now you click on Next.

In the next step, you need to click on select.

And then you click on your data stream.

Finally, you click on Next.

You can go back by clicking on Previous. Or you can Confirmthe settings to connect your Search Console property to your Google Analytics property.

Time for the next steps.

You can find Reports in the menu on the left.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Libraryin the menu on the left.

Click on the blue Create new report button.

On the report create page, you can click on one of the two available Search Console templates. They contain a preset of useful data graphs and charts.

Here, you also have 3 dimensions:

You can further customize your search console reports, but unless you are sure about what you are doing, it’s best to skip this step. Later on, you can get back to customizing your report. I briefly explain this lower down this page.

Repeat steps 3 – 5 to create the other search console report.

Roll down your sleeves. It’s time to dive into your search console reports.

If you have followed the steps above, you can find your search console data under Reports.

Click on a report to see more details, or customize it.

The default Query search report focuses on queries. Those are in fact the keywords people type into Google.

1. Organic google search clicks and Organic google search impressions by Organic google search query: That’s a mouthful for how many times did a keyword appear in Google search and how many clicks did it get. Still a long description, but you get it.

2. Organic google search clicks over time: How many clicks did your website get in Google search?

3. Overview of queries: For which keywords is your website ranking in Google?

That’s already a lot of useful information. But you can narrow this down and customize the report to your business needs.

You can customize search console reports by clicking on the pencil button in the right top corner of a report page.

The customization options for the Queryreport are rather limited.

You can, for instance, hide or show items with the eye icon. Or rearrange the order of items with 6 bullets. Drag them to change the order.

You can easily create one by clicking on Create new card

In the next screen, you can create a card and see the data loaded as you change the dimension, metrics and visualization type.

You can save your changes to the current report, or create a new one.

Let’s look at what the second search console report reveals.

This report has by default also 3 separate items. The focus is now on Landing pages, instead of queries.

This is similar to adapting the Query report, as described above.

Compared to the Query report, you can use a lot more dimensions.

This allows you to, for example, create a card that shows the average engagement time per country for visitors who found you in Google.

Convinced of the power of connecting Google Analytics and Google Search?

If not, here are 2 more advantages of connecting both accounts.

Connecting GSC and GA is easy with the steps described above. But we can hardly call that a good reason to do it. (Parachute jumping is easy too, but you won’t catch me doing that)

Google Search Console differs from Google Analytics 4. Connecting them will not give you, or the users you added to GA4, access to everything of search console.

That’s a huge plus, because GSC has some functionalities that can completely remove a website from Google search.

There are 2 safer alternatives to give your team access to search console data.

The amount of tabs open in your browser can be overwhelming. Unless you have reserved time in your agenda, you will most likely forget to regularly check all your analytics tools.

Google Search Consoleis a tool you absolutely need at the beginning of a website project… and then forget.

Or is it?

According to John Mueller of Google, you still need to login regularly in your search console. Otherwise, Google may stop collecting data for it.

Time to wrap it up.

Once the link between the two free Google tools is set up, you have access to two search console reports in your GA 4 account.

The Query report gives you information about keywords your site is ranking for. It also shows you how many people clicked on your website in Google search.

The Google Organic Search Traffic report shows details about your landing pages in Google.

You can customize the reports to your needs and add summary cards to monitor SEO metrics that matter most to your business.

Despite the power of connection, don’t ignore the data in Google Search Console. Google may stop tracking it and on top of this, it contains valuable insights in other metrics that have an influence on your Google ranking.

What’s next? Keep this tab open and follow the steps to connect your accounts. I promise you won’t regret it for a second.