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Syncing Google Analytics and Google Search Console with AWR: key benefits and how-to guide
Syncing Google Analytics and Google Search Console with AWR: key benefits and how-to guide

Learn how to sync your Google accounts with AWR to gain a unified view of your website’s rankings, traffic, and performance data.

Larisa Rosu avatar
Written by Larisa Rosu
Updated over 4 months ago

In addition to Advanced Web Ranking, both Google Analytics and Google Search Console are two essential tools that help you understand your website's performance.

Google Analytics provides insights into your website traffic, including metrics such as visits, revenue, page views, bounce rates, conversion rates, and goal completions. It helps you understand user behavior, track marketing campaigns, and measure the effectiveness of your website's content.

Google Search Console offers insights into your website’s visibility in Google search. It provides data on search queries, impressions, clicks, average position, and click-through rate (CTR). GSC is a valuable tool for understanding search traffic and diagnosing issues that may affect your website's search performance.

Connecting your Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts to Advanced Web Ranking, enables you to view your website’s rankings, traffic, and performance data in one place. Activating these connections unlocks several advantages:

  • Comprehensive insights: having rankings, traffic, and impression data in one place allows for a complete understanding of your website’s performance in SERPs.

  • Streamlined analysis: centralized data simplifies and accelerates analysis, enabling faster, informed decision-making.

  • Enhanced SEO strategy: combining ranking data with traffic and user behavior insights enables the development of more targeted and effective SEO strategies.

Necessary permissions

To connect Google Analytics and Google Search Console with AWR, you need specific levels of permissions under your Google account:

How to sync AWR with Google Analytics and Google Search Console?

Navigate to the Settings > Project settings > Connections section and click on the +Add account button located on the top right of the screen, then select Google Analytics/Google Search Console.

Furthermore, follow the prompts to sign in with your Google account and allow AWR to access your Google Analytics data/view your Search Console data for your verified sites.

💡You can manage “Sign in with Google” permissions for your Google account by accessing the Third-party apps & services page.

Once you have signed in with Google and AWR has gained access to your GA and GSC data, you can now configure the connections:

  • For Google Analytics:

    Select the Google email address, Analytics account, property, and view relevant to the project, then Save configuration.

  • For Google Search Console:

    Select the Google email address and the website relevant to the project, then click Save configuration.

💡The GA and GSC connections must be set up separately for each project to ensure that the data integration aligns with the configuration of each project.

What happens after I connect AWR with Google Analytics and Google Search Console?

After saving the configurations, AWR will begin pulling the initial dataset from the newly connected Google Analytics and Google Search Console properties.

The initial retrieval typically takes about an hour but may extend up to 24 hours, depending on the volume of historical data.

AWR retrieves historical data from the last 30 days for both GA and GSC. Following the initial retrieval, data from both sources will be refreshed daily.

Which Google Analytics and Google Search Console metrics are being retrieved and where I can access them?

From Google Analytics, the following metrics are retrieved:

  • Visits: number of individual sessions initiated by users on your website.

  • Revenue: total income generated from transactions on your website.

  • Page Views: total number of pages viewed by visitors on your website.

  • Bounce Rate: percentage of visitors who navigate away from your website after seeing only one page.

  • Conversion Rate: percentage of visitors who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase.

  • Goal Conversion Rate: percentage of visitors who achieve the specific goals set for your website.

These metrics are segmented by channel source (e.g., Direct, Organic, Social) and are displayed in both the Google Data > Summary section and dedicated report widgets.

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Google Data > Summary section

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Dedicated report widget

From Google Search Console, the following metrics are retrieved:

  • Impressions: how often your website appeared in Google searches for various queries.

  • Clicks: number of times users clicked on your website’s links in search results.

  • Average Position: average rank of your website for the queries it appeared in Google SERPs.

  • Click Through Rate (CTR): percentage of users who clicked on your website after seeing it in search results.

These metrics are displayed in the Google Data > Summary, Google Data > Trends, Google Data > Search Console sections, and also in the dedicated report widgets.

Click to learn more about the Google Data > Summary section

The Google Data > Summary section showcases aggregated values and trends across the selected period for Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and proprietary AWR metrics like Visibility Percentage or Volatility. This section provides an overview of the overall performance, allowing you to quickly grasp trends and gain insights into the health of your website's search visibility, traffic, and user engagement metrics. It serves as a centralized dashboard for monitoring key performance indicators, facilitating informed decisions and strategic adjustments to improve your SEO efforts.

Click to learn more about the Google Data > Trends section

The Google Data > Trends section provides insights into your website's effectiveness in attracting clicks from search engine users. It compares the CTR retrieved from the connected Google Search Console property with global CTR benchmarks. You can see how your site performs relative to CTRs across all industries or within your specific industry. This section offers two display modes for detailed analysis:

Learn more about the Trends > SERP Features report

The Trends > SERP Features report shows the CTR trends for SERPs containing Universal result types (like Featured Snippets, Knowledge Panels, etc.), alongside the list of keywords that triggered such results. It enables you to benchmark your website's CTR performance against global averages for similar result types and gain insights into how different SERP Features impact user engagement.

The insights are derived from analyzing SERP data for top-performing keywords in Google Search Console, using a proprietary method to calculate weighted CTR trends based on the presence of specific features in SERPs.

In essence, this report helps you understand how effectively your website attracts clicks compared to global standards across various types of search results on Google.

The analyzed SERPs are collected from Google Search Console for the country selected in the project’s settings and for Desktop devices.

Furthermore, the insights displayed are relevant for the selected report inputs as follows:

  • Result type - reveals the weighted Top 20 CTR trend and the keywords that triggered the selected SERP Feature.

  • Month - reflects the SERP Feature CTR benchmarks for the selected month. A fresh dataset is added each month, benchmarking CTR insights from the previous full month.

The KPI tabs show statistics for the SERPs where your website is ranked, comparing them against global benchmarks.

The project-specific values are computed for the keywords in your synced Search Console account which triggered the selected SERP Feature and compared to the global values derived from our entire keyword dataset associated with the same SERP Feature.

Here are the specific metrics covered:

  • Organic Results: average number of Organic listings for SERPs featuring the selected feature.

  • Domain Diversity: number of unique domains within the top 10 organic search results.

  • SERP Feature Avg. Position: average rank of the selected SERP feature across all SERPs.

  • Popularity: appearances of the selected feature across all SERPs, represented as a percentage.

The chart shows the CTR values for SERPs containing the specific SERP Feature selected. By hovering on positions from 1 to 20 on the chart you can see how your website's CTR (displayed in blue) compares to global CTR trends (displayed in grey) for those positions.

The chart can be customized to display values as either a line chart or a bar chart. Additionally, for further analysis or reporting, the CTR data can be exported in various formats, including CSV, Image, and JSON.

The table component displays the list of keywords from the synced Search Console account that triggered the selected SERP Feature, along with relevant Search Console metrics. The table columns include:

  • Keyword: keywords from Search Console that triggered the selected SERP Feature.

  • CTR: clickthrough rate percent, calculated as (Clicks/Impressions)*100.

  • Clicks: number of clicks received for a keyword from Google search, excluding clicks from paid search.

  • Impressions: number of times your website was listed in Google search results for a keyword, excluding paid search impressions.

  • Avg. Position: highest rank position that your website had on Google search for a keyword, averaged across all searches where your website was listed. This includes personalized searches.

Using the +Add filter menu, you can refine the keywords that triggered the selected SERP Feature based on Impressions, Clicks, CTR, and Avg. Position values retrieved from Google Search Console. This enables you to focus on high-impact keywords, monitor how they are performing over time, and allocate resources efficiently to enhance your website’s search visibility and user engagement.

Additionally, using the All Keywords dropdown menu you can select which keywords are displayed in the table:

  • All Keywords: keywords retrieved from the synced Search Console account that have been added for monitoring to your AWR project plus keywords from Search Console that are not currently tracked in AWR.

  • My Keywords: only keywords from Search Console that have been added to your AWR project.

  • Keywords only in GSC: only keywords from Search Console that have not been added to AWR.

You can customize which Search Console metric columns appear in the table using the Columns menu.

The keywords of interest can be easily added to the project for more effective monitoring of their ranking performance over time.

Once the keywords are successfully added to the project, they will be highlighted in green in the table. This color-coding helps distinguish them from keywords pulled from Search Console that have not yet been added to the project.

Learn more about the Trends > All Searches report

The Google Data > Trends > All Searches report shows the average CTR trends for the top-performing keywords from the synced Google Search Console account, benchmarked against the global values computed for all keywords in our dataset. Additionally, it displays the list of keywords retrieved from your Google Search Console account. This report helps you identify high-value keyword opportunities worth your investment and add them to your AWR project for further tracking and optimization.

The report features three dropdown menus that allow you to customize the displayed values:

  • Industry: toggles between global CTR values for all industries and industry-specific CTR values.

  • Device: adjusts the chart values based on the selected device type - Desktop, Mobile, Tablet, or All Devices - and highlights the highest-performing keywords for each device category.

  • Month: shows CTR benchmarks for the selected month for every industry and device. A fresh dataset is added each month, showing CTR insights from the previous full month.

The chart displays the average CTR performance of your website alongside global values, based on the selected industry, device type, and month. By hovering over positions from 1 to 20 on the chart, you can view your website's CTR (represented in blue) compared to global trends (shown in grey) for each position.

The chart can be customized to display values as either a line chart or a bar chart. Additionally, for further analysis or reporting, the CTR data can be exported in various formats, including CSV, Image, and JSON.

The table component displays the list of keywords from the synced Search Console account, along with relevant Search Console metrics. The table columns include:

  • Keyword: keywords retrieved from Google Search Console.

  • CTR: clickthrough rate percent, calculated as (Clicks/Impressions)*100.

  • Clicks: number of clicks received by each keyword from Google search, excluding clicks from paid search.

  • Impressions: Number of times your website was listed in Google search for a keyword, excluding paid search impressions.

  • Avg. Position: The highest rank position that your website had on Google search for each keyword, averaged across all searches where your website was listed. This includes personalized searches.

Using the +Add filter menu, you can refine the keywords based on Impressions, Clicks, CTR, and Avg. Position values retrieved from Google Search Console.

Additionally, using the All Keywords dropdown menu you can select which keywords are displayed in the table:

  • All Keywords: keywords retrieved from the synced Search Console account that have been added for monitoring to your AWR project plus keywords from Search Console that are not currently tracked in AWR.

  • My Keywords: only keywords from Search Console that have been added to your AWR project.

  • Keywords only in GSC: only keywords from Search Console that have not been added to AWR.

You can customize which Search Console metric columns appear in the table using the Columns menu.

The keywords of interest can be easily added to the project for more effective monitoring of their ranking performance over time.

Once the keywords are successfully added to the project, they will be highlighted in green in the table. This color-coding helps distinguish them from keywords pulled from Search Console that have not yet been added to the project.

Click to learn more about the Google Data > Search Console section

The Google Data > Search Console section provides a comprehensive view of your website's performance through data retrieved from Google Search Console. Key features of this report include:

  1. Aggregated metrics and performance trends for the chosen timeframe, offering insights into your website’s overall search visibility and traffic.

  2. Keyword traffic stats, including Impressions, Clicks, Average Position, and Click-Through Rate (CTR), which help you assess how well each keyword is performing in search results.

  3. Two proprietary metrics which are designed to uncover hidden opportunities and enhance your SEO strategy:

  • Not Provided Sessions: this metric estimates the number of Analytics sessions for each keyword. It is derived by combining organic session data from Google Analytics with click data reported by Google Search Console. It helps you understand how well each keyword translates into actual traffic, even when direct session data is not available.

  • Click Opportunities: this metric estimates the percentage of potential clicks your website may be missing due to low CTR. By identifying keywords with high Click Opportunities, you can prioritize improving CTR for these keywords to capture more traffic and enhance your website's performance.

The report includes two dropdown menus to customize the displayed values:

  • Device: adjusts the chart’s values based on the selected device type - Desktop, Mobile, etc. - and highlights the highest-performing keywords for each device category in the table.

  • Country: toggles between viewing data for All countries or specific countries. The list of available countries is based on the search engines you have selected and configured in your project.

The chart can be customized to show values either as a line chart or a bar chart. For further analysis or reporting, you can export the GSC data in multiple formats, including CSV, Image, and JSON.

The table component displays the list of keywords from your synced Search Console account, along with relevant metrics from both Search Console and AWR's proprietary data. The columns in the table include:

  • Keyword: keywords retrieved from Google Search Console.

  • Not Provided Sessions - estimated number of Analytics sessions per keyword, based on organic sessions from Google Analytics and click data from Google Search.

  • Click Opportunities - estimated percentage of clicks your website is losing because of low CTR. The highest percentages pinpoint keywords with the best chances of driving traffic increases.

  • CTR: clickthrough rate percentage, calculated as (Clicks/Impressions)*100.

  • Clicks: number of clicks received by each keyword from Google search, excluding clicks from paid search.

  • Impressions: number of times your website was listed in Google search for a keyword, excluding paid search impressions.

  • Avg. Position: highest rank position your website had on Google search for each keyword, averaged across all searches where your website was listed. This includes personalized searches.

Using the Columns drop-down menu you can customize which metric columns appear in the table.

Using the +Add filter menu, you can refine the keywords based on Not Provided Sessions, Click Opportunities, Impressions, Clicks, CTR, and Avg. Position values.

Additionally, using the All Keywords dropdown menu you can select which keywords are displayed in the table:

  • All Keywords: keywords retrieved from the synced Search Console account that have been added for monitoring to your AWR project plus keywords from Search Console that are not currently tracked in AWR.

  • My Keywords: only keywords from Search Console that have been added to your AWR project.

  • Keywords only in GSC: only keywords from Search Console that have not been added to AWR.

Keywords of interest can be easily added to your project for ongoing monitoring of their ranking performance over time.

Once the keywords are successfully added to the project, they will be highlighted in green in the table. This color-coding makes it easy to distinguish these keywords from those pulled from Search Console that have not yet been added to the project.

How to edit the Google Analytics and Google Search Console connections in AWR?

If you need to change the connected account or property, or if you initially connected the wrong one, you can update the sync by removing the existing connection and setting up a new one. For detailed instructions on how to sync Google Analytics and Google Search Console with AWR, please refer to the How to sync AWR with GA & GSC section of this article.

How to revoke AWR access to your Google account?

If you no longer wish for AWR to have access to your Google account, you can revoke its permissions by following these steps:

  1. Access the Google account for which you want to revoke AWR’s access. and find the section labeled Security.

  2. From the Security screen, locate the “Your connections with Third-party apps & services” panel and click on “See all connections” to access the “Third-party apps & services” page

  3. On this page, you will see a list of tools connected to your Google account.

  4. Find and select AWRCloud from the list. Click on “See details,” then choose “Stop using sign-in with Google” to revoke access.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact our support team.

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