If you’re old in SEO years, you remember the day [not provided] was introduced. It was a dark, dark day. SEOs lost a vast amount of trusty information. Click data. Conversion data. This was incredibly valuable, allowing SEOs to prioritize their targets.
[1]
Google said the info was removed for security purposes, while suspicious SEOs thought this was a push towards spending more on AdWords (now Google Ads). I get it — since AdWords would give you the keyword data SEOs cherished, the “controversy” was warranted, in my opinion. The truth is out there.
But we’ve moved on, and learned to live with the situation. Then a few years later, Google Webmaster Tools (now Search Console) started providing some of the keyword data in the Search Analytics report. Through the years, the report got better and better.
But there’s still a finite set of keywords in the interface. You can’t get more than 999 in your report.
Guess what? Google has more data for you!
The Google Search Console API is your friend. This summer it became even friendlier, providing 16 months worth of data[2]. What you may not know is this API can give you more than 999 keywords. By way of example, the API provides more than 45,000 for our Greenlane site. And we’re not even a very large site. That’s right — the API can give you keywords, clicks, average position, impressions, and CTR %.
Salivating yet?
How to easily leverage the API
If you’re not very technical and the thought of an API frightens you, I promise there’s nothing to fear. I’m going to show you a way to leverage the data using Google Sheets.
Here is what you will need: