{"id":8365,"date":"2019-09-17T05:00:39","date_gmt":"2019-09-17T05:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brickmarketing.com\/blog\/?p=8365"},"modified":"2025-06-30T17:48:06","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T17:48:06","slug":"search-queries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brickmarketing.com\/blog\/search-queries","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the Difference Between Search Queries and Keywords?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SearchHave you ever noticed that people often use the terms “search queries” and “keywords” interchangeably? The assumption is that they are the same thing, but there is, in fact, a difference between them. Simply put, the keyword<\/strong> is the phrase that we target when putting together an SEO program for our full service SEO clients and the search query<\/strong> is the phrase that the search engine user physically puts in the search box of Google to find information.\u00a0However, it’s important to analyze both sets of data in both Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools in order to get a full picture. The goal when creating an SEO program, of course, is to come up with the keywords that are a close representation of what the search queries will actually be.<\/p>\n

Search queries are in the \u201cTraffic\u201d drop-down menu in Google Analytics, under the \u201cSearch Engine Optimization\u201d section. You can only see this information if you have a Webmaster Tools account for your site, which if you don\u2019t you should set up immediately! Your Google Webmaster Tools account is the place where Google will send you important messages (like if you have a penalty) and how you can check up on the \u201chealth\u201d of your website from Google\u2019s perspective. Which report is more important to look at? Which data set is better at showing you how well (or poorly) your SEO campaign is doing?<\/p>\n

In Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools, the search query data doesn\u2019t primarily measure information about your visitors the way that tracking keywords (what did someone search for that brought them to your site) does. It\u2019s really telling you about your site\u2019s performance in the SERPs for a particular phrase. That\u2019s where the impressions data comes into play. It\u2019s important to note that impressions means how many times your website was offered up in the search engines but doesn\u2019t have any real measure of how many times your site was actually clicked on in the SERPs.<\/p>\n

For instance, in the graph below the #2 search query is \u201cclaims processing,\u201d which in this given time period had 320 impressions but zero clicks. That zero clicks is probably tied to the fact that this site typically ranks #66 for \u201cclaims processing\u201d as a keyword. However, when I look at the organic search traffic report in Google Analytics for the same time period the #2 keyword (meaning a particular search query that actually sent visitors to the site) is a branded keyword; the company name in fact.<\/p>\n

\"What\u2019s<\/p>\n

The organic search traffic report also tells you a lot about the visitors that came to your site through a particular keyword such as how many pages they visited, how long they spent on the site, conversion rates and so forth. You can also hone in on a specific keyword to see what days those visitors using that keyword came to your site, what pages they landed on and so forth. This is the kind of data that fuels an SEO campaign because it gives you a better understanding of how real human visitors are finding your site and what they are doing once they get there.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, search query information in Google Analytics (or Google Webmaster Tools) gives you a much higher overview of how your site is performing. For instance, this site has the same number of impressions for \u201cclaims processing\u201d as they do \u201chealthcare claims processing\u201d (320) but there is a marked difference between average ranking (66 vs. 8). This could be a sign that \u201chealthcare claims processing\u201d is a \u201cmoney\u201d search query and keyword for this site because they are already doing fairly well, while doing well for \u201cclaims processing\u201d is going to be more of an uphill battle.<\/p>\n

\"SEOBy analyzing the keyword and search query data available in Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools, you can get a more accurate picture of which keywords you can effectively target on your websites. If the search queries that people use to find information aren’t represented well on your website, you won’t get the search traffic that you expect. It all starts by understanding the difference between keywords and search queries, and using data found in thee tools to effectively optimize the website for the search engines. This is the approach we take for all our full service SEO clients.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Have you ever noticed that people often use the terms “search queries” and “keywords” interchangeably? The assumption is that they are the same thing, but there is, in fact, a… More Info<\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15534,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat\u2019s the Difference Between Search Queries and Keywords? | Brick Marketing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What is the difference between a search query and a keyword? 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