What’s the Difference Between Google Search Console and Google Analytics? Everything You Need to Know

Google Search Console and Google Analytics both are powerful tools for any SEO professional, but which one should you be using and why?

Google Search Console and Google Analytics both aim to help website owners take a peek into their website performance and various metrics. Both solutions are free to use for Google users, which makes tracking and analytics more convenient and easy to access. Both tools have their fair share of benefits and downsides, which we will discuss in this article. Now, let’s dive in and talk about what Google Search Console and Google Analytics are and what their capabilities are. 

What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a tool used by SEO professionals to view their website performance and gain insights into their website performance in Google search results. 

Google Search Console is essential for any website owner. Whether you’re trying to figure out ways to boost your SERP ranking, enhance the user experience, or patch security issues, Google Search Console has you covered. Google Search Console is an overwhelmingly powerful tool that provides near-endless analytics to help you gauge your website’s performance. 

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a free tool that tracks metrics such as conversions or website traffic, bounce rates, views, sessions, and more. 

Google Analytics works in tandem with other Google solutions such as Google Ads, Search Ads 360, Display & Video 360, Google Cloud, Google Search Console, and more. Integrating Google services allows you to get a full 360 view of how users are interacting with your content and how that translates in conversions on your website. Google Analytics allows you to take a quick peek inside your website visitors to see what they’re doing on the site, how long they’re doing, and how long they stay and go on different pages. By setting goals, you are able to track whenever a user performs a certain action like signing up for your app or adding an item to the shopping cart. 

Comparing Google Search Console and Google Analytics

Let's dive into both solutions and spot the main differences between them. 

First, Google Analytics is more focused on consumer data and metrics while Google Search Console focuses on website data and search rankings/keywords. Next, Google Analytics can show you consumer behavior on a detailed level by showing page views, sessions, bounce rates, and more. 

On the other hand, Google Search Console can only provide more broad metrics like clicks, impressions, CTR, and average search position. 

It is clear that if you’re looking for a more detailed and in-depth analysis of your website performance, then Google Analytics is the most logical choice. While Google Search Console is more for broad spectrum metrics to help website owners gauge how their website is ranking on SERP and how they perform on various platforms such as mobile or desktop. 

When to use Google Search Console?

An SEO professional would want to use Google Search Console to gauge how their search engine ranking and keywords are performing. Google Search Console is good to use when testing and fixing security issues with the website and making sure that it's running fast. Having a fast-running website is key to maintaining customers as most people leave the website after only 3 seconds of delays.  

When to use Google Analytics?

Google Analytics should be used when you’re trying to gauge consumer behavior on your website in tandem with Google Ads data integration. When you're trying to figure out how customers are spending their time on your website, then Google Analytics is best for you. Google Analytics has a wide selection of data tools for you to gauge performance, see if goals are met, and so much more. You’d want to use Google Analytics if you want to find out detailed demographic data and find out where your consumers are coming and what pages they are going to the most. 

Why Do Google Search Console and Google Analytics Not Match Up Exactly?

Both of these Google products don’t match up exactly because at their core, they are catered towards a certain audience. 

For example, Google Search Console is more catered towards website owners trying to find out what their rankings are and how their website is performing. This is an issue that a typical Google Analytics user wouldn’t be much concerned with as they are more focused on what type of engagement their website is getting, and what users are doing on their website.

Google Analytics is more catered toward SEO/Marketing professionals looking to dive into their engagement metrics and see detailed demographic data. Google Analytics and Google Search Console don’t communicate with each other which creates inconsistencies in the number of clicks and sessions. Ad blockers also contribute to inconsistencies between both solutions as the click/session isn’t counted and thus makes the data inaccurate. 

With Google Search Console and Google Analytics each being catered towards a certain demographic, what should you use? 

Which is right for you?

This is more of a trick question as you can use both at the same time to further optimize and upgrade your SEO strategies. 

In tandem, Google Search Console can show you how you’re ranking on search engines, while Google Analytics will show how those clicks turn over to engagement on your website. On their own, Google Analytics and Google Search Console are very powerful tools. But together, both services can help you boost your website performance and drive up conversions simultaneously, making you an SEO expert.