Google Search Console for Accountants: How to Use It

Setting up Google Search Console is the start, not the end. The value of the tool comes from reading its reports regularly and using what you find to make decisions about your content, your technical setup, and your SEO priorities. For accounting firms, five reports in particular deserve your attention on a monthly basis.

This article assumes you have already set up and verified your Search Console property. If not, follow the setup guide first. Once your data has been collecting for at least two to four weeks, you will have enough to work with.

The Performance report: understanding your search visibility

The Performance report is where most of your time will be spent. It shows four key metrics for your website's appearance in Google Search:

• Clicks: the number of times someone clicked through to your site from Google
• Impressions: the number of times your site appeared in Google results (whether or not anyone clicked)
• Average CTR (click-through rate): the percentage of impressions that resulted in a click
• Average position: your average ranking position across all queries

You can view this data by query (what people searched for), by page (which of your pages is performing), by country, by device (mobile, desktop, tablet), and by search type (web, image, video).

Top search queries: click the "Queries" tab and sort by impressions. This shows you the search terms your pages are appearing for most often. For an accounting firm, you might expect to see your firm's name, local terms like "accountant in [your city]," and topic terms like "VAT registration" or "sole trader tax" if you publish content on these subjects.

Look for queries where your average position is in the 8 to 20 range. These are terms where you are ranking on page one or early page two, but not prominently. With targeted improvements, these represent your best opportunity for near-term ranking gains, because you are already on Google's radar for these terms, just not yet at the top.

Top pages: click the "Pages" tab to see which pages receive the most impressions and clicks. Your homepage typically leads on branded searches, but if you publish service pages and guides, these should also appear. A page with many impressions but very few clicks is a candidate for a better title tag and meta description.

CTR by query: sort the Queries tab by "CTR" (ascending) to find queries where your average position is strong (position 1 to 5) but CTR is lower than expected. For a position-one result, a CTR below 20% suggests your title or meta description is not compelling or relevant enough. Rewriting those elements often improves click-through without any change in ranking position.

Position tracking over time: use the date selector at the top of the Performance report to compare two periods, such as the last 28 days versus the previous 28 days. Look for queries where your average position has improved or declined. Significant position drops on important terms warrant investigation.

The Coverage report: which pages Google has and has not indexed

The Coverage report (found under "Indexing" and then "Pages" in the left menu) shows the indexation status of every page Google has encountered on your site.

The four status categories and what they mean in practice:

Error: these pages have a specific technical problem preventing indexation. Common errors for accounting websites include "Server error (5xx)," which means your server is returning an error to Google's crawler, and "Not found (404)," which means Google followed a link to a page that no longer exists. Error pages need to be investigated and fixed promptly.

Valid with warning: these pages are indexed but have a flag. The most common warning for accounting sites is "Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt," which means Google indexed the page despite a robots.txt block. This usually indicates a configuration error worth reviewing.

Valid: these are your successfully indexed pages. Clicking this category lists all indexed URLs, which you can export to a spreadsheet for review.

Excluded: these are pages Google chose not to index. This category requires careful reading because not all exclusions are problems.

Legitimate exclusions include:

• "Excluded by 'noindex' tag" — pages you have intentionally excluded
• "Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user" — Google is indexing a different version of a duplicate page
• "Alternate page with proper canonical tag" — Google recognised your canonical tag and is indexing the canonical version instead

Exclusions that warrant investigation:

• "Discovered, currently not indexed" — Google found the page but has not indexed it. This usually signals thin content or low prioritisation. Consider whether these pages need more substantial content.
• "Crawled, currently not indexed" — Google visited the page but chose not to index it. Similar implication: the content may be thin, duplicate, or low-quality.

For accounting firms with extensive blog archives or older pages, a significant number of "Crawled, currently not indexed" entries often indicate content that would benefit from consolidation or improvement.

The Core Web Vitals report: identifying experience problems

The Core Web Vitals report (under "Experience" in the left menu) shows your Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint (INP), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) performance across all pages, grouped into "Good," "Needs improvement," and "Poor" categories.

The report shows separate results for mobile and desktop. Click the mobile tab first, as this is where most accounting websites have the greater performance gap and where Google's ranking assessment is most influenced.

Within each category, you can see which specific metric is failing and export the list of affected URLs. This export is the starting point for a brief to your web developer: these pages are rated "Poor" for LCP, here are the URLs, please investigate and resolve the issues.

Do not be alarmed if many of your pages show "Not enough data." The Core Web Vitals report requires real user data from Chrome browsers. Pages with very low traffic may never accumulate enough data to appear in the report. Use PageSpeed Insights to test specific URLs individually if they are not appearing in Search Console.

The Links report: understanding your link profile

The Links report (under "Links" in the left menu) provides two sections.

External links shows which sites link to your website, how many times each site links to you, and which of your pages receive the most external links. For an accounting firm, you might expect to see links from business directories, local chambers of commerce, accounting body membership directories, and any press coverage or guest articles you have written.

Reviewing the top externally linked pages tells you which of your pages are considered most authoritative by other websites. If your contact page or homepage has many external links but your service pages have none, this is an indication that your content pages have not yet attracted links and may benefit from more targeted outreach or promotion.

Internal links shows which pages on your own site receive the most internal links from other pages. Pages with many internal links are treated as more important by Google's crawling and ranking systems. If your most important service pages have few internal links from other parts of your site, adding relevant internal links from guides and blog posts is a low-effort ranking improvement.

The Manual Actions report: are you under a Google penalty?

The Manual Actions section (under "Security and Manual Actions" in the left menu) shows whether Google's quality review team has applied a manual penalty to your site. For a legitimate accounting firm that has not engaged in spam link building or other manipulative practices, this section will read "No issues detected."

If you do see a manual action, the description will explain the type of violation. Common causes include low-quality or spammy backlink profiles, thin content at scale, and structured data abuse. Read the specific violation, address the identified issue, and submit a reconsideration request directly through Search Console.

Using Search Console data to build your content calendar

Search Console's Performance report is an underused content research tool. The combination of high impressions, low position, and relatively low CTR identifies topics where you are in Google's field of view but not yet ranking prominently.

A practical process for accounting firms:

1. Open the Performance report and click "Queries."
2. Filter to show only queries with an average position between 8 and 20 (you can add a filter at the top of the report: position > 7 AND position < 21).
3. Sort by impressions descending.
4. Review the top 20 queries in this range.

The queries you find there represent topics where Google considers your site somewhat relevant but has not yet ranked you on the first page. These are your best near-term content opportunities: existing pages that could be improved, or new pages targeting these topics that might rank faster than entirely new subjects where you have no prior presence.

For example, if you discover your site is receiving 800 monthly impressions for "contractor accountant London" at an average position of 14, that tells you Google associates your site with this term but ranks you on page two. A dedicated, well-optimised service page for contractor accounting, or a substantially improved version of your existing page, has a realistic chance of moving from position 14 to positions 3 to 8.

Key takeaways

• The Performance report shows top queries, top pages, CTR, and position data; queries ranking at positions 8 to 20 with reasonable impressions are your best near-term content opportunities.
• Use the Queries tab filtered by low CTR for high-position terms to identify titles and meta descriptions worth rewriting.
• The Coverage report identifies indexation errors and excluded pages; investigate "Discovered, currently not indexed" and "Crawled, currently not indexed" pages as potential thin-content issues.
• The Core Web Vitals report groups your URLs by performance status; export "Poor" URLs as a brief for your developer.
• The Links report shows which external sites link to you and which of your pages have the most internal links; use this to prioritise internal linking for key service pages.
• Check the Manual Actions section for any Google penalties; legitimate accounting firms will typically see "No issues detected."

Frequently asked questions

How often should I check Google Search Console?

At a minimum, log in monthly to review the Performance report for ranking trends and the Coverage report for new errors. Set up email notifications in Search Console settings so you are alerted to critical issues (such as a significant drop in indexed pages or a new manual action) without waiting for your monthly review.

Why do some of my pages appear in Search Console but have zero clicks and zero impressions?

Pages in the Coverage report can appear even if they have never appeared in search results, because Coverage data reflects what Google has discovered through crawling, not what has generated search visibility. The Performance report only shows pages that have appeared in search results and generated at least one impression. A page with zero impressions either ranks so low it never appeared, was indexed too recently to have data, or is excluded from the Performance report due to insufficient data.

The Performance report shows queries I do not recognise my site ranking for. Is that normal?

Yes. Google's search results are personalised and contextual, meaning different users see different results. Your site may appear for queries that surprise you, particularly if you publish broad content about accounting topics. Review these queries to understand whether they represent genuine opportunities (you rank for a term you were not targeting) or irrelevant traffic (you rank for terms unrelated to your services) that you may want to address through better page targeting.

Can I see competitor data in Search Console?

No. Search Console only shows data for properties you own and have verified. It does not show how competitors rank or what queries they appear for. For competitor analysis, tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, or Google's free Search Console Insights provide some benchmarking, but dedicated competitor rank tracking requires a paid SEO tool.

My Search Console data seems much lower than the traffic numbers in Google Analytics. Why?

Search Console and Google Analytics measure different things and use different methodologies. Search Console counts clicks from Google Search results only. Analytics counts all sessions, including direct traffic, social media, email campaigns, and referrals from other websites. Additionally, Search Console may not capture every click due to sampling on high-traffic sites, and Analytics may undercount due to ad blockers or cookie consent rejection. Some discrepancy between the two is normal.