Analyzing search queries data for which your website is appearing in Google organic search results gives you an idea about how people are searching. These queries are strong hints to how and where your site is appearing in Google Search. And with a little effort you can find your competitors for the same query.
The Search Queries tool of Google Webmaster shows the top search queries for which your site appeared in search results, as well as queries for which users actually clicked through to your site. By default only the last 30 days of data are shown, but you can choose the date frame according to your choice. These search query data will help you to improve your site and a better optimization for search results.
To view the Search Queries page, login to Google Webmaster Tools and click on one of your sites. Now, look on the left sidebar and click on Your site on the web expander, and then click on Search queries.
A box on the top of the page shows total query count, impressions and clicks count for the selected period. Just below the box, a graph shows the same thing varying over dates.
In the chart provided there you can see those query strings for which pages from your site has appeared in search results. The chart shows the impression, clicks and average position in results for the individual queries. Even change of various parameters are shown that are calculated with respect to data of previous month.
The two most important things to observe are CTR and Average Position. These two are inter-dependent. CTR which stands for Click Through Rate is the percentage of impressions that resulted in a click to your site. This shows that a user found your search snippet interesting and thus clicked on your link. Average position is the average position of your site on the search results page for that query.
Analyzing Search Queries Data
#1. The first thing to watch is number of impressions. A low number of impression indicates that your site has not appropriate content to show against that query. A high number of impression shows that your site is appearing well for that search query.
#2. Look at the average position. If it is good, than okay but if you see this flying away, you need to work out on your content. A high number for average position shows that even for matching queries your page is lagging in race.
#3. This third point is only if you have ensured against my first and second points. Means if you are seeing a good number of impressions and low number (high performing) average position for search queries, then you need to look for CTR. As I explained CTR (Click Through Rate) is the percentage of impressions that resulted in a click to your site. So, if this is low it means that despite of high impression and good position, readers are not clicking on your site. This is a matter of great worry. You need to find out why?