The Free Google Report That Shows What People Actually Typed to Find You
Most small business owners have a theory about what people search for right before they land on their website. The theory is usually close. It's also usually wrong in one specific way that costs money.
Google will just tell you the real answer. For free. It has been keeping the list this whole time, in a report almost nobody opens. Running a business without reading it is a little like guessing what people order at your own counter instead of reading the tickets.
First, make sure you actually have it
The tool is Google Search Console. It's free, it's Google's own, and it only works on a website you've proven you own. That verification step is usually a snippet of code or a setting inside Wix, Squarespace, Shopify or WordPress.
If somebody built your site for you, there's a decent chance it's already connected and has simply never been opened. Ask them. And if it truly isn't set up, set it up today, because Search Console won't show you anything from before you connected it. It starts counting the day you turn it on.
The screen you want, and the box that's switched off by default
Sign in at search.google.com/search-console, pick your site, and click Performance in the left menu.
Four boxes sit across the top: Total clicks, Total impressions, Average CTR, and Average position. The first two are usually on. The last two usually are not. Click Average position so it switches on. That's the number that makes this whole report useful, and it's the one almost nobody turns on.
Underneath, there's a table with tabs across it. Queries is the first one. That's the list of words people actually typed. Set the date range in the top left to the last 3 months or longer, then click the Impressions column to sort it high to low.
Google rearranges this furniture every so often, so if a label reads a little different by the time you get there, look for the same idea rather than the exact word.
The four numbers, in plain English
Impressions: how many times your site appeared in Google's results for that phrase. Appearing is not the same as being seen. Position 47 still counts as an impression.
Clicks: how many people actually clicked through to you.
CTR: clicks divided by impressions, written as a percentage.
Average position: roughly where you sit in the list. Positions 1 to 10 are usually page one. 11 to 20 is page two. Past 20, almost nobody is finding you that way.
Pattern one: the near-misses sitting at position 11 to 20
Here's a made-up but very typical example. Say you run a two-truck heating and air company. You open the Queries tab, sort by impressions, and see this:
“ac not blowing cold air”: 380 impressions, 4 clicks, average position 14.
“why is my ac freezing up”: 210 impressions, 2 clicks, average position 17.
“emergency ac repair” plus your town: 40 impressions, 9 clicks, average position 6.
Look at what that's telling you. Hundreds of people a quarter are asking Google a question you answer for a living, and you're sitting on page two for it. Google already thinks you're a plausible answer. It just doesn't think you're a great one yet. That's a far shorter trip than starting from nowhere.
The reason is usually one of three things. Nothing on your site directly answers that question. Or the answer exists but it's buried three paragraphs into a page about something else. Or four services are crammed onto one page and Google can't tell what it's really about, which is its own whole problem.
Pattern two: the words you'd never have picked yourself
The second thing to look for is phrases that don't sound like you.
You sell “gutter guards.” They type “stop cleaning gutters.” You call it “estate planning.” They type “who gets the house if there's no will.” You say “maintenance agreement.” They say “should I get a yearly ac checkup.”
Those phrases are worth two things. First, they're a content calendar you didn't have to invent, because every one of them is a question somebody wants answered. Second, they're the exact words to put on the page. You can be the best in town and still lose to the shop that simply wrote it the way people say it.
If you also run Google Ads, the same idea lives over there in the search terms report, except it works in reverse: it shows you the phrases you're paying for that you'd rather not be. That's the setting behind negative keywords, and it's worth a look the same afternoon.
Don't skip the Pages tab
Next to Queries there's a Pages tab. Click it and sort by impressions again.
Most owners expect the homepage on top. Often it isn't. It's a service page nobody has touched in two years, or one blog post that happened to answer a question well. That page is doing most of the work, and it deserves a fresh read, a current phone number, and an obvious way to get in touch.
What this report can't tell you
Two honest limits.
One: Search Console covers Google Search. It doesn't show you what somebody asked ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or Perplexity, or whether your business got named in the answer. That's a separate check, and there's a simple way to see whether you show up in AI search.
Two: Google hides very low-volume queries to protect people's privacy, so the individual rows won't add up to your totals. That gap is normal. Don't spend a Saturday trying to reconcile it.
The 20-minute version you can do this week
1. Open Performance, switch on Average position, set the range to the last 3 months.
2. Click the Queries tab and sort by impressions.
3. Read the top 25. Mark anything sitting between position 11 and 20.
4. Write down three phrases that use words you don't use.
5. Pick one. Write one page or one post that answers it properly.
6. Check back in about eight weeks. Not next Tuesday.
The bottom line
You don't need a bigger marketing budget to find out what your customers are searching for. You need to read a list Google has already made for you. Most of the owners we sit down with find two obvious gaps in the first ten minutes, and they're almost never the gaps anybody guessed.
If you'd rather not spend your Tuesdays inside a Google dashboard, that's the part we handle. We write the blog posts and service pages that answer what people are actually typing, and we work on getting businesses found in local search listings and in AI search results too. Tell us a bit about your business and we'll take a look at what Google's already showing you.
