Google Retweets About Data Studio Dashboard for Tracking Page CTR Performance After Title Update

Have you heard of the so-called Google ‘Title Update’? Here’s a great tool for tracking your clickthrough rates (CTRs).
SIA Team
September 1, 2021

If you haven’t yet heard of it, the ‘Title Update’ was announced last week in a blog post on Google Search Central. I also wrote about it here. In short, regardless of the search query that was entered, Google can now display a title that’s not the HTML title on your page, but rather, taken from text that’s on your page. This can probably be text that’s in a header tag (such as H1).

As for H1 being displayed in place of your HTML title (that is, your actual title tag), for a lot of WordPress themes, the HTML title of a page is the same as the H1, which is the same as the post’s title. 

So, if Google decides to use your H1 as a title tag, that might not be a big issue.

Anyway, you may know that a big factor that helps some searchers decide to click on is the title tag (or rather, what Google chooses to display as the title). (The description also plays a role.)

Some people like to keep track of the clickthrough rates of these titles (which, I assume, is why you’re reading this).  

The CTR Data Studio Tracking Tool

That’s why I think you’ll be interested in this tweet from Aleyda Solis (which Google retweeted, so you know Google thinks it’s valid): 

The tweet links to a Google Data Studio tool, and as you’ll see, it’s essentially a chart or spreadsheet that you can incorporate into your Data Studio account. 

If it looks like a lot of work, it might not be as much work as it seems: one of the first things you do is authorize it to sync with your Search Console. 

Then, you can select a site that you have in Search Console (possibly a date range), and then, a number of data columns are revealed to you. These include the query, the device category, the site CTR, average position, and impressions, as well as other data.

(Of these, I find it odd that exact URLs aren’t displayed, because you could have 2 or more URLs show up, which would beg the question: which title is getting the best CTR? But maybe that has to do with my account. Maybe it’ll be different from yours.)

So, in conclusion, if you’d like to track your CTRs in the wake of the ‘Title Tag’ update, this might be a tool to consider.

Source: Aleyda Solis Twitter channel