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How to Find Content to Update with Google Search Console Step-By-Step

ByNina Clapperton Updated on

Content is a depreciating asset. After about 18 months (sometimes even 12 months), out of date content is dragging your site down.

Not only does it look bad for your users, but it also looks bad for Google.

But that’s not the only reason to update your content. You can also get more traffic from updating content that wasn’t ranking well on Google, or by optimizing content for keywords that you may not have realized you were ranking for.

We can find all this information in Google Search Console (GSC) – but it can be a bit weird to navigate.

I use GSC to update posts in 3 ways: finding primary keywords that aren’t ranking #1, finding posts that lost rankings and need a refresh, and finding secondary keywords I can optimize for.

These are simple step-by-step methods you can start doing today! Get your spreadsheet out and let’s find you some posts to improve.

How to Find Posts to Update for Primary Keyword for Betting Rankings

Screenshot of Google Search Console showing performance metrics for 'sheknowsseo.co,' with an emphasis on total clicks, total impressions, and average position over the last 3 months, relevant for updating blog posts.

Google Search Console shows you the average ranking for every keyword that your blog is visible on Google for. It doesn’t need to rank on page 1, it just needs to rank somewhere in the 10+ pages of Google.

Our goal is to get the #1 spot as often as possible, so we want to know any time we don’t have that #1 spot. That will help us find blog posts to optimize.

When I do a content audit, I start with posts ranking #2-20. These are keywords that likely won’t need much work to improve their rankings.

Whereas, something ranking #50 probably doesn’t satisfy the user intent or needs 40 backlinks.

But how do we spot these keywords?

Step 1: Open Google Search Console and go to the “Search Results” area.

Step 2: Ensure that “Clicks”, “Impressions”, “CTR”, and “Position” are all turned on.

Just click on the relevant word in a box above the graph and it will add the metrics to the graph and the chart below.

Step 3: Filter by position (use the upside down triangle above the word “Position” on the chart). Set it to “greater than” and “2”.

Step 4: Double click on the word “Position” in the chart to filter from smallest to biggest Position number.

This gives you the Position, in order from 2 to 100 (or higher), for every keyword on your blog.

Scroll through to find keywords that are your primary keywords to see what position that post ranks for.

Be careful: some keywords are irrelevant or have no search impressions. This means they aren’t our targets.

We’re only optimizing our primary keywords with this method, not changing up blog posts to rank #1 for something with 1/3rd of the impressions of our primary keyword.

Variation: You can alternative filter “less than 20” and find keywords from 1-20. Then filter by “Impressions”, highest to lowest.

This will give you the most searched terms that you rank for, and can help you prioritize optimizing higher volume keywords.

Find Posts That Have Lost Rankings

Interactive date range comparison feature on Google Search Console, set to compare performance over different periods for 'sheknowsseo.co,' useful for analyzing which posts to update.

The best use of Google Search Console, in my opinion, is to find lost rankings.

People love rank trackers and external tools, but you can do it all for free in Google Search Console!

You’ll get the most accurate data for all of your keywords, showing exactly which keywords have lost rankings and/or clicks over a set period of time.

I recommend filtering by 3 months for this process, since seasonality and Google updates can mean things shift too much month-by-month for an equal evaluation.

Step 1: Open Google Search Console and go to the “Search Results” area.

Step 2: Ensure that “Clicks”, “Impressions”, and “Position” are all turned on. Leave “CTR” off.

Step 3: Click on the “3 months” at the top of the screen. This will open a date filter. Click to the “Compare” tab and it will automatically compare the current 3 month period to the previous 3 month period.

Step 4: Manually search for clicks that are lower in the “Last 3 Months” (aka. current period) versus the “Previous 3 Months”. This will show you posts that lost organic traffic.

However, those posts may not need an update. For example, a winter blog post will naturally get less traffic in the spring. But it may not need to change since it continues to rank #1.

Cross reference these drops in clicks with a change in impressions.

If the impressions go down similarly, then it’s seasonality more than likely (or a new Google widget reducing clicks).

If impressions are the same, then check rankings. If rankings dropped, we need to take action and update the blog post immediately.

Step 5: Check Position.

With Clicks and Impressions, a negative difference is bad. But with Position, a negative difference is good (because smaller numbers mean better rankings).

Look for posts with positive numbers.

But check manually! Posts that previously had 0 position and “gain” a position 7 will technically have +7 for Position, even though it gained a ranking.

I filter by Position Difference from highest to lowest, then manually go through to find keywords that have lost their rankings and need an update.

I focus on primary keywords in with this method.

Side Note: “Last 3 Months” refers to the current 3 month period. “Previous 3 Months” refers to the months before that. For example, if it’s currently April, then the “Last 3 Months” would be April, March, and February. And the “Previous 3 Months” would be January, December, and November.

Video Tutorial

Find Secondary Keywords to Optimize For More Traffic

Google Search Console filtering options open, with 'URLs containing' field highlighted to specify a single page analysis, illustrating a step in selecting posts for updates based on SEO performance.

Blog posts rank for many keywords, but we don’t always think to include them when we first write our post.

There are so many keyword variations that some may slip our mind, or we didn’t know to include secondary keywords when we started (I barely knew what a keyword was at all when I started SEO writing!).

GSC can help you find those extra keywords you’re kinda ranking for so you can get more traffic.

Step 1: Open Google Search Console and go to the “Search Results” area.

Step 2: Ensure that “Clicks”, “Impressions”, “CTR”, and “Position” are all turned on.

Step 3: Click “+ New ” at the top of the screen and select “Page”. Input the URL of a specific post on your site that you want to review.

I recommend setting it to “URLs containing”, because Google ranks variations of a blog post. For example, Google creates jump links to certain parts of your blog posts from snippets.

You want to include those unique keywords in this GSC search.

Step 4: Review the keywords manually.

I typically filter by highest to lowest Clicks first, to see what’s working best so far. If any of those keywords aren’t ranking number one, then I make an effort to optimize the post better for them.

Then I look at the Impressions. Higher impressions mean more people are viewing that page (impressions = search volume, but only for the page that the keyword is on. Page 1 (Positions 1-10) will always have more Impressions than any other page, since people land on it first.

Then, I’ll look at which keywords are in Positions 2-20. These secondary keywords are often so close to ranking #1, but just need to be used one more time or have another sentence added.

Lastly, I’ll look at keywords with a low CTR (click through rate). Anything below 1% isn’t converting well. Analyze these keywords to see how we can make the blog post more appealing to users from the search results.

We aren’t changing the blog post to make these the primary keyword! We’re just adding them in once or twice to try to also rank for this keyword.

Query Hunter is a great tool that automates this process, and can filter out keywords you’ve already optimized for, if this seems too tedious.

It does take a while, and you will need a spreadsheet to keep track of your progress. But it’s meant to be slow going, so you are intentional with it.

Not Every Keyword is a Secondary Keyword

As you go through this process, you’ll find many keywords that make you go, “why does this post rank for that keyword? I never mentioned that.”

Keep track of those keywords. They can be very useful as zero volume keywords.

This is my favourite way to find keywords that Google already trusts me somewhat for, and that are already relevant to my audience based on the topics already on my blog.

Only write on things that make sense for your audience, though!

If you’re not familiar with the other great features of Google Search Console, you need a simple tutorial to help you take ownership of your data.

Read More of My Best SEO Tips:

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Nina Clapperton is the founder of She Knows SEO.

She started blogging in 2018 and spent years doing everything “right” while earning $0. Then she stopped guessing and learned how search actually works. She rebuilt her travel site around audience intent and structure and grew to 50,000 sessions in 6 months. Within a year, the blog was bringing in $30,000 months and later crossed 243,000 pageviews.

She took the same audience first SEO approach and built her education business into multiple $100,000 months.

Now Nina teaches bloggers and online business owners how to build search powered businesses grounded in strong positioning, clear structure, and monetisation that actually supports their audience. She covers traditional SEO and AI driven search without the tech bro noise, and she’s known for explaining complex strategy with analogies you won’t forget.

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