Google Search Console vs Google Analytics: Complete Comparison And Guide

The metrics look good. But what is Google Search Console used for? What’s the purpose of Google Analytics?

Let’s answer these questions by looking at some of the features both of these tools offer.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console has plenty of useful features to monitor website performance.

Some of the most important ones are:

1. Monitor Search Performance

With important metrics such as impressions, clicks, click-through rates (CTRs), and average position you get to understand how your website looks on Google.
You get to identify improvement opportunities and work on improving your website’s ranking and performance.

2. Indexing and Crawling

GSC allows you to view and control how Google crawls and indexes your website. You can submit sitemaps, check for crawling errors, and monitor the index status of your pages.

This feature helps you ensure that Google can access, understand, and publish your content effectively.

3. URL Inspection

GSC’s live URL inspection and testing tool enables you to inspect specific URLs on your website and see if they are indexed or not.

Also, you can identify URL issues that may affect their visibility in search results, such as indexing errors, mobile usability problems, or structured data markup issues.

4. Website Experience

GSC also provides insights into the user-friendliness of your website through its “Experience” tab.

You get to understand how well your website performs for the users in terms of mobile performance, website speed, visual stability, and responsiveness.

Plus, it specifically alerts you to any mobile usability issues that may impact user experience on mobile devices, such as text that’s too small to read or clickable elements that are too close together.

5. Website Security

Unlike google analytics, Google Search Console also helps monitor your website’s health through its security feature.

It notifies you of any malware attack or indexing issues which might impact your site’s overall functioning.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is just as useful and offers amazing features too.

1. Targeted Audience Segmentation

GA provides detailed information about your website visitors, including their demographics, interests, location, and devices used to access your site. This data helps you understand your target audience better and tailor your marketing strategies accordingly.

You can even segment users based on their demographics, interests, and behavior to understand what content appeals to them.

For example, you can create segments for high-value customers who have made purchases in the past month or engaged readers who read more than 10 blog posts in a week.

2. Funnel Visualization

You can use funnel visualization to track user paths across pages on your website. This helps you identify areas where visitors might be dropping off or abandoning the funnel, as well as any issues that may be affecting conversion rates.

This information helps you identify popular content, areas of high engagement, and potential bottlenecks in the user journey.

3. Conversion Tracking

GA enables you to set up and track goals, such as form submissions, purchases, or newsletter sign-ups. It provides valuable insights into conversion rates, revenue attribution, and the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

4. A/B Testing

Google Analytics also allows you to compare different versions of a page or feature and see which one performs better.

This helps you make data-driven decisions about your content, website design, and product development.

5. Acquisition Analytics

GA tracks the sources of traffic to your website, such as organic search, paid search, social media, referrals, and direct traffic.

This data helps you identify which channels are driving the most traffic and optimize your marketing efforts accordingly.

Similarly, Google Analytics search terms report helps you identify traffic-attracting keywords by showing you “terms” that resulted in your ad being shown. 

6. Ecommerce Analytics

Finally, Google Analytics also provides detailed ecommerce data about the performance of your online store.

You can get insights into user behavior, such as product views and add-to-cart rates, as well as analyze revenue and conversion rates for each product in your store. This enables you to optimize pricing strategies and maximize profits.

Now that you understand what is Google Analytics and what is Google Search Console used for, let’s see how these tools compare.