Most query analysis sorts by clicks, which just tells you what already works. The queries that move fastest are ones Google already considers you relevant for but ranks below the fold. The obvious approach - chasing high-volume head terms you rank 40th for - fails because those need links and authority, not a title tag rewrite.
striking-distance-query-analysis.md
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name: striking-distance-query-analysis
description: Use when you have Search Console data and need to decide which queries are worth working on this month.
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# Striking Distance Query Analysis
Most query analysis sorts by clicks, which just tells you what already works. The queries that move fastest are ones Google already considers you relevant for but ranks below the fold. The obvious approach - chasing high-volume head terms you rank 40th for - fails because those need links and authority, not a title tag rewrite.
## What you need first
- Search Console query export, 3 months minimum, page-level not site-level
- the URL each query currently ranks with
- current title and H1 for those URLs
## Method
1. Export queries with page dimension attached. Site-level query data hides the case where three pages compete for one query, which is the single most common cause of a stuck position 11.
2. Filter to average position between 8 and 20. Below 8 you are fighting for small CTR gains, above 20 the gap is usually authority, not on-page.
3. Within that band, sort by impressions descending. Impressions are Google telling you it already thinks the page belongs in the result set.
4. Check each query for cannibalisation: if two or more URLs have impressions for it, fix that first and re-measure before touching anything else.
5. For the survivors, check whether the exact query phrasing appears in the title, H1 and first 100 words. Position 11-15 with the phrase missing from the title is the highest-yield fix in SEO.
6. Cap the batch at 10-15 URLs so you can attribute movement. Change 60 pages at once and you will never know which edit worked.
## What this produces
A ranked shortlist of 10-15 URLs with the specific query each should target and the on-page change to make.
## Where this goes wrong
- Using average position as if it were a real rank - it is an impression-weighted mean across devices and countries, so a UK page with stray US impressions looks worse than it is
- Working the 3-month average when the last 28 days tell a different story, so you optimise a query that already died
- Ignoring that Search Console truncates the query list, so long-tail volume is systematically understated
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From the QuQi skill library - https://www.quqi.io/skills/striking-distance-query-analysis
Free to download · no account, no email
A ranked shortlist of 10-15 URLs with the specific query each should target and the on-page change to make.