How do impressions impact your practice?
Each time your website appears in Google search (which includes Google AI Mode and AI Overviews) for a specific term, it’s counted as one impression.
What is Google AI Mode and AI Overviews? Click Here to Learn More
Note: Impressions are counted only if a page associated with your website appears within this road (Google Search, AI Overviews, AI Mode). This means if your practice appears in search, AI Mode, or Overview response, and the page points back to an online listing or profile, then those impressions are not counted or reported in Google Search Console. Likewise, any mention or appearance of your practice (even if it points back to your website) in any other search platform (Bing) or other AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, etc, is not tracked.
To truly understand the impact of impressions, think of Google Search, AI Overviews, and AI Mode as busy roads where people travel daily, looking for answers. Now picture your website as a billboard along that road. Every time your site appears in search results, it’s like a driver passing your billboard. That moment is what Google calls an “impression.”. Even if the person doesn’t stop and visit your site, the fact that they saw it listed still counts as an impression. What this means is that regardless of whether your website appears on page one or page five in Google search, the fact that it appeared is counted as an impression.
If impressions are counted regardless of whether the website appears on page one or not, what significance does this have for growing my practice/business?
- Impressions are the first step in online marketing. Without impressions, the website is not visible in Google searches (including AI Mode or Overview response). So, having even a few thousand impressions means your website is on the playing field.
- Impressions, when broken down by page and search term, can be an ideal indicator that tells the teams what to focus on.
How do we do this?
- Let’s assume the search term “best pizza in Chicago” has 300 impressions, and “authentic pizza in Chicago” has 50 impressions.
- This simple stat tells us that the website appeared 300 times for “best pizza in Chicago”.
- Since almost all local practice websites will never appear for the same search term dozens of times, it’s safe to assume that most of the 300 impressions resulted from unique users typing in the search term into Google.
- The site ranks in position 30 for both “best pizza in Chicago” and “authentic pizza in Chicago.” Based on basic math, we should prioritize improving the ranking for the search term “best pizza in Chicago” first because that will yield the biggest impact compared to improving the ranking of “authentic pizza in Chicago.”
- If we notice impressions declining for consecutive months (in every stat, there will be fluctuations, and that is to be expected in online marketing, especially in the age of AI), but if there are multiple months of decline, it could be due to the following reasons, which the teams would investigate.
- A page published on the website that is associated with a few highly searched-for search terms may have dropped in rankings so much that it no longer appears in Google search.
- Changes in search trends and user behaviors can also significantly impact the total impression count. A search term that was extremely popular two months ago could have died down recently.
The Keyword Insight reports were created primarily for the above reasons. The report breaks down impressions and rank by page, device, and search term in detail, which helps us identify what’s not working and ensure that the impressions you see in your month-end report (at least a vast majority of it) are impactful. Haven’t received your Keyword Insights report yet? Click here to request that your assigned Client Coordinator share a fresh report with you.