How to find striking distance keywords in Search Console

Striking distance keywords are searches where one of your pages ranks just below the results that collect most clicks, usually at an average position of 4 to 20. Google already treats the page as relevant, so a focused improvement often pays off faster than a new page. To find them, export your queries from Search Console, keep that window with enough impressions to matter, score each by the clicks a better position would bring, and decide what to change.

Why positions 4 to 20?

Clicks fall steeply with position. In the benchmark curve AutoPSEO falls back on when a site has little data of its own (a blend of published CTR studies), a result at position 3 is clicked about 11% of the time, at position 8 about 3.3%, and at position 15 about 1.2%. Moving a well-searched query from 8 to 3 can multiply its clicks several times over without a single new search.

The 4 to 20 window is a convention, not a rule. Positions 4 to 10 are on page one and usually respond to modest changes; 11 to 20 is page two, where more work is needed but there is also more to gain. Some people stop at 15. Pick the window that fits the time you have, and treat the edges as soft.

Step 1: export your queries

1. Open Performance → Search results and set the date range to the last three months. Three months smooths out weekly noise while staying recent.
2. Remove branded searches. If your property has the branded queries filter, choose Non-branded; otherwise add a query filter, choose Custom (regex), set it to "Doesn't match regex" and list your brand's spellings. Your own name ranks near the top anyway and would crowd the list.
3. Export the Queries table. The interface stops at 1,000 rows, which is enough for most small sites. Larger sites need the API or a tool built on it.

Search Console's interface cannot show query and page together in one table. To see which page ranks for a query, click the query and open the Pages tab. Do that only for your shortlist, in step 5.

Step 2: keep the window and set a floor

In the spreadsheet, keep rows with an average position from 4 to 20, then remove rows with too few impressions to judge. Where to put that floor is a judgement call. A reasonable starting point:

• Small site (a few thousand impressions a month in total): 100 impressions over the three months.
• Medium site: 500.
• Large site: raise the floor until 50 to 100 rows remain.

The aim is a list you can actually work through. A query with 30 impressions in three months could jump ten places and still bring you a handful of visits.

Step 3: score by potential clicks

Sort by impressions first, then add a column that estimates what the move is worth:

potential clicks = impressions × (expected CTR at the target position − current CTR)

Use your own CTR curve if you built one (see CTR and average position), or the benchmark above. Position 3 is a common target because it is the last position that reliably collects a large share of clicks, but you can aim for any position.

A worked example: a home appliance brand has the query "how to descale a kettle" at average position 7.4, with 2,400 impressions and 50 clicks in the last 28 days, a CTR of 2.1%. With an expected CTR of 11% at position 3, the potential is 2,400 × (0.110 − 0.021), about 214 extra clicks every 28 days. That is a ceiling rather than a forecast, but it lets you compare queries on one scale.

Step 4: remove what you should not chase

Before deciding anything, strike out:

• Searches with mixed intent, where the results page shows a mix of shops, videos and articles and your page type is in the minority.
• Searches for someone else, such as another brand's login or support pages.
• Searches in another language, or searches that find a translated version of your page.
• Queries that jump around, say from 6 to 18 and back between weeks, which usually means Google has not settled on what the searcher wants.

Step 5: improve the page, or write a new one?

This is the decision that most guides skip, and it is the one that matters most. For each remaining query, click it in Search Console and look at the Pages tab.

• The ranking page is about this search. Its title, main heading and address say so. Improve that page (step 6). Writing a second page next to it would split the search between two URLs.
• The ranking page is broader. A home page, a category page, or a long guide with one paragraph on the subject is ranking because nothing better exists. If the search deserves a full answer of its own, a dedicated page can do much better; link to it from the broader page. If a short answer is all it needs, expand the section in the existing page instead.
• Another of your pages already ranks in the top three for it. There is nothing to write.

In the kettle example, the ranking page is /guides/kettle-care, a general care guide with a short descaling section. Its address names the kettle but not descaling, so the search is only partly its subject. Either option can be right: expand the descaling section into a complete answer, or publish a dedicated descaling guide and link to it from the care guide. Read the results page for the query before choosing; if the top results are all dedicated how-to pages, that tells you what Google thinks searchers want.

Step 6: what to change on the page

Keep the edits focused. You are building on a page Google already likes.

• Say the subject in the searcher's words. If the title and main heading describe the topic in different terms from the ones people search, bring them closer, as long as it stays accurate. The title rewrites playbook covers the details.
• Answer early. Put a direct answer to the search in the first lines, then the detail. AutoPSEO's own article format caps that opening answer at 60 words, which is a useful discipline for any page.
• Cover the questions next to it. The page's Queries tab in Search Console lists the other searches it appears for. The ones it answers badly are your missing sections.
• Link to it from related pages with descriptive anchor text. Google says it uses links both to find pages and as a signal of how relevant they are, and that good anchor text is descriptive, concise and relevant (Link best practices).
• Bring facts up to date where they have aged, without changing the date just to look fresh.

Step 7: measure the result

Add an annotation on the Performance chart on the day you publish, note the change in your log, and leave it alone. Google says a recrawl can take from a few days to a few weeks (Ask Google to recrawl), and rankings take time to settle after that. After four to eight weeks, compare the 28 days after the change with the 28 days before it, looking at the query's position and clicks in the page's Queries tab. If nothing moved, the page probably needs more than an edit, or the search wants a different kind of page.

How AutoPSEO does this

The Page Poaching report runs steps 1 to 3 on your full data, query and page together. It defaults to positions 4 to 20 (with presets for 4 to 10, 10 to 15 and 10 to 20), a minimum of 10 impressions that you can raise, and a target of position 3 that you can change. It scores each query with your own CTR curve and tags it easy (position 7 or better), medium (8 to 12) or hard (13 and beyond). A second table lists results already near the top that earn too few clicks. You can try the method on an export with the free Quick Wins Finder.

The content engine applies step 5 automatically every day. It reads the last 28 days of your searches by page and treats a search as a candidate for a new article when it has at least 20 impressions, sits below position 3 but no lower than 30, and the page that ranks for it is not about it: fewer than 60% of the search's meaningful words appear in that page's address, or the page is your home page. Searches in another language are skipped, and candidates are ranked by the clicks they could gain at position 3. Each one then has to get past gates that refuse anything your site already covers or already ranks for in the top three, and past a model review that compares it with your closest pages and, when one of the engine's own articles is the right home for it, turns it into a new section of that article instead. The topics page describes every step.