Look, I get it. You open Google Analytics and see your website data. Then you check Search Console, and it’s completely different. SEMrush? That’s showing something else entirely. And you’re sitting there thinking, “What the hell is going on with my traffic?”
I had this exact situation last month with a client. Their blog post was showing 2,847 impressions in Search Console, but only 43 clicks. Google Analytics said 287 people visited. SEMrush claimed 1,850 visitors: three different tools, three wildly different stories.
So which one’s right? Well, here’s the thing, they’re all “right” in their own way. They’re just measuring completely different stuff.
Why Your Traffic Numbers Never Match Up
Think about it like this. You’ve got a physical store in a mall. One person is standing outside, counting everyone who walks past your window. Another person’s at the door, counting who actually comes inside. And some guy’s sitting at home with a calculator trying to guess how many customers you should have based on how busy the mall usually is.
That’s basically what’s happening here.
Google Analytics is counting people who actually walked into your store. Search Console is tracking who saw your window display and decided to come in (but only from Google). SEMrush? That’s the guy with the calculator making educated guesses.
Let’s Break Down Each Tool
Google Analytics watches what happens after people show up. Where they go, how long they stay, what they click.
Google Search Console is more like… imagine you’ve got someone monitoring just your storefront. They’re noting when people stop, look at your window display, and whether they decide to come in or keep walking.
SEMrush doesn’t actually watch your store at all. It’s looking at foot traffic patterns in the area, checking out where your competitors are, and saying, “Based on everything we know, you should be getting about this many customers.”
See the difference?
What Google Search Console Is Really Showing You
Okay, so Search Console gives you four main numbers to look at:
Impressions – This is how many times your link popped up when someone searched on Google. They might not have even scrolled down to see it, but Google counts it anyway.
Clicks – Pretty straightforward. Someone saw your link and actually clicked it.
CTR (Click-Through Rate) – Just your clicks divided by impressions. Shows you what percentage of people who saw your link actually clicked it.
Average Position – Where you typically show up in search results. Position 1 is the top, position 10 is the bottom of the first page, and so on.
Now here’s something important that trips people up all the time: Search Console ONLY tracks Google. If someone finds you on Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, or wherever else, Search Console has no idea that happened.
When You See Impressions But No Clicks (Big Red Flag)
Remember my client with 2,847 impressions and only 43 clicks? That’s a 1.5% CTR, way below the industry average of 3-5% for organic results. Their page was showing up in search results thousands of times, but hardly anyone thought it was worth clicking on.
Usually, this happens because:
- Your title sounds boring or generic. Like “Guide to Revenue Analytics”, when everyone else is saying “How to Boost Revenue by 40% Using These 7 Analytics Tricks.”
- Your meta description isn’t answering what people actually want to know. You’re being too vague or corporate-speak-y.
- Competitors have better stuff showing in their snippets. Maybe they’ve got star ratings, prices, or dates that make their listing look more useful.
- Your URL looks sketchy or unprofessional. Yeah, people judge that stuff.
- Someone else has a featured snippet sitting right above you, answering the question before anyone needs to click.
Quick fix you can try today: Go into Search Console, click on Performance, then Pages. Look for pages that have decent impressions but terrible CTR. Those are your low-hanging fruit. Fix the titles and descriptions on those pages first.
Why Google Analytics Is Your Single Source of Truth
Google Analytics is installed right on your website. It’s watching everything in real-time. This isn’t estimated traffic or projected traffic—it’s actual human beings (and okay, some bots) visiting your pages.
Here’s What Makes GA Different
Every time someone lands on your site, GA records:
Where they came from (was it Google? Facebook? Did they just type in your URL?)
Which pages did they look at
How long have they stuck around
Whether they did anything useful (signed up, bought something, downloaded a thing)
So in that client example I mentioned earlier—GA showed 287 organic sessions while Search Console showed only 43 clicks. How does that work?
Simple. Those extra 244 sessions came from Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines. Search Console only sees Google traffic, but GA sees everything.
How to Actually Read Your GA Traffic Report
Go to Acquisition, then All Traffic, then Source/Medium. You’ll see your traffic split up like this:
Organic Search – People who found you by searching (any search engine, not just Google)
Direct – They typed your URL or used a bookmark. Or maybe they clicked a link from an email that didn’t have proper tracking.
Referral – They clicked a link from another website
Social – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, whatever
That number next to “Organic Search”? That’s your real organic traffic. Not an estimate. Not a projection. That’s how many people actually showed up.
Why GA and Search Console Don’t Always Match
Even when you’re looking at the same dates, these tools can show different numbers. And honestly? That’s normal. Here’s why:
GA records visits instantly. Search Console takes 24 to 48 hours to update its data, sometimes longer.
You might have filters set up differently. Like maybe Search Console is filtered to show just one page, but GA is showing your whole site.
GA tracks ALL search engines. Search Console only cares about Google.
Bot traffic gets messy. GA tries to filter out bots, but some slip through. This can make numbers look a bit off.
The Truth About SEMrush (It’s All Estimates)
SEMrush isn’t tracking your actual traffic. It can’t. It’s not installed on your site. Instead, it’s running a formula that goes something like:
Your keyword rankings × how many people search for those keywords × how many should click based on your position = estimated traffic
How SEMrush Builds These Numbers
Let’s say you’re ranking #5 for “revenue cycle analytics” and that term gets searched 3,200 times a month. SEMrush knows from studying millions of search results that position 5 usually gets about 5% of the clicks.
So they do the math: 3,200 searches × 5% = 160 estimated visits from that one keyword.
They do this for every keyword you rank for, add it all up, and boom—you get that 1,850 number.
Sounds logical, right? But here’s the catch.
The Problem with Using Average CTR
SEMrush uses these preset percentages for each position:
Position 1 gets about 31.7% of clicks. Position 2 gets about 24.7% Position 3 gets about 18.7% Position 5 gets about 9.5% Position 10 gets about 2.5%
These numbers aren’t just made up; companies like Advanced Web Ranking track this stuff religiously. Backlinko even did this massive study analysing 5 million search results that basically confirmed what we suspected: position 1 is gold, and everything else falls off fast. But YOUR specific results? They can be way different.
Your title matters. A title like “10 Best Revenue Tools [2025 Guide]” will crush “Revenue Tools Guide” even at the same ranking position.
Brand recognition is huge. Apple’s search listing gets way more clicks than some random unknown brand, even if they’re both in position 3.
SERP features mess everything up. If there’s a featured snippet above you, your position 1 might only get 15% CTR instead of the expected 31%.
Ads eat into clicks. When there are 4 ads above the organic results, everyone’s CTR goes down.
When SEMrush Actually Helps
Despite all this, SEMrush isn’t useless. Far from it. It’s great for:
- Checking out what your competitors are doing and where they might be getting traffic
- Finding keywords you’re ranking for that you didn’t even know about
- Spotting trends, like is your estimated traffic going up or down over time?
- Identifying content gaps where competitors are crushing you
- Just don’t ever call it “actual traffic” when you’re talking to a client. It’s potential. It’s estimated. It’s “what could be happening.” Tools like Ahrefs and Moz work the same way; they’re all making educated guesses based on similar data.
Let Me Show You a Real Example
So, back to my client’s blog post. Here’s what we were looking at:
Search Console: 2,847 impressions, 43 clicks (that’s a 1.5% CTR, way below average) Google Analytics: 287 sessions from organic search SEMrush: 1,850 estimated traffic
What Was Actually Going On
The page was ranking for 23 different keywords. Google was showing it in search results 2,847 times over three months. But only 43 people thought it looked interesting enough to click on; that’s a terrible conversion rate.
Meanwhile, 287 people total found the page, but most of them (244 sessions) came from Bing and other search engines, where the competition wasn’t as fierce.
So the content itself wasn’t terrible. The problem was that on Google, competing against better-optimised titles and descriptions, this page just looked… meh.
What We Did to Fix It
- First, we completely rewrote the title tag. Added some numbers, threw in the current year, and made the benefit super clear.
- Then we fixed the meta description. Made it way more specific. Added some intrigue. Gave people a reason to care.
- We added schema markup so the listing would show up nicer in search results.
- Updated the publish date to make it look fresh.
- Nothing fancy. Just basic optimisation that should’ve been done from the start.
- A month later? Search Console clicks went from 43 to 156, a 262% increase. And GA organic sessions jumped to 612.
- Six months later, this single blog post was pulling in 1,200+ organic sessions monthly and ranking in the top 3 for 8 high-value keywords.
Which Tool Should You Actually Use for Reporting?
Okay, here’s your cheat sheet.
When Clients Ask “How Much Traffic Am I Getting?” → Google Analytics
This is the only number that matters for actual traffic. Period.
Show them:
- Total sessions
- Where organic traffic is coming from
- Which pages are getting the most visits
- How people are behaving (bounce rate, time on page, all that)
When You’re Talking About SEO Performance → Google Search Console
This is where you go to discuss search rankings and click-through rates.
Show them:
- Total clicks from Google specifically
- How impressions and CTR are trending
- Which search queries are working
- Pages that need better titles/descriptions
When You’re Planning Strategy → SEMrush
Use this for planning next moves, not for reporting what already happened.
Show them:
- Keyword opportunities you should go after
- Where competitors are ranking
- Estimated traffic potential (but say “estimated”!)
- How rankings have changed over time
Mistakes I See People Make All the Time
Mistake #1: Treating SEMrush Numbers Like Real Traffic
I’ve literally seen agencies tell clients “Your site is getting 50,000 visitors a month” based purely on SEMrush data. Then the client opens Google Analytics and sees 8,500. Awkward.
Don’t do this. Always say “SEMrush estimates X” versus “you actually got Y from Analytics.”
Mistake #2: Ignoring When GSC and GA Don’t Match
If Search Console says 500 clicks but Analytics only shows 250 sessions, something’s broken. Maybe your tracking code isn’t installed correctly. Maybe your filters are too aggressive.
Check this regularly. Your GA number should be higher than GSC (because GA includes all search engines), but they should be in the same ballpark.
Mistake #3: Thinking Impressions = Traffic
Nope. Impressions mean people MIGHT have seen your link. Doesn’t mean they clicked it. Doesn’t mean they cared.
25,000 impressions sounds impressive until you realise your CTR is 0.8% and you only got 200 actual clicks.
Mistake #4: Comparing Different Date Ranges
This seems obvious, but people do it constantly. They’ll compare last week’s Analytics to last month’s Search Console and freak out about discrepancies that aren’t real.
Pick a date range. Use the same date range in all tools. Then compare.
Actually Useful Tips You Can Use Today
Build Yourself a Simple Dashboard
Make a template you can fill out every month:
From GA: Total sessions, organic sessions, top pages. From GSC: Total clicks, impressions, average CTR, average position
From SEMrush: How many keywords you’re ranking for, traffic trend
This way, you’ve got the full picture without driving yourself crazy.
Set Up Some Alerts
In Google Analytics, create alerts for:
- Organic traffic is dropping 20% or more week over week
- Bounce rate suddenly spikes
- Weird new traffic sources showing up (could be spam)
In Search Console, watch for:
- Clicks or impressions are dropping suddenly
- CTR falling below 2% (that’s pretty bad)
- Average position dropping more than 5 spots
Do This Every Month
First of the month routine:
Pull your GA organic sessions for last month. Pull your GSC clicks for the same period. Compare them, GA should be higher. If there’s a huge gap, figure out what. Check SEMrush to see if any rankings changed
Takes like 15 minutes and keeps you from getting surprised.
Actually Improve Your CTR
If Search Console shows high impressions but low clicks, test these:
Better title formulas:
- “7 Ways to [Get Result] in 2025 (Without [Common Problem])”
- “The Complete [Topic] Guide That [Specific Benefit]”
- “What [Expert/Authority] Won’t Tell You About [Topic]”
Write descriptions that don’t suck:
- Start with what they’ll get, not what it is
- Actually use your target keyword (but naturally)
- Tell them what to do—”Learn how,” “Discover,” “Find out”
- Use words that create urgency or curiosity
Add rich results when you can:
- FAQ schema for how-to content
- Review the schema if you’ve got product pages
- Recipe schema for food stuff
- Event schema for time-sensitive things
Google’s gotten really good at showing these enhanced results, and they can seriously boost your CTR. The structured data documentation is buried in Google’s developer docs somewhere, but most WordPress plugins like Yoast or Rank Math will add this stuff automatically if you fill out the right fields.
Look, Here’s the Bottom Line
Stop letting these tools confuse you. It’s actually pretty simple once you know what each one does.
Google Analytics = actual traffic. Use this when clients ask how things are going, when you’re calculating ROI, or when you need real numbers.
Google Search Console = your Google search performance. Use this when you’re optimising SEO, fixing CTR problems, and figuring out what’s working in search.
SEMrush = estimated potential. Use this for strategy, checking competitors, and finding opportunities. But never, ever call it actual traffic.
They’re not fighting with each other. They’re each showing you a different angle. Your job is knowing which number matters for what you’re trying to do.
That client I mentioned at the beginning? Once we stopped obsessing over why the numbers didn’t match and started focusing on what actually mattered (getting more real traffic in GA and improving CTR in GSC), their organic traffic grew 180% in four months.
Not because we measured differently. Because we finally measured the right things.
Go check your Google Analytics right now. That’s your reality. Everything else is just context to help you improve that number.
