For SEOs, using RegEx in Google Search Console is a gamechanger and makes it easier to develop sophisticated filters across the query and URL data provided in the service. You find quick content ideas that your brand is relevant for!
It’s a superpower tool for content that will rank quicker!
Prior until now, you could filter Google Search Console data using simple criteria like equals, contains, and not-contains. These filters do, however, have some drawbacks.
But there’s the thing!
RegEx enables you to perform intricate pattern matching on the query and URL data of your website in order to simultaneously filter on several values. Finding useful queries that you can use to improve already existing content and add new pages to your website is made simpler and faster as a result. RegEx is awesome, and in this article, you will learn more about it and why it can be useful for finding customer post-purchase searches or for generating more content ideas.
What is RegEx (regular expression)? 💡
Now, let’s talk about RegEx, shall we?
It’s short for Regular Expression, which is basically a sequence of characters that forms a search pattern. Think of it as a secret code language for finding specific bits of text within a larger string.
It’s like being a detective and using clues to solve a case. RegEx helps you to find specific words or phrases in a haystack of text, saving you a whole lot of time and headache.
For example, say you’re trying to find all the URLs in a webpage. RegEx can help you to identify and extract them by using patterns like “http(s)?://([\w-]+\.)+[\w-]+(/[\w-./?%&=]*)?”.
Now, I know that might sound like gibberish to some of you, but for us SEO experts, RegEx is like our trusty sidekick that helps us get the job done faster and more efficiently.
So, there you have it, folks – RegEx in a nutshell. It may seem a bit intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s a powerful tool that can help take your SEO game to the next level and find solid content ideas! I used it for every Shopify SEO campaign to find landing page ideas!
How I find content seeds that are ready to grow into revenue-generating landing page trees 🌱
How to use Regex in Google Search Console:
1) Log into your Google Search Console
2) Click “Performance” in the Left-Hand Menu
3) Click +New in the Filters Options
4) Click on Query or Page to Access Custom (regex)
5) Now input the magic (Regex) in the Custom (regex) Field to find long-tail keywords
6) You can use this: ([^” “]*\s){6,}?
7) Export your regex content seeds (data) that’s ready to be turned into traffic 🌳
Tips on using regex for Google Search Console
- Segment users that already know your brand – So, if you want to segment users who already know your brand, you can use some clever regex. By creating filters for all variants of your company name, including the common misspellings, you can find out what type of queries each group is using and which section of your website is attracting them. For example, if your company’s name is FitFanatic, you might create a filter like this: fit fanatic|fitfanatic|fitfan(and remember, that | symbol means OR).
- Analyse traffic to a website section – Now, if you want to analyse traffic to a specific section of your website, you can use some more regex magic. By focusing on specific directories on your website, you can understand what are common queries for each of your content areas. For instance, if you have a URL structure like example.com/[product]/[brand]/[size]/[color], and you’re only interested in traffic leading to green shoes, you might use something like shoes/./green (where that . matches any character any number of times).
- Understand your customer’s intent – Lastly, if you want to understand user intent, regex can be your best friend. By analysng which types of queries are bringing users to different sections of your website, you can learn a lot about what people are looking for. For example, if you’re interested in queries containing question words like what, how, when, or why, you might create a filter like this: what|how|when|why. This could show you which parts of your content should answer questions, maybe through an FAQ. Alternatively, if you want to see which product names are commonly or rarely used with transactional words like buy, purchase, or order, you could use a filter like this: buy|purchase|order. This could help you understand how people are engaging with your products.
Final thoughts on regex
Now you have an agile sprint to create the content.
Why I love this method?
This is a rinse-and-repeat process that’s helped me time and time again to drive traffic to websites. It works awesome for eCommerce landing pages!
Think about it.
Google is giving us live data from our own websites. It’s data the algorithm thinks we’re relevant for.
All we need to do is act on it and build content/clusters around it.
Try this strategy, YOU WILL find a list of keywords to export ✌️
Turn your seeds into trees.
