Most SEO advice focuses on creating new content. Yet one of the quickest ways to grow traffic is improving pages that already almost rank. These are "striking-distance" keywords: queries for which your site appears on page two or at the bottom of page one. A small push can move them into positions where they actually earn clicks, and the data to find them is free.
Why Positions 8 to 20 Matter
The first page of results captures the overwhelming majority of clicks, and the top few positions take most of those. A page sitting at position 12 may get almost nothing, while the same page at position 5 could receive many times more traffic. Because Google already considers the page relevant, improving it is usually faster than building authority for a brand-new page from scratch. This is the kind of efficient approach suited to businesses that want to rank without a big budget.
Finding Them in Search Console
Open the Performance report for Search results and set a date range of at least three months. Turn on average position, impressions and clicks, then switch to the Queries tab. Filter or sort so you can see queries with an average position roughly between 8 and 20, and focus on those with meaningful impressions. Next, click a query and open the Pages tab to see which URL is ranking. Remember that average position is a mean across many searches, so treat the numbers as a guide rather than an exact ranking. Exporting the data to a spreadsheet or a dashboard, as described in our Looker Studio guide, makes sorting easier.
A Second Type: High Impressions, Low Clicks
Also look for pages that already rank well but earn few clicks. The cause is usually a weak title or meta description that doesn't match what searchers want. Rewriting these to be clearer, more specific and more compelling can lift click-through rate without any change in ranking. Our guide to improving click-through rate offers practical ideas.
What to Do With Each Page
Compare the page against what currently ranks above you. Does it answer the query fully, or are competitors covering subtopics you've skipped? Adding missing sections, updating outdated figures and improving structure often helps, and the process in refreshing old content applies directly. Studying competing results is covered in competitor SEO analysis.
Next, strengthen the page's links. Add internal links from related, well-established pages using natural anchor text, following the advice on internal linking architecture. If the query is phrased as a question, a concise direct answer near the top may help you win a featured snippet. For competitive terms, earning a few quality external links may still be necessary; see link building strategies.
Prioritise and Measure
You won't have time to fix everything, so rank opportunities by impressions and by how commercially valuable the query is. A keyword that attracts buyers deserves attention before one that attracts casual readers. Record the date of each change and revisit the data after several weeks, since rankings take time to move. Tying results back to enquiries or sales, as discussed in measuring SEO ROI, shows whether the effort is paying off, and a longer-term content strategy helps you repeat the process each quarter.
If you'd like help turning your Search Console data into a prioritised action list, ANGLIA's team can do the analysis and recommend the first ten pages to improve. Browse the SEO FAQ for more background, or contact us to talk it through.
