Reading search query reports without losing a day
How I go through thousands of queries in under an hour.
Search query reports are where advertising budgets quietly leak. They are also long, repetitive and easy to postpone.
I start by sorting queries by cost, not by impressions. The top two hundred rows usually explain most of the spend. Then I group queries by the words that make them irrelevant — jobs, free, DIY, competitor names — rather than reviewing them one by one.
Each group becomes one negative keyword decision. Before adding anything, I check that the negative word does not block a query that has actually converted. That single check prevents most self-inflicted damage.
Done weekly, the whole routine takes less than an hour.
Next note: Most small sites could be static