How to find keywords you almost rank for (positions 11 to 20)

There's a group of search terms on almost every site that gets very little attention: the ones where you rank on page two. Google already thinks your page is relevant. It just doesn't think it's quite good enough for page one.

SEO people call these striking distance keywords. The name is a bit dramatic, but the idea is sound. Moving a page from position 14 to position 8 is usually far easier than getting a brand new page to rank at all, and it's the difference between almost no clicks and a steady trickle.

This post walks through how to find those keywords in Google Search Console, how to decide which ones deserve your time, and what to actually change on the page.

Why positions 11 to 20 matter

Most people never look past the first page of results. Large public studies of click-through rate, such as Backlinko's analysis of around 4 million search results, consistently find that clicks fall sharply as you move down page one and are close to nothing on page two.

So a query where you sit at position 13 might show thousands of impressions and a handful of clicks. That doesn't mean the topic has no value. It means you're just out of view. If you've read about impressions but no clicks, this is the "rank too low to be seen" case, and it needs a different fix from a title rewrite.

How to find them in Search Console

1. Open Performance, then Search results.
2. Set the date range to the last 3 months. Rankings move around week to week, and a longer window gives you a steadier average.
3. Turn on Average position and Impressions in the metric boxes above the chart.
4. Below the chart, on the Queries tab, click the Filter rows icon.
5. Add Position greater than 10.
6. Add a second filter: Position smaller than 21.
7. Add a third: Impressions greater than 50, so you're not looking at queries almost nobody searches.
8. Sort by Impressions, highest first.

That list is your striking distance keywords.

One thing to know: the position Search Console shows is an average. Google records the highest position your site held for each search and averages it across all the searches in your date range, as its help page on the metrics explains. A query at position 12 might really be bouncing between 8 and 16. That's fine for this exercise. It still tells you you're close.

How to prioritise

You'll probably get a longer list than you can work on. Sort it with three questions.

1. Does the query matter to your business? A query at position 12 with 3,000 impressions is worthless if the people searching it would never buy from you. Cross out anything that's off-topic, even if the numbers look big.

2. How many impressions does it get? More impressions means more clicks once you reach page one. Start with the biggest relevant queries.

3. Which page is ranking, and is it the right one? Click a query, then open the Pages tab. If the ranking page is a random blog post when you have a much better service page on the same topic, the fix might be pointing people to the right page, not improving the wrong one.

A simple way to rank the list: relevance first, then impressions, then how close to position 11 the query sits. A query at 11.5 is closer than one at 19.

How to improve the page

Once you've picked a query and the page that ranks for it, open that page and search the query yourself in a private browser window. Look at what's on page one. Then work through these changes, roughly in order of effort.

Make sure the page clearly answers the query

Read your page as if you'd just typed that query. Does it answer the question in the first few paragraphs? If the answer is buried under a long introduction, move it up.

Use the searcher's words

If people search "cheap accounting software for freelancers" and your page only ever says "affordable financial tools for independent professionals", Google has to work harder to connect them, and so does the reader. Use the phrase, or close variations, in the title, a heading and the first paragraph. Don't stuff it everywhere. Once or twice where it's natural is enough.

Cover what the top results cover

Look at the pages ranking in positions 1 to 5. What do they include that you don't? Maybe they all have a comparison table, a pricing section or a short FAQ. You don't need to copy them. You do need to cover the same ground, and ideally answer something they don't.

Add internal links

Link to the page from other relevant pages on your own site, using descriptive link text. This is one of the few things entirely in your control, and it helps Google understand which page you think matters for that topic.

Update and refresh

If the page has old dates, outdated prices or stale examples, update them. Freshness isn't magic, but a page that's obviously out of date is a weaker answer.

A worked example

Say you sell bookkeeping software for freelancers. Your striking distance list includes:

The ranking page is a blog post called "5 tips for getting paid faster". It mentions invoice templates once, halfway down.

You search the query. Every result on page one is a page offering an actual template, usually free to download, with a short guide on what to include.

The plan:

• Create a proper invoice template section on that post, or better, a dedicated page with a downloadable template.
• Put "invoice template for freelancers" in the title and the main heading.
• Add a short list of what every freelance invoice should include: your details, client details, invoice number, dates, line items, payment terms.
• Link to the new section from your pricing page and two related posts.

Then give it time. Changes like this often take several weeks to show up, because Google has to recrawl the page and then re-rank it. Use the Compare option in the date filter to check the same query four to eight weeks later.

What not to do

• Don't create a second page for the same query. Two of your own pages competing for one search usually makes both rank worse.
• Don't change the URL. If the page already ranks, a new address adds a redirect and a wait while Google processes it, for no benefit. Improve the page where it is.
• Don't expect overnight results. Position changes lag behind edits.
• Don't chase every query on the list. Five well-chosen improvements beat thirty rushed ones.

Make it a regular check

Striking distance lists change as your rankings move. A quarterly review is plenty for most small sites, and it gives each round of changes time to settle before you judge them.

If you're new to Search Console and want to know which reports to ignore while you do this, start with the four things founders should actually look at.

This is also the kind of repetitive check Sense Console does for you: it compares your queries over time and flags the ones sitting just off page one, with a suggested next step for each.