Marketers who demand more information about website performance are in luck - Google's bringing search query, backlink data to Webmaster Tools API.

Website performance and search visibility have become important metrics for search marketing. Knowing that 95 percent of all web traffic goes to domains on the first page of SERPs, marketers must confirm both front-facing and back-end aspects of their pages are optimized for user experience and follow Google’s SEO best practices. This requires brands to track in-depth data about their websites, even though some information isn’t available in Webmaster Tools API.

In the latest Google Webmaster Help Channel video, Search Engineer Matt Cutts fields a question about whether or not the API will allow publishers to retrieve data about search queries and backlinks.

The short answer is yes, Cutts says.

“The longer answer is that we’re working on it and we hope to release it relatively soon,” he adds. “In the meantime … there are PHP and Python libraries webmasters that you can use to download the data [and]… toolkits that will allow you to get access to the data right now.”

With more information at their fingertips, marketers can make smarter decisions about SEO content that put websites in positions to climb SERPs.

Lauren Kaye is a Marketing Editor at Brafton Inc. She studied creative and technical writing at Virginia Tech before pursuing the digital frontier and finding content marketing was the best place to put her passions to work. Lauren also writes creative short fiction, hikes in New England and appreciates a good book recommendation.