Using Google Analytics for SEO Strategy
Learning how to use Google Analytics for SEO strategy can bring your site to new heights. Google Analytics is a powerful tool for tracking and collecting and displaying data. All that data is extremely valuable to an SEO strategy. But you have to know what to look for, what to set up, and how to read what you’re seeing.
So, let’s learn how to incorporate Google Analytics when you’re building an SEO strategy.
(If you need some help getting started, review our guide on how to set up Google Analytics.)
Google Analytics For SEO: Important Metrics
It’s important to first understand what your strategy should accomplish. At the end of the day, you may want to ask yourself:
- Is traffic growing? If so, is it organic or inorganic traffic? What pages are getting that traffic?
- Who is finding my site? Are they the right people for me?
- What do people do when they get to my site?
- Are these actions leading to more conversions?
- If someone leaves without converting, which page do they leave from most often?
When you answer these questions, you can incorporate them into your strategy. For example, maybe Google Analytics tells you that people are most often going to your blog when they arrive at your site rather than your services pages. You can take this data and add steps to your strategy that make your services pages easier or more appealing to click on.
So, make sure you have a list handy of the types of numbers that are important to you.
If you want to begin with the end in mind, read up on how to analyze SEO performance. That way, you’re setting up a strategy you know you can review later.
For right now, let’s figure out where in Google Analytics you can go to answer your questions.
(Please keep in mind that Google Analytics is often changed and updated based on user feedback. The menus and layouts you see in the screenshots below may not exactly match what you see today.)
Traffic Sources and Origins
Is traffic growing? If so, is it organic or inorganic traffic? What pages are getting that traffic?
We can check details about traffic by going to Reports > Reports Snapshot.
On this screen, you can see how many people viewed your site within a given time period – in this case, one month. On the bottom right, you can see the number of sessions that were organic vs. inorganic. You can drill down on those sources by choosing View Traffic Acquisition.
This screen provides more details. For example, we can see that organic social traffic and organic search traffic account for only 10% of the total traffic. Direct traffic is most effective at 72%, followed by email with 13%. In our strategy, we can try to put more effort into earning organic traffic.
If you go back to the previous screen and scroll down a bit, we can see what pages people enter the site on.
In this case, we see that our homepage is where people go first. But if we want more details, we can select View Pages and Screens.
Here, we can get more detailed information about the page visits and compare data. For example, our new Webinar page gets more traffic and users than our Website Maintenance Services page. However, the Website Maintenance Services page earns more events; meaning people click on and engage with the content more on that page.
Pay attention to these numbers. You want to understand what your baseline is. That way you know what you’re doing well and where you want to focus more effort.
So, what’s the strategy?
Traffic is trending downward, so we should focus on bringing more visitors to the website.
Direct visits, email, and social media are our strongest sources, so we should increase attention to those methods. Our homepage, event page, and maintenance pages are getting the most visitors, so we should optimize those pages for conversions.
Details About Visitors
Who is finding my site? Are they the right people for me?
Let’s learn a little more about the people who are visiting the website. Go to Reports > User attributes > Overview.
This screen will show you information about the location, age, gender, interests, and language of your users for a given time period.
This information is particularly helpful if you already have a user persona. See what information from this page matches up with your ideal client or customer. Adjust your strategy accordingly.
So, What’s the Strategy?
Say that your traffic is coming mostly from Asia. Most of the visitors are male, between the ages of 18-24, and their hobbies are technology and news. But you want to be speaking to people in America who are female ages 25+. You can’t completely control who finds you online, but you can optimize design, content, and messaging to appeal to specific demographics. Do some research into the things that your ideal customer really cares about and start creating SEO focused content specifically for them.
Actions Taken
What do people do when they get to my site?
Google Analytics can show us the journeys people take once arriving on your website. Go to Reports > Engagement > Engagement overview. Two pieces of information you can learn about on this page are about engagement time (How long do people spend doing stuff on the site?) and events (How do people interact with pages when they land on them?)
Pair this data with…
Conversion Tracking
Are actions and events leading to more conversions?
Due to some changes with Google Analytics recently, it’s a little harder to find conversion data. I highly recommend this article that breaks down exactly what conversions mean within Google Analytics and how to find the ones you want. And I recommend you set up your account with key events using our guide.
Basically, you want to determine the percentage of conversions you’re getting per session or per visit.
And pair this data with…
Bounce Rates
If someone leaves without converting, where do they do that most often?
Another fun piece of data you can find is the bounce rate: how often do people get to the site and immediately leave without any engagement? Go to Reports > Engagement > Pages and screens. If you don’t see mentions of bounces this on the screen, you can add it by:
- Going to the pencil icon in the top right corner of the screen.
- Select Metrics, then Add Metric and select Bounce Rate
- Select the blue save button
Take a look at the chart on the reports page. Make sure you’re viewing “Page title and screen class”, available in the dropdown shown above. Now you should be able to see a “Bounce Rate” percentage for each of your site pages.
If the percentage is high, it means people often leave quickly once they get to this page. If it’s lower, it means that people are more likely to click around, fill out forms, or complete other events. Homepages often have high bounce rates; if people get to the site who don’t want what you’re offering, they’ll leave. The deeper into the site people get, the more likely it is that they’re finding specific information they want. So, they are less likely to leave immediately.
Now, What’s the Strategy?
Actions, conversions, and bounce rates are very closely related. They all are a part of the journey people take once on your site.
First, determine the engagement, events, and conversions that are important to you. If you have a blog, you probably want people to spend a lot of time on the site as they read through your content. But if you have a sales site, you may want people to come to the site and immediately find a solution or buy something. Once you know what you want, determine from the Google Analytics data where you’re doing well and what needs improvement.
If you aren’t getting the conversions you want, look at the page on which your CTA’s live. Are people bouncing quickly from that page? Are they spending time on it and then clicking away? Are they starting the conversion and not finishing, maybe filling out only half a form? Figure out the most common behaviors. Then revisit the design and content of that page to address any weaknesses.
For example, If people get to the homepage often and leave quickly, figure out how to optimize the homepage with more engaging content or links to other pages of the site. If people are taking a lot of actions and interacting with the site, but not converting, look at the page to see what may be stealing focus from your CTAs.
To Sum Up How to Use Google Analytics for SEO
This is by no means a comprehensive or complete list of ways to use Google Analytics for SEO. It’s a large tool with layers and layers of data for you to explore. Hopefully you can use this as a starting point! If you’d like to hear more from us about Google Analytics, let us know in a comment below.
