In this article, we will try to understand more in-depth one of the major online processes of our era, along with an impactful web analytics tool: that is, respectively SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Google Analytics. More precisely, we will investigate the main tips to improve SEO with Google Analytics.
Search Engine Optimization, abbreviated as SEO, is a strategic online practice that is aimed at raising both the quality and quantity of traffic to web pages through organic search ranking. The term ‘organic’ here means that no payment has been made to improve the traffic in question. Therefore, SEO users have to set up other strategies, such as ingeniously manipulating keywords and search terms (among other variables).
What Is Google Analytics?
We also ought to (re)introduce Google Analytics: it is a platform sponsored by Google, enabling one to follow one’s marketing efforts, such as SEO. Available in both free and paid formats, this is one of the favorite tools of entrepreneurs when it comes to analyzing audience profiles, marketing campaign results, web traffic features, and much more.
After these basic reminders, let’s now see how the combination would work or, in other terms, how to improve SEO with Google Analytics. We will not go into the most advanced features but rather point out some of the essential directions. Needless to add, afterward, you can expand your knowledge by directly experimenting on your own.
How To Improve SEO With Google Analytics
We listed some of the most required Google Analytics 4 tricks to use for SEO. You can check these tips to learn and apply to improve your organic traffic and gain more rank. Surely these tips will help you understand Google Analytics use in SEO. You will be able to see more details about your business development on search engines and attract more organic traffic.
Connect Your Sitemap to Google
First of all, you have to know the basics of Google Analytics and make sure that your XML sitemap (or, simply put, the list of your URLs) has been registered with Google Search Console. Indeed, Google has to recognize your site in order to analyze it efficiently. This is also why you should track any errors like missing key pages or blocked URLs. Every single element of your site should be checked and integrated into the system.
Don’t forget either to double-check if Google is crawling your site. Here are some steps to be followed:
- Enable the Fetch feature in Search Console
- Log into your Search Console account, expand the ‘Crawl’ tab by clicking on it, and then click ‘Fetch as Google.’
- Indicate targeted pages and device
- Type the targeted page in the text box. In the list, select ‘desktop’ or ‘mobile’ (depending on the device you are testing) and click ‘Fetch’.
- Request Google to index
- You may click on ‘Request indexing’ at the end of this testing process. Depending on your choice, Google can crawl URLs and their direct links.
As you see, this connection phase is all about setups. It is essential to make these verifications beforehand so that you don’t miss any opportunity only because of simple mistakes. In other words, you must indicate to your tool what it has to look for or show it the way. Visit our how to get Google to index your site article to learn more.
Dashboard
The page you will see when you log in for the first time is the ‘Home’ page. From here, you can see and review the topics divided into groups from the report’s title by looking at the area on the left of the screen. This page exists to provide an overview. You can access detailed analysis by selecting the titles you want to review.
Query Report Detailed Information
With the Google Search Console Queries report, you can see how many times your page appeared in Google search results and for which search words. You can even see the click-through rate and average rank of your pages by going to Reports » Search Console » Queries and seeing what your organic visitors are searching for on your site.
You can now use this data to learn precisely which terms you rank for and get traffic for and which ones you need to work on.
Finding Keywords with Query Report
Understanding what your organic visitors are for on your site is very important for SEO. Before you search for keywords for your website or do any other SEO practice to optimize your site, take a moment to determine if you are driving the right traffic to your site and whether your content is really delivering what your organic visitors want. There are four types of keyword search intent. These:
- Navigation is when users search for a specific website.
- Informative is when users search for an answer to a question.
- Investigational is when users look for information that can eventually lead to action.
- Transactional is when users are ready to buy.
Before creating content around a particular keyword, be sure to do your research. What types of content are already ranking? What’s even better? What can you write that provides more detailed information but isn’t ordinary? Take some samples from your Queries report. Check out one of your landing pages that are doing really well.
Tracking Focus Keyword Data in Google Analytics
The All-in-One SEO plugin allows you to select a focus keyword group on each page of your site and then offers suggestions for using it appropriately. Focusing on the right keywords helps your site reach leads and customers.
You can monitor the performance of your focus keywords in Google Analytics to see if they are attracting the right traffic. You can also get ideas on choosing the right keyword and determining the content for that keyword.
Track Your SEO Traffic
When your goal is to improve Google Analytics and SEO, you will have to watch the traffic closely to your website. Basically, this is about investigating your positioning in search engines, such as Google. The traffic report of Google Analytics will do the trick:
- How to check a specific period
- Select respectively ‘Acquisition’ -> ‘All Traffic’ -> ‘Channels’ and then set a date range to have an overview of a specific period.
- Visualize your traffic and sources
- You can visualize both organic traffic and total traffic: just click ‘Plot Rows.’ In the left menu, you can also see the sources of your traffic by clicking ‘Source / Medium.’ The idea is to detect who exactly is visiting your site so that you know to whom you should respond.
Also, if you want to learn more about how to check website traffic, please visit our related article.
Tracking Referral Traffic
If you see someone linking to a blog post, you can ask the author if they can link to another of your pages. You can send them other content they might want to feature or suggest making a post for their site.
To find the referral traffic report in Google Analytics 4, go to Reports » Acquisition » Traffic Acquisition, then scroll down to the table to find your referral traffic.
Demographic Interaction
Do you know which region traffic to your site comes from? Are you getting traffic from the regions you want?
To find out, open Google Analytics and go to User » Demographics » Demographics details. Then, scroll down the chart. You will see it sorted by country. To sort by region or city, click the Country drop-down menu and select Region or City.
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You can see the status of the traffic coming from these regions or cities.
Analyzing Landing Page Reports
Your organic landing pages are the first pages your organic visitors land on your site. If you don’t know how to create a landing page learn with practice. You can analyze these pages’ performance by looking at click-through rates, bounce rates, pages per session, and more in the Search Console report.
You can find the report about your organic landing pages in Google Analytics 4 by setting up Search Console reports and then going to Reports » Search Console » Google organic search traffic.
Analyzing your organic landing page report will give you an insight into how your visitors interact with and navigate your site. Because engagement signals are organic ranking factors, tracking engagement metrics can help boost your search rankings.
Reducing Loading Time
The speed of your site can also affect how your visitors perceive your brand, causing them to leave before your site even gets a chance to load.
Besides SEO, a slow website can sabotage your online business. Conversion can be reduced by 7% if a site is delayed by one second. Almost half of the visitors leave a site if it takes longer than a couple of seconds to load. More than 70% of online shoppers leave the website entirely when they experience a problem with the speed of the website.
Set Up Analytics Notification
With Google Analytics 4, you can set it to notify you when there is a significant change in your Analytics reports. This way, you can check your traffic more quickly by being notified when something is affected.
To set custom notifications, go to the Home tab and the Insights section.
There, click View all information. Next, click the blue Create button. Google Analytics will give you a list of suggestions, but you can also scroll down to create a custom language.
Conclusion
In this article, we have provided some of the ‘basics’ that are likely to improve SEO and Google Analytics. SEO is quite an advanced methodology that requires to be assessed step by step and on a regular basis. Using Google Analytics can maximize these efforts and consequent profits. All you need to do is to get familiarized with it. Once you have done so, it is likely to become one of your most reliable partners to help you with your SEO strategy. Indeed, the refined metrics it encompasses can help you detect issues you may not notice otherwise.
2 Comments
This article was a game-changer for me! Using Google Analytics to fine-tune SEO strategies always seemed complex, but your breakdown made it accessible. The tips on analyzing keywords and landing page performance were particularly eye-opening. Excited to apply these insights!
Great read! I never realized how powerful Google Analytics could be for SEO until now. It’s clear that there’s so much untapped potential in the data we already have. Thanks for shedding light on this!