Google Analytics is a great SEO measurement tool; it provides valuable SEO data that can help you optimize your SEO strategy. But to take full advantage of this platform, you must know what to look for and which reports to perform.
This article reveals five amazing SEO hacks and secrets from the Google Analytics platform.
1. Make Your Underperforming Pages Rank Higher
It is becoming increasingly challenging to create content. As a result, bloggers devote more time to each of their blog entries than ever before. Surveys show that some bloggers spend more than six hours writing a single post.
However, you should not have to spend so much time generating new posts to boost your SEO rankings. Instead, focus on improving your old low-performing content.
Google Analytics can help you do this. Here’s how:
- Log into your GA account
- Under “Acquisition,” look for the “Search Console” button.
- Look under the “Search Console” section for the “Queries” button. This will display the Search Queries Report.
- You can see where your pages rank for each search query on the far right.
- Then, select the “advanced” option. Set the “Average Position” to more than “10.”
- Save the results so you can see your low-performing pages in one spot.
You may take action now that you know where to look for underperforming pages. The next stage is to optimize these pages for higher rankings by refining your URL structure or employing other SEO strategies.
2. Increase Engagement by Analyzing Landing Page Reports
Landing page reports allow you to examine organic landing pages, the first pages that organic visitors arrive at after clicking through search engine results pages (SERPs).
You can use this report to evaluate if any problems with organic landing pages prevent users from moving to other pages.
To access your landing page reports, navigate to “Acquisition” and select “Landing Pages” from the “Search Console” menu.
Analyzing your organic landing pages report will provide a clear picture of how your visitors interact with your site. This will also help you learn how users navigate and flow through your website.
Because engagement signals are now evaluated in Google’s ranking algorithms, keeping an eye on engagement can help you improve your ranking on search engines.
For example, if Google delivers traffic to your web page with a high bounce rate and a short average time on the page, it will assume that users are not finding what they are looking for on your page.
To ensure that search rankings are accurate, you must monitor all landing page data and optimize it so that engagement does not suffer.
Set Up a Custom Alert or a Custom SEO Dashboard
Google is constantly updating its algorithm; therefore, it is crucial to stay up to date so that these changes do not affect your web traffic.
To stay aware of algorithm updates, you can set up a custom alert to be notified. This way, when they happen, you can adapt your strategy to avoid the effects of an upgrade. Fortunately, you can create a custom alert in Google Analytics that will notify you if there are any abrupt, dramatic changes in your Analytics report.
For example, if you notice a significant decline in search traffic that appears out of nowhere, you can set up an alert that analyzes the changes.
You may also create a custom SEO dashboard, which is as valuable as custom alerts. A customized SEO dashboard provides a quick overview of crucial SEO statistics in one spot.
A customized dashboard might save you significant time if you often evaluate many SEO reports. This dashboard allows you to keep everything in one place and not have to go looking for information.
You may either build a new custom SEO dashboard from scratch or import an existing one that you can edit.
1. Monitoring Referral Traffic to Increase Link Opportunities
If you’ve begun to receive referral traffic to your site, keep an eye on those links for additional link-building opportunities.
For example, if you discover someone has linked to one of your blog posts, you can contact the author and request that they include a link to another of your pages. You could also email them some additional content they might find interesting, or you could propose writing a guest post for their blog.
Or even better, you can run a cross-promotion, offer the author a discount on your products for their readers, and build valuable, long-lasting relationships.
Go to “Acquisition” to view your referral traffic report on Google Analytics. Then select “Referrals” from the “All Traffic” tab.
2. Funnel Traffic to Top-Converting Pages
SEO should be focused on converting users. An easy way to earn conversions is by sending people to your top-converting pages. Your site is already converting visitors. However, the challenge is identifying which of your pages high converting.
The “Reverse Goal Path” tool on Google Analytics allows you to track visitors’ journeys before getting to your website. Each step your visitors take builds a path, which Google Analytics ranks based on the frequency with which others take the same direction.
Now that you have identified these top-converting pages, you can send more people to them to increase conversions.
Final Thoughts
There are many ways to leverage Google Analytics when optimizing your SEO strategy. Make sure you know the platform well, and do not be afraid to play around with its available tools.
If you need help utilizing Google Analytics to its full potential, one of our online marketing consultants is always available to help! Contact us today.