When I talk to my clients about Google Analytics, often they are under the impression that it is a traffic measurement tool. In reality, Google Analytics is one of the most powerful tools for Search Engine Optimisation. It is easy to understand and reveals amazing insights about a websites traffic sources, performance of content, navigation, errors in coding, conversion rate.
Here are 11 simple steps to start using Google Analytics to improve our SEO initiatives :
- If you do not have a Google Analytics account, set one up using the Google Analytics sign up
- Install the tracking code into your website
- Collect data for 2 weeks.
- Start analysing the data by looking at how much traffic you are getting, what sources is this traffic coming from etc. Take note of the keywords which are bringing organic traffic to your website. See how many of these are ‘branded’ keywords like your company name, your name etc and how many of them are ‘generic’ keywords
- Take a look at your refferal traffic. This will give you information about the various sites which are sending traffic to your website. For example, you may find that a blog or forum sends you significant traffic and decide to publicise your website more actively in it
- Take a look at how your content is performing. Which pages do people spend time on and which pages do they leave quickly. See your bounce rates for various pages
- If certain pages have a relatively higher bounce rate, then analyse the reasons why people are leaving these pages without giving them a single click. Very often, the reasons will be evident e.g, too little or too much information, too much technical jargon, poor visual appeal etc
- Define the Goals of your website. Do you want subscribers, enquiries or sales?
- Test how your website is performing against the Goals
- Test your navigation path to see where your visitors are leaving your website. This will help you to realign your pages/navigation to maximise Goal conversions and the ROI of your SEO initiatives
