10 ways to improve your SEO ranking with Google Analytics

Wednesday, March 29th, 2023

Google Analytics is a great way to increase your SEO and social media presence. It can be used as a dashboard for all your marketing needs, such as tracking the performance of your social media posts and keeping up with the metrics of any online campaigns you might be running. It’s easy to use, even if you’re not an expert! Google Analytics has been around since 2005 but it was only in 2010 that they started offering free analytics tools for websites of all sizes. Google Analytics is a wonderful free tool for website traffic if you know what you’re doing with it. There are two versions of Google Analytics: free and premium (paid). The free version offers nearly all the same features as its more expensive counterpart with one exception- there is no data export function available on free accounts which makes it difficult to perform complex analysis. The paid version also offers special features for individuals running online shops or websites with lots of traffic.

Here are 10 things you can do to improve your SEO ranking using Google Analytics:

 

1. Track Pageviews

Every time someone visits one of your webpages, Google will record the pageview in Analytics under “Content” -> “Site Content” -> “All Pages”. Viewing this report will give you a general overview of your site’s traffic and allow you to understand which pages are drawing more interest than others. You can then prioritize which content should be optimized for higher position on search engines (see #5) like Google! To find this report, go to “Reporting” -> “Real Time” reports -> “Content Drilldown” -> “All Pages”.

2. Track Referral Traffic

You can use Google Analytics to specifically track referral traffic – traffic that originated from other websites (ex: Reddit, Facebook, and Google.) Referred traffic is a great indicator of which other sites are sending you the most visitors and should be given special consideration as far as optimizing the content on those pages. To find this report go to “Reporting” -> “Acquisition” -> “Referrals”. Make sure you select the correct time range before viewing the data or else your data will be skewed! You will also need to check under “Source/Medium” and uncheck any sources which do not apply such as Mobile Apps.

3. Track Social Media Traffic

To track traffic that originated from social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit you can use Google’s UTM parameters. For example to track visits which come from a specific tweet you would make sure all of your URLs contain the following parameter at the end: utm_source=twitter (link). By default Google Analytics will only display information about 10 different URL parameters but to see more simply click “Edit” next to “Advanced Segments” -> “Add Parameter” -> enter another URL parameter (ex: utm_medium), then select it by ticking it off under Advanced Segment Builder. To find this report go to “Reporting” -> “Acquisition” -> “Social”.

4. Track Google Ads Traffic

To track the performance of your PPC campaign or Google Ads, you can use a free tool from Google called the “Campaign URL Builder”. Simply enter in your destination URL (ex: http://www.example.com) and select which campaign it belongs to (Google Ads). Google will then generate a tracking token that is appended to the end of your URLs for this specific campaign; all that is left for you to do is copy and paste these URLs on every ad you run (on social media, forums etc.) To find this report go to “Reporting” -> “Advertising” -> “Keywords” -> click “+New Keyword”

5. Improve Onpage SEO

One way Analytics can help optimize content for higher search engine rankings is by tracking inbound keywords. This can be done at the page level by creating Google Ads Campaigns which let you append your URLs with parameters (ex: utm_source=twitter). By default Google Analytics will only display information about 10 different URL parameters but to see more simply go to “Reporting” -> “Advertising” -> “Campaigns” -> click “+New Keyword” and enter another URL parameter (ex: utm_medium). To view all of the different keywords sending traffic to a specific webpage, go to “Content” -> “Site Content” -> “All Pages”.

6. Improve Email Marketing

Using UTM parameters in emails allow you to track email campaigns similar to how Ads is tracked (see #5). To get started go to “Administration” -> “Tracking Code”. This free tool will allow you to track everything from the number of emails opened, link clicks, and conversions (ex: newsletter sign-ups) using parameters. To see how this works simply paste a UTM code into a new email and send it out. The parameters in the links will be recorded in your Analytics account when someone opens or clicks on them.

7. Track Product Listing Ads

To track any campaign that contains product listing ads such as Amazon’s Sponsored Products you can use Google Ads Campaigns which let you append URLs with parameters (ex: utm_source=googlepla). By default Google Analytics will only display information about 10 different URL parameters but to see more simply go to “Reporting” -> “Advertising” -> “Campaigns” -> click “+New Keyword” and enter another URL parameter (ex: utm_medium).

8. Track Video Views

If you use  video content such as YouTube or Vimeo it can be difficult to track the success of your videos. Luckily, UTM parameters exist for both sites so they can easily be tracked in Google Analytics. For example, if the primary function of the page is to watch a video rather than view an article then you would append a campaign tracking token onto your URLs that looks like this: ?video=youtube (link), ?video=vimeo (link). To find this report go to “Reporting” -> “Content” -> “Video”.

9. Track Social Media Engagement

Using UTM parameters in social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook allow you to track the success of any campaigns or advertising networks you may be using without having to create a new dashboard for a specific account. For example, if the primary function of the page is to follow your company on Twitter then you would append a campaign tracking token onto that URL that looks like this: ?socialmedia=twitter (link), ?socialmedia=facebook (link). To see how this works simply paste a UTM code into the body of every tweet containing your and send it out. Analytics knows what URLs are social media sites by the parameters that are appended to them.

10. Track Conversions and Goal Completions

To view all Analytics reports go to “Reporting” -> “Conversions” -> “Overview”. Create campaigns, Google Ads Campaigns which let you append your free marketing and tracking tokens (ex: utm_source=googlepla) onto your free marketing and tracking URLs

(ex: ?utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=brandname)

To find this report go to “Advertising” -> “Campaigns” -> “+New Keyword” and enter another URL parameter (ex: utm_medium). For more information about UTM parameters, Google Analytics and Analytics reports visit: google.com/analytics

 

 

Conclusion

There are many ways to improve your SEO ranking with Google Analytics. By using UTM parameters, you can track the success of campaigns and advertising networks. You can also use social media sites to track the engagement of campaigns. Additionally, you can use video content to track the success of campaigns. Finally, you can use conversion and goal completion reports to track the success of campaigns.

If you want SEO and increased social media presence, there are many ways to improve your ranking with Google Analytics. By using UTM parameters, you can track the success of campaigns and advertising networks. You can also use free video content to track the success of campaigns. Finally, you can use conversion and goal completion reports to track important information about any marketing campaign that is driving sales for your company.

Filed under: Tips & Tricks

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