Google has continued to evolve ahead of all its competitors to become the most popular and powerful search engine. Every day millions of people use Google and its arsenal of tools to improve their website’s ranking, drive site traffic, boost brand image, and convert prospective users into loyal customers.
Of course, search engine optimization sits at the core of any truly successful website’s ability to rank highly on google. This requires more than just a best guess at what keywords will catch Google’s eye. If you ask the most successful webmasters and social media managers, they’ll tell you that there is a lot of analytics behind successful SEO practices.
Always willing to answer the call to help propel success on their platform, Google has even gone so far as to offer one of the most sophisticated analytics systems in the world. Understanding how Google Analytics works and why it continues to drive ranking success for websites of every scale will help you better understand how to make it work for you.
What Is SEO Analytics?
SEO analytics is a sophisticated process of tabulating, collecting, and tracking online marketing data for streamlined analysis. The central focus is on what keywords and search engine optimizing strategies will help grow organic traffic to your website.
SEO analytics is very useful in that it allows you to correctly identify opportunities for improvement. While also gaining a deeper understanding of your website’s performance. This ultimately plays into the return on investment you get from your digital marketing efforts.
In truth, there is a wide range of SEO analytics tools available to help you filter and interpret your SEO data. Though most savvy digital marketers will tell you that once again Google sits atop the mountain with Google Analytics’ intuitive interface, in-depth reporting, and customization ability.
What Makes Google Analytics the Best SEO Tool?
Google Analytics has continued to evolve in lockstep with the rest of the search engine’s expansive platform to become arguably the best SEO tool on the internet. It was carefully engineered to provide advanced statistics, intuitive site performance data, and sophisticated analytical tools that operate via an interface that is intuitive to use. The SEO tools are set up with special filters and customizable reports to help with all facets of website optimization and digital marketing.
Google Analytics gives you the ability to capture valuable visitor data on your website’s performance with the tools to use that information effectively.
Of course, Google Analytics also goes beyond SEO tools to also provide you with a bevy of marketing campaign strategies, and visitor and customer behavior analytics.
How To Use Google Analytics
Google Analytics collects and interprets data from its search engine based on the visitors who come to your website and how they use it. It strategically captures a wide range of insights and data that other SEO tools simply can’t.
The most helpful features of Google Analytics are designed to improve SEO strategies through things like:
- Tracking website performance
- Collecting visitor data
- Assessing marketing activity success
- Monitoring key milestones of site performance
- Monitoring goal completions
- Identifying user engagement patterns
- Acquiring target audience information
- Collecting expansive demographic information
Having this information at your disposal lets you’ll know which changes your website needs to make to be better suited to meet customer demands. The better you can meet the needs of site visitors and new customers, the more likely they are to convert into loyal customers for repeat business.
How Often Does Google Analytics Check SEO Data?
Google Analytics typically collects and breaks down SEOs surveyed and monitors data weekly. Though the SEO tools they offer do give you the ability to perform rank analysis daily if it meets your strategic digital marketing needs.
For example, let’s say you want to launch a new digital marketing campaign with a special event, but you need to track performance over the course of the week through the weekend. This will allow you to make a strategic pivot as the event ramps up awareness throughout the week.
In a scenario like this, weekly data analytics simply wouldn’t be sufficient. You’d need to set up your Google Analytics account to monitor daily rankings and site traffic.
How Often Should You Track Google Analytics SEO Performance?
Just how often you should track Google Analytics SEO performance depends on how you want to strategically evaluate the data. If your focus for a digital marketing campaign is on landing page performance you might want to check how visitors are behaving daily, or at the very least weekly.
Best Practices Strategies for Using Google Analytics
Google Analytics suite of SEO tools can be customized to focus on several different facets of the site and/or page performance. This includes things like:
Organic Sessions by Landing Page
This feature allows you to actively monitor all your landing pages to see which ones receive the most organic site traffic as well as how well they are doing at things like generating signups.
Organic Goal Completions by Landing Page
This feature makes it easy for you to set conversion goals for each of your site’s landing pages, and then actively tracked your conversion goals. As the data is collected you can use Google Analytics features to determine which landing pages need to be updated or optimized.
Organic Clicks by Queries
This tool lets you see which search queries generate the most clicks that lead users to your website. It can then be parsed down to determine which keywords and phrases will yield the most success for current and future queries.
Organic Clicks by Page
This sophisticated Google Analytics feature lets you see which pages receive the most clicks from search results pages. This information can also be used to interpret how your site is organically ranking.
Organic Sessions
This feature lets you see just how many organic search sessions your website receives. You can then compare this information
Data Box Templates
Show you the most important metrics that need to be monitored for website success. This includes things like landing page performance, loading speeds, and more.
Dashboard Monitoring
Google Analytics provides you with an insightful dashboard feature that lets you see how your site is performing at a glance.
These are just a few of the key analytics features offered by Google Analytics. The customization of Google Analytics allows you to set up and monitor the site performance aspects that mean the most to your company. This goes beyond what their nearest competitors have to offer while setting your site up for success.
