How to Improve Search Engine Optimization for Small Businesses with Google Analytics
As more small businesses utilize websites and digital marketing to grow their overall outreach, using website analytics software, such as Google Analytics, has become increasingly valuable for improving your business’s Search Engine Optimization. Below are some quick suggestions on how to improve and track your SEO progress through Google Analytics.
Using Google Analytics to Improve SEO
To improve your business’s SEO, the first thing you should check is the amount of organic search traffic your website is generating over time. To check this, you should click Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels and a list of default channels will appear. By clicking on the “Organic Search” channel, you will be able to see a more detailed report of your organic search traffic metrics. Once your “Organic Search” graphic appears, you can toggle between “Keywords”, “Source”, “Landing Page”, and many more.
The most useful section for improving SEO is the “Keywords” section. Within this section, there is a graphic that displays the keywords that your website viewers are entering into search engines before clicking your website link, and ranks which keywords are searched the most. This information provides a comprehensive view of what consumers are looking for when clicking on your website. This information can be leveraged to include more keywords throughout your website to generate more traffic.
However, it is important to note that Google’s algorithm can identify websites that misuse keywords and will decrease the SEO of those websites. Therefore, it is suggested to use the keywords as naturally as possible, because forcing the use of these keywords can hurt your SEO.
Two more important sections to keep an eye on are the “Bounce Rate” and “Average Session Duration.” Each section can be found by clicking on Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages. The “Landing Pages” graphic provides a list of every page related to your website and details information on action steps users can take once landing on the page.
The “Bounce Rate” column shows the percentage of people who land on a particular page, do not interact with anything on the page and leave your website domain. In other words, they bounce onto your website and bounce out without buying anything or interacting with the domain.
On the other hand, the “Average Session Duration” column provides the average amount of time a user spends on each page. By using these two columns, you can analyze each page on your website to understand which pages are performing poorly and need improvement. By identifying and improving your lowest-performing landing pages, Google’s algorithm will favor your website, significantly improving your website’s SEO.
Using Google Analytics to Track SEO Progress
Google Analytics can also be used to track the progress of your SEO by setting up “Goals” or building an SEO dashboard.
To track how the changes made to the website affect your SEO, you can set up goals in Google Analytics. Goals set benchmarks for completed activities, which are called conversions. Conversions can include: making a purchase, adding a product to a cart, signing up for a newsletter, or submitting contact information. Within Google Analytics, you can set specific goals under one of four categories: Destination, Duration, Page/Screens per session, and Event.
Destination: This is used to see how many users view a specific conversion page. A conversion page is a page that appears after a desirable action is performed, such as a “thank you” page after a purchase is made. Therefore, setting up this goal is ideal for tracking how many users complete a purchase or sign up for something on your website.
Duration: This is used to track the amount of time a user spends on your website. Within this goal, you can set a minimum session time you want to qualify as a goal conversion such that any session longer than your selected time will generate one conversion.
Page/Screens per session: This is used to track the number of pages or screens a user visits per session. This goal asks you to set a minimum number of page or screen views you want to qualify as a goal conversion. Therefore, any user that visits the target number of pages or screens on your website in one session will generate one conversion.
Event: This is used to track the number of interactions with certain aspects of your website such as downloads, clicks on links or buttons, or interactions with videos on your website.
Once you determine the goals you want to track on your website, you can click Admin > View > Goals > + NEW GOAL and set up this tool to help track how well a specific aspect of your website is performing. This will allow you to identify any additional changes you may need to make to improve your website and increase your website’s overall SEO.
The second way to track your SEO progress is to set up an SEO dashboard in Google Analytics. You will first need to identify what information you want to know and then determine which metrics can help you answer these questions.
After identifying the metrics you want to measure, click Customization > Dashboards > Create. From the “Add a Widget” dashboard, click Metric and select whatever metric you want to follow. Then, click Add a filter and select Only Show > Medium > Exactly Matching > Organic. Repeat this process for any other SEO metrics you want to track. Once you are finished, a dashboard of all the information you selected will show up on your Google Analytics page.
By following these basic suggestions, you will be able to utilize Google Analytics to help improve your Search Engine Optimization and track your overall progress for your website.
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