How can you use Google Analytics to improve your SEO?

If you're looking at improving SEO, one of the most important things you need to do that isn't mentioned is setting up and linking Google Search Console to Google Analytics. This is where you'll get data on search clicks, impressions, rankings, and CTR.

Understanding the different audiences visiting your website/app is integral to setting and tracking the right goals through Google Analytics. Once established they should be reviewed regularly and adapted based on the data you collect to optimise your website or app setup.

Lots of SEOs miss the sheer volume of information/stories that can be derived from GA & GSC. Search queries that your pages rank for is ALL THERE. This is incredibly value info.

Monitoring organic traffic is so important for understanding how well your site is doing in search results. Another helpful tip is to look at the top landing pages that bring in organic traffic. This way, you can see which pages are performing well and which ones might need some improvement. Keep an eye on the bounce rate and session duration for these pages to ensure visitors are finding what they need and staying engaged. You can get this data by going to the Reports > Generate Leeds > Landing Page.

It's worth highlighting that Google Analytics doesn't pass keyword data, and hasn't for some years. This refers to the Google Search Console connection - but you're better off using Google Search Console directly and exporting data to BigQuery - as GSC filters data when you apply filters, seemingly randomly and inconsistently, so exporting to BigQuery and then applying filters can yield a more accurate data set.

Well I would say that Google Analytics is a powerful tool that can significantly improve your SEO efforts by providing valuable insights and data-driven strategies. Identify which keywords drive organic traffic to your site and assess their performance. Use this data to refine your content strategy by optimizing existing content or creating new pages targeting high-performing keywords.

I am surprised the feedback is not stacked by the dozens on this aspect. To me, Journey is the be-all-end-all of site engagement analytics. Here's my experience. If you solve a user journey so it is so seamless, intuitive, easing and give you that happy vibe, then you have a billion dollar site experience. And the ONLY way to get that is to track every touch, click, timing, movement, ingress and egress of literally every icon, function and movement in that app. You MUST use analytics to capture, assess, fix, change, improve, adjust and iterate practically in real-time (not really, but you get the idea), until that site flows like water for nearly every user. And THAT is using G Analytics for what it can do to blow up your business solution.

I believe that improving user experience (UX) is a vital aspect of successful website optimization and SEO. Here are some practical strategies to enhance UX: Ensure your website is responsive and mobile-friendly to provide a seamless experience across all devices and screen sizes. Optimize page load times by compressing images, using browser caching, and minimizing code. A faster website not only pleases users but also aligns with Google's ranking criteria. Use prominent and compelling CTAs to guide users toward desired actions, such as signing up, purchasing, or contacting you.

Google Analytics can also be used to monitor 404 errors to improve the quality of content and internal links, thus improving the overall user experience.

Google Analytics doesn't track rankings - and average rank in GSC isn't a massively useful metric given multiple URLs can rank for the same term, so it skews the average rank. Also, whilst Google does use a form of Bounce rate as a form of judging SERP interaction and whether a result satisfies a query (Paul Haahr, SMX 2016) - the bounce rate metric in Google Analytics is not the one Google uses, and it's far too conflated with data points to be useful for data analysis and SEO improvement.

An exploration in GA4 that can be useful for analysing the impact that content creation has on the conversion path is the Segment Overlap. With this report, it is possible to see how Converters and "People who have read a specific piece of content" overlap, thus giving (some) credit to the SEO activity

It’s really important to use Reports — or even integrate with Looker Studio — to tell a story about your data. Especially if you work on a large website & are only responsible for a particular segment. You need to use filtering, conversion tracking, page path mapping, and other features to focus on those areas you’ve been able to update directly & show your impact. I use Looker to pull traffic & conversions from GA4 into queries, clicks & impressions from GSC to show correlations between improving SERP visibility & making a direct impact on the website. I create multiple pages that drill down from the full site to the specific segments I worked on to tell a story about how optimization in one area did or did not impact the entire site.

One of the big things this article misses is using Google Analytics to explore your internal search queries! If your website has a search, there is likely a trove of information here that you can use to create pages to help you rank. Looking at internal searches shows you the language your customers are using and you can ask yourself "do we have a page for this?". I've seen big improvements in site visibility for setting up customer-centric categories based on common searches, which in turn, start ranking in Google.

Organic traffic means it's high intent traffic. One way Google Analytics can help effectively is for conversion rate optimization (CRO). For eg: If your page's intent is BOFU traffic and analysing the metrics on the page such as conversion rate, time spent on page, session duration, pages visited etc. Also track goals and events as well. Since these are commercial keywords driven traffic, even a small optimization success can improve revenue and better ROI. In addition leverage the other reports GA provides based on your business and campaign goals, its a goldmine, considering that it's free to use, especially when organizations are spending heavily on paid tools and struggling to justify the ROI.

Utilizing Google Analytics to enhance SEO involves a comprehensive approach. Begin by tracking organic traffic data to identify top-performing pages and keywords. This insight informs optimization efforts for pages with lower performance. Additionally, employ conversion tracking to measure the effectiveness of SEO-driven traffic in achieving specific goals. Delve into user behavior flow to understand how organic visitors navigate your site and pinpoint areas where users drop off. Optimize these pages to improve engagement. By harnessing Google Analytics data, you can make data-driven decisions to boost SEO and overall website performance effectively.