{"id":18501,"date":"2018-04-26T12:19:34","date_gmt":"2018-04-26T09:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/?p=18501"},"modified":"2018-08-08T09:56:28","modified_gmt":"2018-08-08T06:56:28","slug":"analytics-seo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/18501\/analytics-seo\/","title":{"rendered":"8 Steps to Get Higher Rankings Using Google Analytics Data"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ranking higher on Google. A ceaseless rush to get authority for your website and lots of visitors to eventually turn them into clients. Search engine optimization doesn\u2019t have to be the black sheep of marketing. You just got to understand how to use it. You can complement your SEO efforts with lots of other marketing forms, such as analytics data. It will stop you from bleeding website data. It really will.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How does it work? You need an account on a dedicated analytics product. Then, you need to get access to your analytics data, pull up your sleeves and step in using our analytics data kit filled with actionable tips.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"8<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Search for Landing Pages to Transform Them in Link Magnets<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Hunt for Search Queries to Craft Audience Targeted Content<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. Scour for Money Keywords to Optimize Your Content<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n
  4. Track Best-Performing Third-Party Campaigns<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n
  5. Channel Grouping for Better Targeting<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n
  6. Evaluate Website Traffic from Search Engines<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n
  7. Gauge Impactful Changes in Your Website’s Evolution<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n
  8. Use Advanced Segments to Shorten the Conversion Path<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    For our experiment, we mainly used Google Analytics. Even though from time to time we felt that the data coming from here is not comprehensive, the platform provides lots of valuable features. This way we can easily track our SEO with Google Analytics.<\/p>\n

     <\/div>\n

    1. Search for Landing Pages to Transform Them in Link Magnets<\/strong><\/h2>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Knowing exactly which pages receive organic traffic is crucial. It will help not only your content marketers to make better decisions,\u00a0 but it will also improve the strategy of your overall marketing campaigns. Organic search traffic is one of the first metrics on your list that needs to be tracked. Go to Behavior \u00bb Site Content \u00bb All Pages<\/strong><\/span> to view all the pages ordered by the highest number. In case you want to see the traffic only for some category of pages from your website, you\u2019ll have to search for it. Below you can see an example of the Blog category:<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"Site<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    The pages with high scores can give you a glimpse of indexation. Landing pages<\/strong><\/a> with a high number of unique pageviews mean that they are of interest, offer a better\u00a0user experience, and are indexed better than the others. Thus, if the viewers like you, Google likes you, and that will bring the appreciation of other websites and turn the pages into link magnets. Improving those pages and optimizing them is essential to sprout your backlink profile.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Use those pages to link them to other relevant pages, because internal links have a strong signal of transferring value (therefore, you’ll improve your conversion rates, time on site and your traffic).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    On the other hand, pages with a lower score (pages with a high bounce rate<\/strong><\/a>) mean\u00a0they don\u2019t offer what was promised from the title and meta description<\/strong><\/a>. Those users will always pogo stick away unless immediate changes are made.<\/p>\n

     <\/div>\n

    2. Hunt for Search Queries to Craft Audience Targeted Content<\/strong><\/h2>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Using Google data, you can see what your audience searches before accessing your content. All the hustle for searching queries and relevant keywords can easily turn into an easy and pain-free task. View the Google’s search terms from the amounts of data collected in your Search Console account. Access it through Acquisition \u00bb Search Console \u00bb Queries<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"Search<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    From Google Search Console you can gather plenty of keywords data. You will find all that your users searched about you before they entered your website: your brand name, services you might offer, informational queries and lots of other mixed searches. In our case, I recommend looking for the relevant keyword phrases, that could have a chance to rank higher and bring more traffic to your website. To make the strategy work, you\u2019ll have to filter the list by the average position.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    What you should do is go to Advanced filter \u00bb include \u00bb Average position \u00bb greater than<\/span> \u00bb<\/strong> (insert arbitrary number here). In the blank space, I would recommend inserting the number 10, which basically means all the keywords that rank below the 10th position (from the second page to the last one). Baby steps. Start with the pages that have a higher chance to be pushed to the first page rather than going directly to those in higher positions (greater than 80\/90\/100, etc).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"Advanced<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Look for the queries that are relevant to your business, for that type of keywords that could push the user down the funnel to turn a lead, such as very specific keywords, not informational ones. Some specific examples might be: washing machine service in Perth, home cleaning service provider Minneapolis, but that really depends on the industry and type of business.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    After you\u2019ve gathered all the keywords, search for the pages related to each keyword. Up to this point, you have the easy way to avoid the headaches or the-long-phase-pain-in-the-neck journey. The first option is to use a dedicated tool or a plugin. Keyword Tool has an option to see on which position is your content for a specific query. Below you can see the rankings for \u201c24-hour locksmith Sydney\u201d. In the list, you see all the first 100 positions so you can easily search with \u201cctrl + f\u201d and find your site.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"social<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    The hard way would be to go to the search engine you use, such as google.com and search for that particular query, manually.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    After you found the page, copy-paste it into Content Assistant and optimize it. Transform the low-hanging fruits into best-performing pieces of content. We\u2019ve crafted a step-by-step guideline<\/strong><\/a>, if you need any help.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"Content<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Make sure you don\u2019t rank already for a highly competitive keyword for the same page, otherwise you risk messing around your actual rankings. I know Google is working on a complicated and dreadful-algorithmic situation. For that, you\u2019ll have to return to Acquisition \u00bb Search Console \u00bb Queries<\/strong><\/span> search for the main keyword. In our case, it would be locksmith and see which similar phrases you have there and their position. \u00a0<\/p>\n

     <\/div>\n

    3. Scour for Money Keywords to Optimize Your Content<\/strong><\/h2>\n

     <\/p>\n

    There are some triggers in analytics that could lead to financial outcome, if you follow a well-planned strategy. Following a similar path as we talked about in the query hunting at point 2, we can look up to money keywords ? (All I see is dolla\u2019 signs, dolla\u2019 signs).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    You have two options to scour for money keywords in Analytics. In the first case, you can find money keywords that would convert by looking into Google Adwords campaigns (through your paid search projects), which can be accessed through Acquisition \u00bb Adwords \u00bb Keywords<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"Adwords<\/p>\n

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    A bit of keyword research and\u00a0analytics SEO never killed nobody. Order keywords by cost, then select the ones that have a higher cost and lots of clicks, because those are the most successful ones.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    In the last case, you can see the search terms from your own e-commerce website\/ online shop. Go to Behavior \u00bb Site Search \u00bb Search Terms<\/strong><\/span>. If you have an e-commerce website, I bet there are lots of people that might search for something else, once they\u2019ve entered your website. You can find what they were looking for and try to use those search terms to your advantage, such as creating new content, optimizing product pages for those specific keywords or other similar pages.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Usually, when navigating an ecommerce website, visitors search for a category of products, a specific product, color or even an SKU (stock keeping unit – the identification code).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    After you\u2019ve gathered all the keywords and made a list of them with the corresponding page, you can start optimizing the content you already have, as we discussed previously or you can create new content.<\/p>\n

     <\/div>\n

    4. Track Best-Performing Third-Party Campaigns<\/strong><\/h2>\n

     <\/p>\n

    If you want to see data from the various third-party campaigns ran by you, you can use Analytics. Look at all the campaigns you have through Acquisition \u00bb Campaigns \u00bb All Campaigns<\/span>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    This analytics tool category includes promotional campaigns created on other websites that point to yours through dedicated landing pages, discount codes, articles and so on. All the links from each campaign must use a UTM code to make it easy to track in Analytics. A UTM code is attached to a custom URL that can be used to track a source, medium, and campaign name. You can also use it for email campaigns.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    All the data gathered from third-party campaigns can help you understand which website performs better and can bring lots of clients back to your site. We all know that links bring a lot of value to your domain. The more powerful, the better. Links are a strong ranking signal, so make sure you take advantage of what you\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Select the keywords that are grammatically correct and relevant for future articles or actual keywords optimization ideas for published content. Priority goes to keywords with lots of users.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Another interesting strategy would be to look at the keywords that bring traffic to your website, which can be accessed by Acquisition \u00bb Campaigns \u00bb Organic Keywords<\/strong><\/span>. You can use those in your optimization process to generate new content ideas. They have a strong indicator of quality search.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"Search<\/p>\n

     <\/div>\n

    5. Channel Grouping for Better Targeting<\/strong><\/h2>\n

     <\/p>\n

    It is critical to know where your visitors are coming from. Think of it this way: it\u2019s like when you have a defined profile, with all the attributes and metrics highlighted and a group with all sort of unfiltered, uncategorized, unstructured data with lots of inconclusive info. Which one would be easier to go through?<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Jeff Sauer<\/strong><\/a>, Google Analytics consultant, explains how the journey of the user and how channel grouping can help<\/a><\/strong> over-simplify the traffic coming to your website:<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
    Channels represent the paths visitors take to arrive on your website. Some visitors type in your URL, some search your brand name, others search by topic and find your content.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    \"Jeff<\/td>\nJeff Sauer<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    Founder of Jeffalytics<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Analytics allows you to see some of the default channels at first, but they can be easily customized in order to view detailed categories. It is best to use the channel grouping feature from Google Analytics: Acquisition \u00bb All Traffic \u00bb Channels<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"Channel<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    In the example represented above, you can see a list of channels. There is a variety of channels you could create. You just have to make sure all of them are relevant and useful to your business.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    If you don\u2019t know where 15% is coming from, that\u2019s a problem, right? Using granular channel grouping will ease up your decision-making process because this way you\u2019ll have an accurate view of your data.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Paul Koks<\/strong><\/a>, Analytics Advocate at Online Metrics<\/strong><\/a>, points out the benefits of customizing the goals setup\u00a0to get\u00a0an accurate view of your marketing performances:<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
    Goals are crucial to analyze the performance of your landing pages, channels etc. A proper structure and suitable naming conventions for your goal sets are extremely helpful for you and other people that have access to the same reporting view.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    \"Paul<\/td>\nPaul Koks<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    Analytics Advocate at Online Metrics<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
     <\/div>\n

    6. Evaluate Website Traffic from Search Engines<\/strong><\/h2>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Traffic has a high connection with high rankings, but they are also in a constant battle, at the same time. You shouldn\u2019t focus only on one or the other. Tracking keywords that send traffic to your site is one of the most important pieces of the pie. In Analytics, you can view the organic search traffic for all the searched terms in a specific period of time. Go to Acquisition \u00bb All Traffic \u00bb Channels<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"Track<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Once you get here, you need to click on Organic Search and a new list of search terms will load.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"Track<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Here you can view all the keywords that are successful and bring a lot of users. Gauge your website\u2019s performance in terms of search traffic (visitors, sessions) and opt to use only those that can bring a significant amount of traffic for content that you’re under-optimized for.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Make sure you avoid seasonal keywords and seasonal periods (Christmas, Easter and other local events and celebrations) that potentially could spike the traffic because they are in demand only at that specific time.<\/p>\n

     <\/div>\n

    7. Gauge Impactful Changes in Your Website’s Evolution<\/strong><\/h2>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Besides all the data analysis methods, Google Analytics can provide some shortcuts to your reports and historical data. Annotations are a great feature you should use to keep track of your changes. They are some notes you can add to mark important events.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    If you want to add annotations to flag any important changes, you\u2019ll have to go the graphic you\u2019re interested in and click on the small arrow to expand and create your annotation.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"Add<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Before starting to create new annotations, observe the following tips:<\/p>\n