The 4 Best Google Analytics Reporting Sections for SEO

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, might be the most used term in all digital marketing, but the least understood. I'm not saying people don't understand what it is (the practice of optimizing your websites to reach higher on search engine results pages, or SERPs), but more importantly how to measure and optimize it to get to those higher rankings. In this post, I'm going to give you the 5 best reports in Google Analytics you should have at your disposal to track the performance of your web site's SEO performance.

1) Organic Keywords

I'm breaking this out in "a" and "b" - you'll see why

a) Google Analytics - Organic Keywords Report

This is a great report that shows you all of the keywords that search engines are receiving from users to get to your site. What's really good is that if you have your goals or eCommerce setup, you can see which words really drive your bottom line. Inversely, maybe you see words that you don't want people to use and you are getting a lot of sessions from it - that can help you decide how to optimize for those users. Simply add the "landing page" dimension as the secondary dimension so you know which page that this issue is happening most frequently to both and voila, you are on your way.

b) Google Analytics - Search Queries (Powered by Google Search Console)

You'll notice that in the first report there was an overwhelming amount of sessions from "Not Provided". This is Google search, actually, and it's driven marketers mad for years now. Google has hidden search terms in their reporting with goals and sessions in mind due to the sad fact that marketers stuffed words in a bunch of places and tried to climb the rankings. Google's focus is on context and trust in what you're searching. Thus, they want you to set up Search Console where you can get those words and metrics from a search perspective. These won't intertwine with your goals as I said earlier, but you get great insights on what words mean to the position of your ranking on search. For this report, you will need search console setup. Go here and set it up, then link your Analytics and Search Console accounts together for the report.

Key to your keyword reports: Separate the branded keywords (those words that have your business name) from your non-branded keywords (those words that are more generic or long-tail regarding the type of company, business, or industry you are in). This way you will know the breadth of search that your website currently covers. HINT: you want both :).

2) Referrers

OK, this is easily confusing, but I don't want you to actually go to the "referrers" report within "Campaigns". I want you to go to the "Channels" report and then click on "Referral". The reason is that the report under "Campaigns" holds your social media site referrals and we want to look at that on its own. The key to referrals is breaking it down by any sites you own vs sites you don't own. If you don't own any other sites, you need to see the sites that are linking to you that are blogs, message boards, etc. The social proof within these spots is huge in seeing the sentiment you are getting from these sites.

3) Social Media

a. Social Network Referrals

Social media websites are one of your most important channels for organic growth. You should always look at your impact on social media from a traffic perspective, and add the secondary dimension "full referrer" so you can get the specific page from that social network that is bringing in the traffic.

b. Social Network Conversions

Obviously, if you are measuring impact, you need to see how well these sites are converting. This report will tell you that and if you add the "landing page" secondary dimension, you'll know which page started the process of leading to that conversion.

Key to Social Media: These are fine reports but they don't delineate between your posts/links or traditional social referral traffic. The best practice is on your links to utilize UTM tracking so you can track the owned traffic from the non-owned and use the campaign reports to see your impact versus the true organic impact of social media.

4) Site Speed

Overall website performance is key to climb the ranks of SERPs. Google won't rank you high if you have a site that takes longer than 2-4 seconds of time to load. The following reports are integral for you to know which pages are good, which are bad, and potential suggestions for fixing said pages.

a) Page Timings

You've heard that sites that have pages load between 2-4 seconds max are best, but what about your average? What about the pages that are falling way behind even your average site speed? This report will help you isolate those pages and see just how far below you are. I suggest going to the "comparison" view of this data so you can see how far or below you are vs. the average.

b) Speed Suggestions

Now that you know which pages are terrible in terms of speed, you can access the "Speed Suggestions" report to see what potential items Google suggests to fix for those pages. Google crafted the "page speed insights" report a while ago and have paired it with this report to give SEOs and Devs the opportunity to indicate remedies to the performance of a page. This is a quick and simple report that can prove to be really valuable in reaching alignment across marketing and technology teams.

Conclusion

This post wasn't designed to be "all things SEO". You still need to focus on keyword research, review site issues, mobile performance, and other organic insights  (I recommend SEMrush or Moz for this type of stuff). This post, however, does get you thinking about the items that really matter for SEO: branded vs non-branded performance, organic growth through search or referral, and performance issues in regards to technology. Knowing those elements is key to taking your first steps in optimizing your websites for long-term SEO growth.