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If you haven’t set up your Google Analytics account so far, now is the time! You can skip this section if you’ve already set up your account and synced it with your Google Search Console profile.

The first thing you have to do after opening Google Analytics is create an account, a fairly straightforward process made even easier by Google’s helpful instructions.

Then, implement a tracking code on your website and set up data filters to ensure you’re collecting the information most relevant to your business goals. Don’t forget to also sync your Google Analytics with Google Search Console to get that “bigger picture.”

For businesses using Google Ads, link that platform too. Syncing Google Ads and Google Analytics lets you track how your paid advertising campaigns impact website traffic.

Once you’re logged in, notice the “Home” dashboard: a page dedicated to showing a general overview of your website traffic. What you ideally want to see is Google’s reports organized by topic on the left-hand side of the screen. 

These reports will show information and insights based on two things:

1. Dimensions: Think of these as attributes of your data, like the source of your traffic (organic search, social media) or the specific pages that visitors viewed.
2. Metrics: These are quantitative data points associated with those dimensions, like the number of visitors from a particular source or the average time spent on a page.

What if you only want to see specific data, like organic traffic from a particular country? Introducing segments and filters:

1. Segments: These allow you to isolate data for a specific subset of users or sessions within a report. For example, you could create a segment to view only traffic coming from mobile devices.
2. Filters: These permanently remove unwanted data from your reports. While segments are temporary, filters provide a more permanent solution for excluding data you don’t need.

Here’s a pro tip for you: We recommend setting up an unfiltered view alongside your filtered views. This will give you a complete record of all website data, even if it’s excluded from specific reports!

Google Analytics gives you all the data you need (and more) to help you understand your audience and optimize your website for better search engine visibility. What matters most is how you analyze this data to learn what needs improvement and what you should focus on next.

Here are the 3 most important ways you can leverage Google Analytics to improve your small business SEO.

Let’s face it, content creation takes time and effort. But not all content performs equally. The good news? Google Analytics can help you identify existing content with hidden potential, ready to be revitalized for a traffic boost.

Here’s a powerful strategy:

Target Pages with Declining Rankings: Pages don’t maintain their top rankings forever. Traffic and clicks can fluctuate over time. To find content ripe for republishing, navigate to Acquisition > Search Console > Landing Pages.

Leveraging Comparison Power: Select a timeframe for comparison. Preferably, you want to identify content that’s been underperforming for a while.  A good starting point is comparing at least six-month periods (e.g., the most recent six months compared to the previous six months).

Prioritizing Clicks:  Sort the table by clicks to prioritize pages that were previously generating decent traffic but have seen a decline.  This could indicate a drop in rankings or a shift in user behavior.

Dive Deeper: Select a specific landing page you want to investigate further.  This will reveal valuable search query data.  Click on “Custom” and choose the timeframe you selected for comparison.  Once you’ve chosen your dates, click “Apply.”

Analyzing Ranking Trends:  Look at the “Organic Google Search average position” column.  This will reveal how the page’s ranking has changed over the selected timeframe.  A significant decline could be a sign that the content needs refreshing.

Analyzing Google Analytics for Small Business SEO will help you make informed decisions about the proper next steps. With some tweaks –  like updating information, optimizing for relevant keywords, or improving readability – you can breathe new life into these pages and watch your traffic climb!

We’ve established that content creation is an investment. But what about content that’s already generating traffic and conversions?  

Your high-performing pages are your golden nuggets – a testament to the topics and formats that resonate with your audience. As with everything with SEO, there’s always room for improvement! Thus, that’s what we plan on doing, after helping you find those high-performing pages first.

Find Your Best-Performing Pages: Navigate to Behavior > Site Content > Top Landing Pages.  Consider filtering by “Organic” to focus on traffic driven by search engines. This is how you can find pages that are attracting visitors and converting them into leads or customers.

Optimize for Visibility and Action: Once you’ve identified your “golden nuggets,” it’s time to set them up for even higher visibility and returns. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Implement relevant, high-traffic, and low-competition keywords in your text.
2. Review your Call to Action’s (CTA’s) wording, appearance, and position to ensure they are compelling and easy to understand.
3. Find opportunities for refreshing the content with new information, statistics, or visuals.

Look for Hidden Potential: High-performing pages are vital, but those URLs that get high traffic but no conversions are the real diamonds in the rough.  Are they outdated? Do they need better CTAs? Find these pages and use analytic metrics like Time Spent on the Page, Click-Through Rates, and Website Speed to see what’s incorrect and how to fix it.

All small businesses (and the big ones, too) are waiting for that “Hurray” moment to celebrate their website traffic growth and conversions. However, it’s equally important to track and document the SEO efforts that led you there. You can use Google Analytics Annotations for the following practices.

Benchmark Content Performance: Annotations allow you to create a snapshot of the content’s performance before any optimization efforts. Later, you can compare this benchmark to post-optimization data to measure the impact of your SEO tweaks.

Collaborative Knowledge Sharing: Annotations aren’t solitary notes. Anyone with access to your Google Analytics account can view and add annotations, and SEO loves teamwork. This is especially useful when multiple people are managing SEO in your company.

Offline Marketing Integration:  You can use Annotations to monitor and document your offline marketing efforts like print ads or TV commercials. 

Marking Issues: By pinpointing online issues, like website outages or server maintenance downtimes. you can better track how these efforts impact website traffic and separate them from organic SEO trends.

In case you prefer using Google Analytics’ latest version, there are alternatives to the “annotation” feature including Chrome extensions that let you document changes and track their impact on your SEO efforts.

Running a small business isn’t easy, but powerful free tools like Google Analytics simplify finding errors, taking impactful actions to boost performance, and tracking how those actions improve your SEO.

Now, it’s time to put your newfound knowledge to the test starting by creating a Google Analytics account and auditing your website. Momentum helps you monitor your SEO success and plan for what’s next. Book a free quote today and we’ll help you find your way from there.