Published by January 10th, 2022

 

How to analyze Google analytics for your website SEO traffic

Google Analytics is one of the most effective tools for determining how engaged your website audience is. By analyzing the data, you can learn and find problems and challenges that are preventing you from successfully engaging your customers. You can also figure out what helps you increase user engagement.

To do so, you must understand the most significant Google Analytics engagement indicators and how to track them.

Google Analytics has the potential to completely transform the way your website runs and assist you in putting the consumer first. Remember that if your visitors are pleased with the content, product, and appearance of your website, they are more likely to make a purchase.

So, here are some actions you should take to use Google analytics for the best SEO results.

Engagement metrics: Average session duration, pages per session, exit rate

Conversion metrics: Goal conversion rate, Goal completions, Goal value

Relevance metricsBounce rate, new vs. returning visitors, User demographics

Why are these Metrics Are Important to measure your SEO traffic?

Search engine optimization is a tedious and complex cycle. Various aspects determine success, and several SEO metrics may be used to track these factors.

Most people can’t keep track of all the changes, but to win in the competitive world of the internet; one should have a fundamental understanding of what is going on with his website.

Let’s look at some significant SEO metrics that every website owner should monitor to measure SEO success.

 

  • Engagement metrics  tell you what customers do on your website. What pages do they visit? How long do they intend to stay? These measurements can be utilized to comprehend the general client experience and its consequences for maintenance and commitment.
  • Conversion metrics track your website’s efficacy in persuading users to do the desired action. Normally, this involves making funnels for significant activities, like buys, to survey how well the site upholds these activities after some time.
  • Relevance metricsenable you to learn more about your clients, including demographics, location, and device technology. You may interpret the impact of your marketing activities on various user segments using these data.

1) Engagement metrics

Average Session Duration

This is the average amount of time the user spends on your website throughout each session. Visit duration might indicate a visitor’s level of interest in the website. It is also an excellent predictor of the effectiveness of a promotional activity that drives traffic to your website. The longer a user spends on your site, the more interested and invested they become in your content. Additionally, as session time increases, so does the possibility of taking certain important actions on your website. However, the user may spend a significant amount of time on your site trying to find the specific content he is looking for. As a result, it is a good idea to compare this metric to others, such as essential user activities, to assess success.

Pages per Session

Pages per session indicate how many pages the user viewed during his visit to the website. It calculates engagement based on the overall number of clicks and the total number of pages visited. The goal of most websites is to keep users engaged and drive them to important actions on the websites. More pages per session show that your users are interested and eager to explore your website. However, it is important to understand that if your users are viewing more pages and the other metrics are low, likely, the visitor is not finding what he is looking for. This number should be combined with average session time to determine whether or not your users are engaged with your site.

Exit rate 

In Google Analytics, the exit rate is a page-specific engagement metric. It displays the percentage of visitors who leave your website from a certain page, independent of how many pages they viewed overall throughout their session. Exit rate is an excellent approach to identify which web pages of a conversion funnel are losing visitors.

Visitors will not remain on your website forever. A visitor will eventually leave, even if they view a dozen pages. When a visitor leaves your website, the exit will be sent to the last page of their session.

Much like improving Time on site and Bounce Rate, it’s important to think about your user to assure they’re not leaving key pages. Engaging content, whether visual or textual, is crucial, so revisit and update your content as needed.

 

2) Conversion metrics

 Goal conversion rate

Google Analytics goals allow you to keep track of the actions that your website visitors did or did not perform. A goal conversion occurs when your visitors accomplish a specified action that you are tracking, such as making a purchase, adding a product to their cart, or signing up for a subscription.

Tracking your goal conversion rate can inform you how well your website is performing in key areas of interest. And understanding the conversion rate will help you look at patterns and swings, detect possibilities, and act if there are significant declines.

A low objective change rate shows that relatively few individuals are doing what you need them to do, while a high one demonstrates that things are working out in a good way. This data can help you construct a picture of what is and isn’t functioning on your website.

Goal Completions

Google Analytics goals enable you to measure particular user behaviors on your site. At the point when a site guest finishes the specific activity you’ve assigned as an objective, Analytics marks it as a transformation.

These user interactions can include form submissions, product purchases, downloading a brochure, lead collection, and more.

The goal completion measures the number of conversions within a given time frame. Goal completions (such as subscribing to a newsletter or signing up for a trial account) demonstrate actual purpose on the side of the user – possibly one of the most important markers of your product’s success or failure.

Goal value

In Google Analytics, goal value is a monetary value assigned to the completion of a goal. It assesses both the quantity and the quality. You can add monetary values to goals so that you can see the value of each conversion to your business. You can also monitor actions such as average order values, total amount sold, purchasing trends, and top-selling items. The value is assigned when you set your goals, under Goal Details. If you have an eCommerce site, you will use a slightly different procedure – but the premise is the same.

3) Relevance metrics

Bounce Rate

The bounce rate is the percentage of website visitors who leave after just seeing one page. The bounce rate indicates the quality of your content since if visitors leave without taking action, your content isn’t accomplishing its function.

People may bounce for a variety of reasons, including:

  • Your call to action/offer is unclear.
  • Your content/offer falls short of their expectations.
  • They became bored.
  • You’re not bringing anything new to the table.

While it’s important to track how engaged your visitors are, it’s also important to track how unengaged they are.

You may have a lot of traffic, but if your bounce rate is high, it indicates your content isn’t interesting enough to keep visitors on your site.

New vs. Returning Visitors

New visitors are those that visit your website for the very first time on a particular device. So, if a person views your website for the first time on a laptop and then again on their phone, that counts as two new visitors.

A returning visitor is someone who loved what they saw and came back for more using the same device. Google has imposed a two-year deadline for cookies, so visitors who have been away from your website for more than two years will be deemed new.

User demographics

This information enables you to identify who your site users are based on characteristics such as location, age, gender, and even interests. Tracking this data allows you to obtain a better picture of who your consumers are, which is essential for developing an efficient marketing plan and improving and extending your products and services.

This type of data can help you understand your target audience so you could customize your product and marketing activities accordingly. This is where demographics reports come in handy.

Reference URLs – 

https://moz.com/blog/measure-seo-traffic-quality-with-google-analytics

https://www.monsterinsights.com/how-to-measure-seo-performance-with-google-analytics-in-wordpress/

https://www.bluearcher.com/blog-item-10-google-analytics-metrics-to-analyze

https://databox.com/conversion-metrics-in-google-analytics#6

https://www.stitchdata.com/resources/google-analytics-metrics-for-marketers/