How to use Google Analytics To Measure Your SEO Performance

For some managers, the word "Google Analytics" is synonymous with fear and could cause a panic attack. Indeed, it is easy to get lost in Google Analytics in the ocean of data, charts, comparisons and comparisons of all kinds, and hiding under a ton of numbers unique question you want to answer:
"Conclude my website that you walking? "

Well, good news: Google Analytics recognizes the difficulty of separating the important statistics of other irrelevant data, and provides us with a very useful "Dashboard" tool named, who comes to save us from "data overload."
To help you maximize your use of Google Analytics and keep the focus on your goals, we will present on this blog a series of three articles in which we share our tips on how to use this dashboard, mainly to measure performance your Internet marketing activities.
This first article will be devoted to optimizing your dashboard to measure your SEO. I suggest you read this article until the end, as a gift waiting for you

Introduction to the dashboard

First, an introduction is in order. The dashboard is available in the "Home" section of Google Analytics. You can create one or several different tables to gather data related to a specific purpose (eg online sales, mobile etc.. Traffic)


The beauty of this tool is that you choose yourself the statistics you want to view in your dashboard, called "Widget". This allows you to separate the lot critical data related to your goals.
Objectives using the dashboard are numerous:
- Save time by keeping the focus on important data.
- Measure your performance, comparing data over time to note your progress.
- Quick and accurate diagnosis if a certain section of your site is experiencing problems.
You can even configure a report under the "email" option to get your critical data on a regular basis, that can be shared with your boss / client / colleague .... if you have confidence in your numbers

How to add statistics to your dashboard

You have two ways to add widgets to your dashboard.
First, you can add the custom from the standard Google Analytics reports widgets, or you can add them to the same personalized dashboard.
The first way is generally faster because you take the measurement index unchanged, while the custom dashboard gives you more flexibility if you want to change the formulas (examples apply a special filter).
First way: just browse a table of statistics in Google Analytic, and click the "Add to Dashboard"


Second way to configure widgets to even the dashboard:


Simply configure your custom filters for different expressions and statistics:
For the sake of the article and since it is intended for webmasters intermediate level, we focus on the first method.

Create your own personalized dashboard

You will of course understand that you are now free to create your own personalized dashboard, with the data of your choice. These can vary depending on the nature of your site and depending on your goals:
- If you have an e-commerce site, you will be tempted to add the widgets related to online sales, such as your conversion rate, sources and keywords that have generated sales, completion rates shopping cart etc..
- If your site relies on its content to stand out, the statistics can be measured at the average number of page views, engagement online, bounce rate and others.
- If your service offering is in B2B, you could calculate the number of requests received for a demo online, download to your business documents, etc..
In short, you're spoiled for choice to customize your dashboard, but beware, you need to keep only those measures that will help you make strategic decisions.

Download table edge SEO

For my part, since a large part of my job is to advise and support our customers in developing their SEO strategies, the first picture I usually created is entirely dedicated to SEO.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article to the end, here is a gift of a personalized dashboard that I recommend you to install to track your SEO performance.
 
https://www.google.com/analytics/web/permalink?uid=ZK0t-v-cSSmxs2JSv99kbg
 
To install, you must be logged into your Google Analytic account, and choose the right profile under which the copy table.
This dashboard contains the following data:

1. Total natural visitors.
2. Total natural visitors, excluding your company name.
3. Share of traffic in the different search engines.
4. Number of pages of destinations from organic traffic.
5. Visitors from natural search engines.
6. Best keywords Natural (visits and bounce rate)
7. Best keywords natural Goals (completed)
8. Best keywords Natural (rate conversion completed objectives)

The last two widgets, or the best keywords natural level objectives conversions can be removed if you have not configured the data in Google Analytics. The same principle applies if you have an e-commerce site, you can easily add this data to your dashboard.
Warning: you must edit widgets keywords that exclude keywords related to your business, such as the second data shown here above. To do this, simply click on the widget in question, select "edit" and enter your business name. You must also add a filter for different variations on your business name.