Semalt: Insights We Look For In Google Analytics



These are simple yet useful insights we take from Google Analytics to help us identify opportunities that we can use to improve your organic SEO strategies. Knowing what to look for when analyzing Google Analytics produces a wealth of SEO insight that proves useful in improving the SEO performance of our clients.

When we look at Alanystics on a consistent basis, we can identify performance issues and optimization opportunities. 

Here are some actionable insights we use to provide you with the excellent services we offer. With the data we collect, we get to improve your organic SEO strategy. The most amazing part is that many of your competitors haven't caught wind of it, so you get to stay ahead of them. Without further ado, here we go.

Custom segments

What we call custom segments has been one of Google Analytics' fundamental features. With the data it provides, we can see traffic by channel, demographic data, visitors who completed the goal, and more. 

Custom segments can be created from almost any type of raw data. We can see the number of visits to a specific page, time on site,  and the location. With custom segments, we can learn more about the users on your site, how they interact with it, and the steps we can take to make your website better. 

There are three interesting reports we are looking for in the custom segments. They are the: 
To dive deeper, we observe demographics, and study the data to see what are the age groups and gender of users on your site. Using this data from Google Analytics, we can create a custom segment. 

With the custom segment, we can observe user's behaviors, the most frequent visitors, and more. 

Since we want the purest form of data, we allow it to collect for a period, let's say six months or a year, when possible. By then, we will have a good and pure compilation of data that can initiate a new idea to take your website to the top. 

Monitor mobile traffic

You must have heard of how important mobile traffic is becoming to SEO and websites. We cannot stress how important gaining mobile traffic and mobile web performance can be for your website. 

With Google Analytics, we do not just monitor the inbound mobile traffic; we also monitor the engagement levels of these visitors. 

To access this data, all we need to do is: 

Focus on site search

Have you equipped your website with its own search bar? If not, you might want to consider it. Having this feature on your website doesn't just make things easier for your audience, but it also gives you the valuable intel you need to please the customers. 

From a search bar, you can learn what visitors are looking for on your site. You get raw intel on what should make up your next content, keywords you should be optimizing for, and how many people are searching. 

Here's how we do it. We study your website's search entries to see if a large percentage of your visitors use it as a tool to find content, products, or services. If we notice that a large amount of your traffic uses the search bar, we believe it isn't a great sign. Remember that users only use the search bar when they can't easily find content. We don't want that, so we improve the order of your site so users have a clearer idea of where they will find what they are searching for. 

The search bar gives us ideas on areas where your site has gaps in its content. If users frequently search for a term you don't have on your site, we create supply to meet that demand. To make it clear that you have the interest of your audience at heart, we can feature this content benefiting both you and the user. 

Sometimes, the search bar shows which products or services you should include in your portfolio. You can feature these products / services temporarily to satisfy your customers or add them permanently to your website. Either way, you make a profit and satisfy your audience.

The bounce rate

The bounce rate of a website is the percentage of people who visit your site but leave after only viewing the first page. In some cases, bounce rate doesn't translate into a poor user experience, but we still take it seriously. Having a high bounce rate could mean a lot of things. For starters, it may indicate that visitors haven't found what they are searching for on your site. This will mean that you are targeting the wrong audience or using the wrong keywords. A high bounce rate can also indicate that your pages have poor quality content. 

Let's say you rank highly for a very long-tail keyword, but when someone gets to the site, the content you have does not satisfy their needs, so they "bounce."

Your website's page speed performance, poor UI / UX, and terrible design all contribute to an increased bounce rate. 

We can adjust the duration between checks in Google Analytics to access data on your bounce rate after. We can choose to do this quarterly or after every 6 months to see if it has changed. If we should notice a significant increase, we look for the cause and fix it. 

Locate top performing pages by conversions

Studying individual pages, their conversions, and performance can provide critical intel. By studying these pages, we can watch for negative trends. When a page notices a significant decline, we will know immediately if the problem is concentrated on just that page or if we need to work on the website as a whole. 

Some pages fail to perform as expected, and over time, they lose traffic and their organic visibility. Google Analytics allows us to tie in conversion data with these metrics so we can see which pages need a rewrite or some sort of an update. 

Just like how minor errors accumulate and become a big issue, these individual pages can cause big problems if they go unattended. Likewise, if all the pages on your site are doing well, then the entire site looks great to search engines and your audience, which is a good thing for you and your business. 

Conclusion

There are a lot of opportunities that come with working with us. We have the knowledge, the experience, and the skill sets your website needs. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. There are dozens of opportunities you could be capitalizing on with our help.

Google Analytics is a minefield filled with gems known and unknown. Using this free tool gives you access to the information you wouldn't get anywhere else. With it, we've been able to remodel sites and the marketing strategies of brands. 

Give us a call today and watch us take your brand, business, and website to a new level. 

Interested in SEO? Check out our other articles on the Semalt blog.

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