Reporting acts as a storyline for your website's performance, guiding your next moves based on your objectives. Before diving into data analysis, ask yourself: What specific outcomes do you hope to achieve through your SEO efforts? Simply wanting more traffic isn't detailed enough. Determine where you want this traffic to go, its origins, and most importantly, the tactics to secure it.
Analysing SEO
If you happen to notice that a specific page on your website is pulling in a ton of traffic but has a high bounce rate, it might be time for a content refresh. Think about sprucing up the page with more relevant info or tossing in some links to related content to keep your visitors hooked. And if you spot a sudden influx of traffic from a particular search query but don't have any content on that topic, well, that's your cue to expand your website's offerings.
It's crucial to have a solid plan in place to hit your SEO targets, as making random changes without a clear direction can backfire. Don't forget to give it some time after making adjustments, as search engines need a moment to crawl and index your updated content. And resist the urge to go overboard with optimisation, as it could actually harm your search engine rankings. Keeping a close eye on your results and making smart decisions based on data is the secret sauce to a successful SEO strategy.
How do you monitor your results?
Utilise Google Search Console to assess your search performance and ranking for specific keywords or pages. Track the flow of organic traffic to your website with Google Analytics, monitoring visitor interactions, engagement durations, and more. Transitioning from SEO to conversion optimisation post-visitor arrival is key, focusing on converting leads into sales or form submissions.
Various SEO tools offer diverse reporting and analytics capabilities. For enhanced SEO investment, consider tools like Moz, Ahrefs, or SEMrush. Beginners can start with free tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics, providing comprehensive data for initial stages. As your SEO strategy expands, explore paid tools for more detailed insights.
HubSpot's CMS Hub grants access to valuable analytics integrated within the platform, enhancing your data tracking capabilities.
Connecting your website to Google Search Console
This integration provides valuable insights into your website's organic traffic, indexing status, errors, and other essential metrics. Through this integration, you can track the number of views and clicks your site receives for specific search terms, as well as the average position on Google search results pages. Organic traffic is crucial for driving visitors to your pages, making it a key metric to track. It's worth noting that SEO metrics can sometimes be inaccurate, especially when using multiple tools that may offer conflicting data. Different tools may measure search traffic in various ways, such as clicks, sessions, page views, or unique views. Understanding these differences and selecting a primary performance metric is vital for consistently reporting on search traffic results.
Now, let's talk about domain authority, a term you've probably come across in your SEO journey. Domain authority is a unique metric developed by the software company Moz. While it doesn't directly impact Google's ranking algorithms, it does give you a sense of how authoritative your website is. Don't get too obsessed with it, but it can be a helpful tool to measure the effectiveness of your SEO efforts, especially when it comes to your link building strategies.
Ensure that every page you optimise and every blog post you create is aligned with a clear goal and a metric you're monitoring. Without this connection, your efforts won't effectively contribute to achieving your objectives. It's common to feel overwhelmed with SEO and fall into a haphazard approach. To stay on track, focus on taking purposeful actions that bring you closer to your goals and consistently track the relevant metrics.
Creating SEO reports
As previously noted, Google Search Console serves as a valuable tool for gaining insights into your website's performance on Google's search results pages. Begin by linking your site to Google Search Console by following the instructions provided below.
Within Google Search Console, the key data to focus on resides in the Performance tab. Here, you'll find insights into the number of impressions your site has garnered in SERPs, the clicks received, your average position in search results, and the click-through rate. This data can be filtered by search type and date for further analysis.
By analysing Queries, you can track the number of clicks and impressions your site garners for specific search terms. This data is invaluable for determining which pages to optimize and which keywords to target in your content strategy. By delving into a specific query, you can refine the graph to visualise your performance over time for that particular search term.
You can also track the performance of each of your web pages, see the countries where your traffic is coming from, and determine if visitors are accessing your site via desktop, tablet, or mobile devices.
You can also submit your sitemap on Google Search Console. You can learn more about why sitemaps are
important in the previous blogs.
Let's take a brief tour of Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a powerful tool that you can use to analyse the
traffic coming to your site. Before getting started with Google Analytics, make sure you've installed its tracking
code on your site. This lets you track traffic coming to your site and find out what visitors do once they land on
your site.
At a glance, you can track the number of visitors to your site, their duration on each page, their geographical location, and more. Dive deeper to analyse traffic on specific pages, examining engagement metrics, conversions, and additional insights.
With a plethora of data points to explore and reports to generate, delving into Google Analytics regularly may prompt you to consult Google's documentation for a more thorough understanding of its features.
Adding Your Website to Google Search Console
To unlock the potential of Google Search Console, a handy tool for monitoring your website's performance, follow these simple steps to get started.
- First, log into your Google account, making sure to use your business account for a business website.
- Then, head over to Google Search Console and click on "Add property" in the menu at the top left corner.
- Select the property type (in this case, a Domain) and enter the exact URL from your browser.
- Click "Continue," and verify ownership through various methods such as signing into your domain provider or adding an HTML tag to your site. If your site supports both "http" and "https," add them as separate properties.
Now, you're all set to gather data and optimise your website like a pro. For more tips on using Google Search Console, check out the available resources.
