and more. GA helps you see where customers are coming from.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nYou can measure different types of visits, such as direct visitors that enter your domain directly into their browser, or maybe you want to measure by different referral sites or <\/span>social media channels<\/span>. All of these (and more) are possible within GA.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nAudience Demographics<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\nWhile it’s not extremely granular tracking information, you can see a large array of audience demographics and compare to your other audience insights. The “Demographics” tab on GA can break down your traffic by age and gender.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nLanding Page<\/b> Performance<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\nIf you have multiple campaigns with different <\/span>landing pages<\/span>, you can view which ones are most successful, breaking down performance by sessions, <\/span>bounce rate<\/span>, new visitors, and average session time. You can see exit pages and drill down into customer journeys to see what pages get the most traffic or lead to the highest rate of abandonment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nDwell Time<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\nDwell time metrics (average time on page, average session duration, etc.) are used to describe how much time people spend browsing your website. Dwell time has been discussed by many <\/span>SEO experts<\/span>\u00a0as a definitive ranking signal for <\/span>search engines<\/span>. Basically, if people spend long amounts of time on your website, then it must mean they are enjoying your content and it’s relevant to a query.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nYou can use GA to look at page session time, time on site, and <\/span>bounce rates<\/span> to judge your site\u2019s content and <\/span>user experience<\/span>. If you\u2019re seeing abnormal or low engagement, it\u2019s possible that you need to adjust your pages to either make them more visually appealing or engaging.<\/span><\/p>\nOther GA Metrics<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\nAs we mentioned before, there are over 10,000 metrics to track, as well as some pretty amazing tools. For example, you can also use GA for:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n- \u00a0Goal tracking<\/span><\/li>\n
- \u00a0Conversion tracking<\/span><\/li>\n
- \u00a0Revenue tracking<\/span><\/li>\n
- \u00a0Site speed metrics<\/span><\/li>\n
- \u00a0Real-time visitor insights<\/span><\/li>\n
- \u00a0Event tracking<\/span><\/li>\n
- \u00a0Complex reports\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
What Can You Do with <\/b>Google Webmaster Tools<\/b> AKA <\/b>Google Search Console<\/b>?<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\nFor those who want to get more granular about <\/span>SEO<\/span> and ensure that their site is “technically perfect” with Google, you’ll want to use <\/span>GSC<\/span>. This lesser-known tool can greatly improve your site\u2019s position in the <\/span>SERPs<\/span> with <\/span>search data<\/span> for your site that can lead to meaningful insight.<\/span><\/p>\nHere’s some of the ways you can use <\/span>GSC<\/span>:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nTrack <\/b>Backlinks<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\nAs any <\/span>SEO<\/span> marketer knows, <\/span>backlinks<\/span> are crucial for ranking up in <\/span>search engines<\/span>. When you have solid links from high authority websites, you’ll likely start to move up in rank for all related keywords. However, if you have links on poor quality websites, the opposite may happen, in which Google de-ranks or penalizes you for being on a spam website.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nWith Search Console, you can see all the links to your site and what content is being linked to the most. You can also see top linked pages from external sources and internal sources.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nDisavow Toxic <\/b>Backlinks<\/b><\/h3>\n
Google also provides users with the ability to disavow <\/span>backlinks<\/span>. The term \u201cdisavowing\u201d means that you\u2019re specifically telling Google that you do not want them to count that <\/span>backlink<\/span> toward your site any longer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Why would you do this? Because not every link that is pointing to your site is going to be valuable. In fact, some could even be extremely harmful (toxic).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Let\u2019s say your site sells packaged food. However, when you pull a report of your <\/span>backlinks<\/span>, you see that you have dozens of <\/span>backlinks<\/span> that are from sites that are poorly written, irrelevant to your industry and appear to be from a different country than the one you\u2019re based in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
When you see sites like these pointing toward your site, it\u2019s important that you\u2019re seeking removal of these <\/span>backlinks<\/span>. At first, you should be contacting the owner of the domain to see if you can have that <\/span>backlink<\/span> removed. If that doesn\u2019t work, then disavowing these links through <\/span>GSC<\/span> is your best option.<\/span><\/p>\nMobile-First Usability<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\nRemember how Google stated that they were implementing a mobile-first policy for ranking websites? This means that even if your <\/span>website performance<\/span> is great on the desktop, your rank could suffer drastically if your site is not optimized for mobile.<\/span><\/p>\nGoogle actually demotes websites that aren’t optimized for fast mobile browsing. In addition, if there are any <\/span>usability issues<\/span> or elements blocked on mobile, you’ll likely also get de-ranked.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe great news is that you can use <\/span>GSC<\/span> to check on any issues with your <\/span>mobile usability<\/span> bringing down your rank, and then make steps to correct them. This can be found under “Enhancements,” then click on “<\/span>Mobile Usability<\/span>.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nSearch Analytics<\/b>\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n
In the platform, you can build <\/span>search console reports<\/span> that will provide greater insight into your <\/span>organic search traffic<\/span> and show you <\/span>search queries<\/span> in Google that your site is ranking for.<\/span><\/p>\nThese reports are extremely helpful when it comes to analyzing the performance of your entire site or a single page. From here, you can see how often your site comes up for search terms, how often <\/span>searchers<\/span> are clicking onto your site from those <\/span>search queries<\/span> (along with your <\/span>CTR<\/span> for those) and what your site\u2019s <\/span>average position<\/span> is for those terms.<\/span><\/p>\nThis insight is incredibly valuable, especially when trying to create and optimize digital campaigns for your business.<\/span><\/p>\nCatching Errors<\/b><\/h3>\n
Google Search Console<\/span> will crawl the site periodically (if you have your <\/span>sitemap<\/span> submitted). This will not only pull the site into its search results, but it will also notify the owner of the domain if there are any errors or issues that occur as its doing so.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Some of these issues may include <\/span>HTML errors<\/span>, <\/span>crawl errors<\/span> and technical issues that may occur while Google\u2019s crawler is checking the site. If you have your email notifications set up, you\u2019ll receive alerts each time this occurs, which can help you swiftly squash any issues that your site may run into.<\/span><\/p>\nStart Tracking and Optimizing Your Site<\/b><\/h2>\n
There are a variety of performance reports and metrics to track within both of these easily accessible, <\/span>free tools<\/span>. We strongly suggest that <\/span>site owners<\/span> create an account with both and add their website so that they can see the value of these metrics and reports.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n