For some time now webmasters have been able to access data from Google Analytics via their Webmaster Tools accounts – for example the Search Queries report in Webmaster Tools has the ability to pull in Google Analytics data and graphs.

Now Google has merged Google Analytics with Webmaster Tools even further – so this works the other way too.

Even more Google Changes – First Look at Google Analytics Real-Time Reporting

Google Analytics users can access data from Webmaster Tools – including number of impressions, average position and clickthrough rate (CTR) – the result of which is some pretty nifty reports that will be of enormous benefit to SEOs.

For some advanced SEOs some of this was already possible through hacks using very clever custom filters – but providing this data as part of standard reports will open this up to non boffins and allow for more powerful and flexible data analysis.

This post provides a step by step tutorial on the new SEO Queries report (which we think is by far the most useful). We’ll be updating our Google Analytics and Advanced Google Analytics courses to include all of the new SEO reports by the way!

How to Link Google Analytics with Webmaster Tools to Access SEO Reports

Before we look at the new reports – we’ll need to link Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics so that the data can be shared.

If you don’t already have Webmaster Tools AND Google Analytics – read our guides on how to create accounts:

• How to set up Webmaster Tools
• How to set up Google Analytics

OK – so assuming you have your site set up with both Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools – here’s how to link them together:

1) Log in to your Webmaster Tools account – you’ll see a list of the sites you have Webmaster Tools installed on (or just one – if you only have one site)

2) In the Manage Site drop down next to the site you’re interested in, select Google Analytics Property

3) You”ll now see a list of all of the sites you have Google Analytics installed on (or again just one – if you only have one) – so select the correct site from the list and then Save at the bottom

Done! Now you should be ready to start seeing the new reports…

New SEO Reports in Google Analytics

OK – so we’re all linked up and ready to rock. Let’s find the new SEO reports…

It’s worth mentioning at this stage that you’ll only see the SEO reports in the new version of Google Analytics – so if you haven’t already – hit the New Version button in the top menu bar

Now you’ll see the new interface, with the new SEO reports included. You will find these under Traffic Sources > Search Engine Optimisation

So – let’s have a look at the new SEO Queries report, what we can learn from it, and how we can make the data useful to us.

How to use the New Google Analytics SEO Reports: Queries Report Tutorial

We’ve always been able to see data on the number of visits particular keywords generate, how many pages people visited, how long they stayed, bounce rate etc…

By adding the Impressions, Average Position and Click-through Rate data from Webmaster tools – we can now also tell how many people saw your site appear in the SERPs for each keyword, where it was appearing (on average), and what percentage of people clicked on the link (Click Through Rate).

This is all very useful information for SEO. Without wanting to teach all you experienced SEOs to suck eggs – a couple of key benefits are:

• You can immediately see if a key search term is appearing in low position – and put more effort in to moving it up the SERPs.
• High average position will usually mean a high click-through rate (we all click on the top results) – however the new data will help you to identify keywords that are giving you high positions, but where the CTR is not great. This is usually an indication that your page titles or meta descriptions (which is usually what is shown under your page title in the SERPs) are not that relevant to what the user is looking for, and can possibly be improved.

The important thing here is that Google Analytics can now tell us something about the behaviour of people who don’t visit your site via the SERPs – as well as those who do.

The default report looks like this – with results for each search query ordered by number of impressions (i.e – how many times your site appears in Google’s SERPS as a result of those searches):

We noticed a couple of unusual things straight away. The queries “panda” and “black and white photography” were both generating a large number of impressions – but we don’t have any pages that appear high in Google’s SERPs for those queries in the web results.

However – this report also includes results from Google Image Search – and lo and behold – we have an image of a panda (in a post about Google Panda) that appears at number 4 in Google Image Search for the query “Panda” – and it’s generating a lot of impressions. Image searches typically generate far more impressions than web searches – as one page of image search SERPs provides 50-70 results – whereas a web search provides only 10. Impressions for Image Searches therefore have the potential to skew your results quite dramatically.

Luckily – we can filter this report by “Google Property” – to do that click on the Secondary Dimension drop-down and select Visitors > Google Property

Now we can see that the top 5 queries delivering the most impressions were ALL from Image Search:

That’s all very nice – and optimising your images for image search is a good thing to do – but this data is getting in the way of what we really want to be analysing, which is the web-search data.

Luckily – we can also apply a filter which allows us to see just the web-search results. With Google Property already selected as your Secondary Dimension (as above) – now click on the advanced button next to your search box

Now we can apply an advanced filter based on Google Property – so we can Include the Google Property that exactly matches Web:

Now we see JUST results from Google Web search – which is what most SEOs care about!

However – notice that you can also filter by Video results – if you want to see how well your videos are performing – and also how many people are finding and visiting your site from smartphones.

The latter  is becoming more and more important (if your Bounce Rate from mobiles is very poor – you might want to come on our new Mobile Web Design course!)

Finally – you can also add further filters for other metrics like specific queries,  average positions, CTR and more – which can provide some really valuable insights – for example:

Applying the filters above we can identify all Web results (i.e excluding image / video search etc…) for all queries containing the word “training” that appear (on average) outside the top 10 in Google’s SERPs (not on the front page) – giving a useful insight in to keywords to focus SEO activity. You could also filter by results that ARE consistently appearing in the top 2 or 3 results to see where your CTR results are poor, and improve your meta descriptions / page titles accordingly.

A Note About Average Position – Be Careful!

This may seem obvious to most – but remember that  the results Google Analytics provides you for Average Position do NOT indicate the position of your best ranking page for that search term. Rather it provides an average of all of the pages that appear in the SERPs.

So – if you have two results on the front page, one of which is at number 1 and the other is at number 3, the AVERAGE position will be 2.

As an example – our Average Position for the query “Silicon Beach Training” is 1.7

Now – we ALWAYS appear at number 1 for searches for Silicon Beach Training (if we didn’t we may as well all go home!) – but because more than one of our pages are returned in that search, Google provides us with the average position of all of them – not just the best one.

Other SEO Reports – Brief Summary

I hope this has been a useful introduction to the Queries report. There’s a lot more to it than I’ve mentioned here but hopefully this will give a few insights on issues to look out for and how to get the most from the data.

Here’s a (very) quick overview of the other two new SEO reports – we may well write these up in more detail later…

Landing Pages Report

This is similar to the Queries report – but shows the URLs of landing pages along with their Average Position, Impressions and CTR. Annoyingly, you can’t also see which queries are providing these impressions / hits in this report – but it provides a useful overview of the pages that are performing best in your site and give you some focus on which can be improved.

Geographical Summary

This report breaks down results by country. If you’re a multinational and want to track the results of campaigns specific to certain regions this can be a useful – for anyone based in one country this is less useful, and irritatingly I couldn’t find a way to drill down in to any dimension smaller than “Country” in this report – although that is possible in other areas of Google Analytics.

 

Related posts:

1. How to Track Virtual Page Views in Google Analytics
2. How to Set Up a Goal in Google Analytics – Advanced Google Analytics Training
3. SEO Training: How to Set Up Google Webmaster Tools
4. Google Analytics Training – How to Install Google Analytics Code
5. Google Analytics Training: How to Link AdWords to Google Analytics

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Related posts:

1. How to Track Virtual Page Views in Google Analytics
2. How to Set Up a Goal in Google Analytics – Advanced Google Analytics Training
3. SEO Training: How to Set Up Google Webmaster Tools
4. Google Analytics Training – How to Install Google Analytics Code
5. Google Analytics Training: How to Link AdWords to Google Analytics

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Average Position, CTR, google analytics, google analytics course, Google Analytics SEO Reports, Google Analytics Training, Impressions, Link Google Analytics with Webmaster Tools, New SEO Reports, Queries Report, Search Engine Optimisation Reports, SEO Queries Report, Tutorial, webmaster tools

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