Google Analytics 4 is the latest Google Analytics tool that millions of businesses and marketers have adopted in the past 2 years. While there’s a steep learning curve for learning GA4 compared to the previous Google Analytics tool, Universal Analytics, GA4 offers numerous advanced analytics features that help marketers gain more insights into their website as well as digital marketing performance and consumer behaviours. These insights guide marketers to better their marketing initiatives and thus improve their overall marketing results. GA4 in particular is useful for measuring a business’ SEO performance. Here are four ways marketers can use GA4 to measure their SEO performance and turn the data into actionable insights.
Integrate Google Search Console with GA4
Google Search Console (GSC) is a popular Google-powered webmaster tool that shows vital and useful SEO data, such as search queries that users enter to land on a website as well as the webpages that these users land on. Marketers can use this data to see the overall trend of their SEO performance and measure the effectiveness of their SEO campaigns. You can integrate GSC with GA4 so that you can see it directly in your GA4 property.
When GSC and GA4 are integrated, you can see valuable data, including organic search queries that users input to visit your website, and average positions of your web pages for various search terms.
When the integration is set up, you can also combine GSC data with GA4 metrics such as engaged sessions or conversions to gain even more details on your SEO performance. You can use GA4 metrics to understand if your SEO visitors are actually engaging or converting on your website. These insights can guide you on how well your SEO campaigns are performing and whether adjustments are needed.
Build Custom Detailed Reports
GA4 offers a number of detailed reports by default, for example, User acquisition reports and Traffic acquisition reports. These reports are effective in helping you gain general insights into your overall website performance.
You can also create your own custom detailed report specifically to measure your SEO performance.
To do so, select Library and click on Create Detail Report in the Reports section.
Choose to build a report from scratch or select a report template.
Once you’ve built a custom SEO detailed report, you can save it so that it appears in the reports section by default. Enabling this helps you access your SEO conveniently.
For example, we developed a custom SEO report for one of our clients in Calgary. The report highlights organic sessions across all landing pages, allowing us to track SEO traffic trends and assess whether more valuable landing pages are gaining traffic.
Overall, the more organic traffic this client gains, the more foot traffic and online inquiries they receive. This makes it imperative for the client to stay updated about their SEO performance and ensure that efforts are driving traffic to high-value web pages. For example, we want to avoid a situation where the majority of organic traffic goes to an outdated blog that doesn’t contribute to sales, foot traffic, or online bookings. Additionally, the insights from the report help the client manage their budgets more effectively. If competition increases and SEO traffic dips, the client can review the results and allocate more budget to SEO, improving SEO performance. This reporting approach and transparency ensure we stay aligned with our client, helping us collectively focus on improving their SEO performance and driving overall business growth. We’ve seen a continued upward trend in SEO traffic for our client, with some fluctuations during certain periods. This success stems from open discussions and alignment on growth, addressing fluctuations, and optimizing budget allocation to compete effectively in Calgary’s competitive market.
Build Custom Exploration Reports
Exploration reports are one of the main new features in GA4 that were not available in UA. You can use this feature to create unique visual reports; for example, you can build a free-form exploration report, which is a table report, to track your SEO performance in a more traditional format. More specifically, you can build a free form report to see from which cities your SEO traffic is coming.
You can get more granular with your reporting by developing a user journey report. For example, you can create a custom user journey report specifically for your SEO traffic, to visually understand how users are navigating through your website, which content your SEO visitors are interested in, and whether your SEO traffic is going to high-value pages such as products or services pages or the contact page. This visualization helps you better understand your SEO visitors and their interests so that you can tailor your marketing and website content specifically to cater to your visitors’ needs, and find opportunities to improve the overall user experience to increase the likelihood of users converting or engaging in high-value actions on your website.
The rollout of GA4 has provided marketers and businesses with a powerful tool to delve deeper into their website and digital marketing performance. While there may be a learning curve associated with transitioning from Universal Analytics to GA4, the advanced analytics features it offers far outweigh the initial challenges. Specifically, GA4’s capabilities in measuring SEO performance are invaluable for marketers seeking to optimize their strategies.
By integrating Google Search Console with GA4, marketers can access crucial data on organic search queries and webpage performance directly within their analytics platform. This integration enables a holistic view of SEO effectiveness, allowing for informed decisions regarding campaign adjustments and optimizations.
Moreover, GA4’s flexibility allows for the creation of custom detailed reports tailored to specific SEO metrics and goals. This empowers marketers to closely monitor key performance indicators and track progress over time, ultimately leading to more targeted and effective strategies.
The introduction of exploration reports in GA4 further enhances the ability to visualize and analyze SEO performance. From tracking user journeys to identifying high-value content, these reports provide invaluable insights into user behaviour and preferences, enabling marketers to refine their approach and improve overall user experience.
Overall, GA4 serves as a vital tool for marketers looking to gain deep insights into their SEO efforts. By using GA4’s advanced features and integrating key data sources, businesses can gain deeper insights, make data-driven decisions, and ultimately drive better results in their digital marketing initiatives.
Author Bio
Ray is the Principal at RW Digital, an independent digital agency based in Richmond, BC. Founded in 2019, the agency’s mission is to help businesses use web technologies, digital advertising, and data analytics to promote their brands and gain more clients in today’s ever-changing digital space. RW Digital takes pride in consistently delivering exceptional work to its clients.