Originally presented at http://www.brightonseo.com Are you using Google Analytics to its full potential for your SEO campaigns? Could you be doing more? Which are the best custom reports, advanced segments, profiles and filter hacks that you should be using to track how great you are at doing SEO? Nikki Rae’s (@analyticsgirl) talks through her favourite and recommended Google Analytics hacks for SEO

1. Top Google Analytics Hacks for SEO #BrightonSEO 2011 Nikki Rae @analyticsgirl Future Insight Analytics 01/04/2011

2. SEO Fundamental Needs I want to know the effect of Keyword Rankings I want more organic traffic I want more organic conversions for non-branded/ non-navigational traffic I don’t want to look like an ASS!! I want my life to be easier 01/04/2011

3. Google Analytics for SEO 01/04/2011

4. Much More than just a Keyword Reporting Tool Use GA to check results, test, report, inform strategies What is it you want to know? Makes you ask more Questions than answer them 01/04/2011

5. I want to know my rankings... 01/04/2011

6. I want to know my rankings REALLY useful little hack Written by Andre Scholten Re-edited by Nikki Rae http://www.freshegg.com/blog/track-seo-rankings-yoastscholten-twist-analyticsgirl_2754 Re-edited by MikeCP http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tracking-organic-ranking-in-google-analytics-with-custom-variables Monitor the behaviour of visitors who click through to your site Keyword Keyword Rankings Not absolute, just follow the trends 01/04/2011

7. I want to know Rankings Cont... Visitors/User-Defined Group ‘behaviour’ by keyword ranking Group ‘keyword’ by keyword ranking and find which keywords should be promoted 01/04/2011 Why are positions 9 & 10 bringing in more traffic than positions 4, 8 and 7? (Not set) is any other traffic source that is not recognised as matching the User-Defined filter pattern

8. Rankings vs. Page Titles (Call to Action) Does traffic delivered from position 9 convert better/worse than e.g. Position 1? WHY? Is there a correlation between landing page, keyword, title and call-to-action, meta description etc. WHAT IS IT? 01/04/2011 How to: Content/Content by Title (drop-down by User-Defined Variable) Advanced Filter – User-Defined Value contains 9

9. I want more organic traffic ... 01/04/2011

10. I want more Organic Traffic: Add More Search Engines Google Analytics only tracks this list of Search Engines ‘out-of-the-box’ Add more search engines – particularly for international sites 01/04/2011 http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/gaJS/gaJSApiSearchEngines.html#_gat.GA_Tracker_._addOrganic http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/gaTrackingTraffic.html#searchEngine

11. I want more organic traffic: Tracking Google Places as Organic Maps or Place Use Google URL Builder http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55578 I want to know it is (Source) Google, Medium (Organic) Traffic Track as campaign name = Places Track as campaign content = Place|Maps 01/04/2011 http://www.futureinsightanalytics.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_content=map&utm_campaign=places http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tracking-traffic-from-google-places-in-google-analytics

12. I want more Organic Traffic Sub-Domain and Cross-domain tracking E.g. Tracking blog as part of main site stops blog appearing as referrer Instead shows keyword/traffic sources that drove traffic to the blog and then through to the main site. 01/04/2011 http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/gaTrackingSite.html

13. I don’t want to look like an ASS! 01/04/2011

14. I don’t want to look like an Ass! When weird stuff happens in keyword reports that you can’t quite explain.... Even worse when client notices it first Or another agency notices and make you look like a duffer 01/04/2011

15. I don’t want to look like an ASS!: Stealing PPC traffic Make sure your client is correctly tracking paid search traffic Have you asked them if they are running PPC campaigns (then check if these are being tracked)? Are there kw’s appearing in GA with high visits that you don’t rank for? 01/04/2011

16. I don’t want to look like an ASS!Killing PPC traffic (aka wasting client budget) Communicate when you make development changes Change URLs Remember to tell PPC agency of changes so PPC traffic is not sent to 404 pages. Use 301/302 redirects Make sure that any 301’s carry over important parameters such as gclids and other tracking parameters 01/04/2011

17. I don’t want to look like an ASS!Hiding SEO Issues Applying filters with due care and attention Force page URI to upper/lowercase This will hide duplicate pages Using Default Index page Will also hide instances of multiple home pages 01/04/2011

18. I don’t want to look like an ASS!: Somebody has stolen my site!! Has your traffic suddenly increased You have referrers from new and far off lands Suddenly, a large percentage of your keywords are in Chinese!? Hostname report contains www.web.com or some other irrelevant domains (this should be the name of your website) 01/04/2011

19. I don’t want to look like an ASS!: www.web.com Referrer Spoofing Our site has been scraped/copied e.g. Your tracking script has been hijacked Using a hostname filter (from day 1) will prevent this from happening (Good Explanation here) - http://techhacking.com/2011/01/23/google-analytics-referrer-spammers/ 01/04/2011

20. Hostname Filter The simple solution: Hostname Filter 01/04/2011

21. Why does Google show as a referrer? 01/04/2011

22. Why does Google show as a referrer? Tracking exact referring URLs will help Was an actual link from Google (Yippee)? Igoogle Page has been translated Google Image search Google Docs (e.g. Spreadsheets) 01/04/2011

23. Exact Referring URLs Want to know exactly which page traffic has come from? Want to know why Google is showing as a referrer? http://www.analyticstraining.co.uk/2010/02/how-to-find-out-the-real-referring-url-google-analytics/ 01/04/2011

24. I want less branded Search Conversions! To get more conversions from non-branded traffic sources Use advanced filters to recognise brand/navigational source and set it as Direct traffic source Can set medium as (branded) or (navigational) so that you know what ‘type’ of direct traffic it was. GA will not attribute conversion to direct traffic unless was first visit to site (last click wins unless is direct source) Put this in a separate profile so you can still see how much traffic comes from branded search (and keep count of organic searches  ) 01/04/2011

25. Second Page Viewed If a search has come in via branded keywords or direct search, you will not know what visitor is searching for Find out what second page viewed was and then you’ll have a better idea of visitor intention 01/04/2011

26. Content Reports Look for Duplicate page titles Look for insightful Internal Search keywords Look for duplicate page names 01/04/2011

27. WTF? (other) bucket Sampling (not set) 01/04/2011

28. Using Advanced Segments Track ‘exact phrase’ you are working e.g. ‘Google Analytics Training’ Track containing ‘exact phrase’ you are working on ‘Find Google Analytics Training Courses’ Track contains ‘exact’ and ‘phrase’ you are working on ‘Training in SEO for Google Analytics’ How do these different segments perform? Can you see patterns to give more insight to your strategy? Is engagement better with long tail? Compare with paid/non-paid Missing opportunities for keywords? Missing landing page opportunities? 01/04/2011

29. I want to stay up to date: Using Google Analytics Intelligence Use Google Intelligence to email you for significant keyword/visit changes 01/04/2011

30. I want to stay up to date: Using Google Analytics Notations Use Google Analytics Notations remind you what happened on specific days 301s put in place New Site went live Server down for 2 hours Anything that will affect your campaign Etc. 01/04/2011

31. Troubleshooting Google Analytics Tools SitescanGA Livehttpheaders Google Analytics Tracking Code Debugger 01/04/2011

32. Making my life easier Add a tracker for an account specifically for tracking SEO data. Imacro Excellent analytics Tatvic TrackPal 01/04/2011

33. Resources http://www.smartinsights.com/blog/search-engine-marketing/google-analytics-seo/ by @danbarker http://www.slideshare.net/JoannaButler/think-visibility-advanced-analytics-joanna-butler by @joannabutler 01/04/2011