How to Boost Search Traffic
If you want to significantly boost search traffic your first step is to create some Google Analytics Reports. Today we’ll be setting up 2 reports:
- Queries Report: The queries report will show you what actual search terms (keywords!) your customers are using to get to pages on your website.
- Landing Page Report: The landing page report is used to show what pages your visitors are arriving on when they make search queries in Google.
By analyzing search queries and landing pages, you’ll be able to optimize your website with better keywords for your pages in order to boost your search traffic.
How to set up SEO reports
Connect Google Analytics to Google Search Console
First, you’ll have to connect your Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) account to your Google Analytics account. First log into your Google Analytics Dashboard/
- In the left column click on Acquisition to expand the menu
- Click on Search Engine Optimization
- Click on Queries
- On the Queries page, you’ll see a message that says “This report requires Search Console integration to be enabled.” Note: If you don’t see this message and your screen is showing report data, you probably have already connected your Search Console… so skip to the next section.
- Click on the button underneath this that says “Set up Search Console data sharing”.
- Fill in the information on the page, and then click on the Adjust Search Console button near the bottom of the screen.
- If your website does not have a Search Console account associated with it, you’ll see a message followed by the word “none”. In this case you’ll have to set it up. Contact us for help setting up Google Search Console.
- Click the Edit link.
- If you already have a Search Console account, verify that your website in Search Console is the same as the website in Google Analytics by clicking the radio button next to the URL and hitting Save.
- If you don’t see your site, click the “Add a site to Search Console” button
- Ok, now that your accounts are connected, head back to your Google Analytics account so we can set up your reports.
Search Queries Report
- In the left column click on Acquisition to expand the menu
- Click on Search Engine Optimization
- Click on Queries
- Near the top of the page, click on the word Shortcut to bookmark this Report.
- Name it Search Queries Report, or something easy to remember.
- Your report will now appear in your left side menu in the “Shortcuts” section.
How to Use This Report: Use this report to note the keywords most relevant to your business with the highest impressions and lowest click-through rates.
Landing Pages SEO Report
- In the left column click on Acquisition to expand the menu
- Click on Search Engine Optimization
- Click on Queries
- Near the top of the page, click on the word Shortcut to bookmark this Report.
How to Use This Report: This report shows you why specific pages are performing well on your site. Similar to Queries, focus on the pages with the highest impressions and lower click-through rates. Cross-reference this report with Queries to see which keywords are driving the top pages.
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- get listed on search results pages (SERPs)
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- help you avoid “black hat” SEO techniques that will hurt your ranking
- track your website search and analytics data using free services that are available to you right now!
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Use the report data to boost search traffic
Ok, now you have your reports, so how do you boost search traffic using these reports? That’s kind of the whole point of this article, right? Well unfortunately it doesn’t happen overnight. You’ll have to wait a bit to actually start seeing some data that you can analyze. But once you’ve figured out which pages and keywords are doing best, use them to drive even more traffic to your site. Here are some tips:
- Add the high performing keyword / key phrase to the corresponding landing page. Boost search results by including keywords in your title, URL, and description* but don’t forget to keep your site user-friendly and easy to read. Engagement matters.
- Add blog content twice a week Use keywords or key phrases* in your blog post title, description, and throughout your article to optimize your site even more. This will also keep your site fresh for the Google crawls and site visitors. Site freshness and natural authoritative writing based on relevant keywords will help drive queries and organic traffic to your landing pages.
*Each page of your website should be optimized for one single keyword or key phrase. Make sure the key phrase relates to the page content, and that you are being mindful of keyword density (percentage of times your key phrase appears compared to the number of words on the page). You might want to try using a keyword density checker for this. The base to shoot for is 2-3%… but that’s just a reference point. Make sure your copy sounds natural to avoid over-optimizing your copy. Pretty soon you’ll see a boost in search results. Check your reports from time to time to see what is working and what isn’t working. Continue to tweak.
Leave it to the Geeks!
Not very interested in doing it yourself? You are in luck. We are geeky web professionals and would LOVE to help you out.
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