Learn to love Google Analytics

Andrew says: "Everybody has Google Analytics installed, but I have come across a number of people that still have it installed the way it comes - out of the box. They haven't used any of the advanced stuff it can do, and they haven't realised what a powerful tool it is. If you just do a few things to change the out-of-the-box settings, it can give you so many great insights, and useful bits of information."

What have been the major changes to Google Analytics over the last couple of years that an SEO really needs to be aware of?

"I think one of the things that's changed is Google Tag Manager coming in. People are doing much more exciting and interesting things with that. Because it's all built by Google, Google Analytics plays really nicely with Tag Manager, and you can do all sorts of cool things off the back of that. That's what I'm spending a lot of my time doing now, with clients.

There are really powerful tools in there, like using segments in Analytics to look at particular slices of your data. A lot of things haven't particularly changed at all. They've always been there - but a lot of SEOs don't know about it, or don't use it."

When setting up Google Analytics a lot of people just take the code added to the website - and that's it. What are the steps needed to ensure all the most useful data is appearing in Google Analytics?

"One of the first things I suggest is getting at least three separate views set up. You have the one that comes out of the box, with all website data, which is great. Just leave that one alone, as it's your catch-all view. You'll also need a reporting view, where you have all these lovely filters and things that you've worked out.

Before you build this view, you need to have a sandbox - a test view set up where you can experiment with things. This is essential because, if you're like me, you'll mess things up occasionally. If you don't quite follow a blog post exactly, you can break your data. Once you've broken it, it could be too late to fix, and that day's data is already gone. Mess with things in your sandbox. When it works the way you think it's going to, and everything is clean and lovely, then you can move it over into your reporting view.

The other fun task I always do with clients is setting up filters. They often don't have a filter to screen themselves out. Create an IP-based filter to screen out all the editors, and people working on your website, because they're not your customers and they're not going to buy anything.

It's always interesting when I put in a filter to screen out a client's office, and their traffic goes down massively. They always ask me what I've done. Yes, traffic has decreased by 15%, but conversions have gone through the roof comparatively."

Where are the best places to view that data? Is it more efficient to view it outside of Google Analytics?

"It can be quite overwhelming. It depends on who is looking at the data. I use Google Data Studio quite a lot, it's a visualisation tool built by Google and it plays really nicely with other Google things. Another option is Power BI, that also helps people visualise their data and make it look pretty.

For somebody in the C-suite, who isn't familiar with Google Analytics - the menus, naming conventions, and the difference between users, hits, and sessions can be very confusing. You can export data into Data Studio, or Power BI, make it look pretty and give it understandable naming conventions."

Can this be automated? Is it easy to automatically funnel all the data from Google Analytics into Data Studio?

"Yes. Because Data Studio is built by Google, it plays really nicely with Analytics. Once you've hooked that data up and told it where the data source is, it updates automatically. Automating those dashboards saves marketers loads of time rebuilding the same reports over and over again. Just point your data into something like Data Studio or Power BI and it will pull in anything.

It works really well with Analytics, Search Console, YouTube and all the other Google things. It also connects to Salesforce, MailChimp, dotdigital (formerly dotmailer), and loads of other tools where you can pull in all your information and have it nicely visualised in your dashboard. Connect it once, and it works. You have automated data that updates every 24 hours, or 48 hours, and you don't have to build those same reports. You can actually spend your time analysing, rather than just gathering data."

Can we get to a stage where it's only necessary to go into Data Studio (or wherever you're viewing the data), or do we still need to go into Google Analytics every so often?

"You probably still need Analytics in the background. You'll certainly want somebody who understands the sources of data, particularly when you're making changes. That person needs to understand the differences in the underlying data, for example, knowing that a user is not necessarily a person - because they're using multiple devices. Analytics still doesn't quite cut down to that kind of level yet. Although, there is stuff you can set up if you want to unify those sessions."

What are the key user experience Google Analytics metrics an SEO needs to be monitoring? What kind of data can they extract and utilise to improve the user performance on the website?

"That's one of the cool things you can do. Google Tag Manager is now built to start picking up things like scroll depth and putting that into Analytics. This tells you how far down the page a user scrolls when they visit your page. You can couple this data with other bits of information, and measure micro-conversions. The user might not have actually paid for anything, but they were closer to buying something. Did they subscribe to a newsletter? Did they download your PDF? Did they watch your video? How much of your video did they watch? These kinds of events suggest a deeper level of engagement than just a page visit.

Tag Manager can report all those things, push all this data into analytics and give you that kind of information. This is where you need that person who understands what the data is telling you. 100% scroll depth does not mean they read your entire content. We've all gone to a page and just read the conclusion - scrolled all the way to the bottom. You need to cut these things with additional data. Did they spend a lot of time on the page? Did they download something? Did they engage with it in the way you're hoping they would?"

Do you always recommend that Google Analytics is installed using Tag Manager?

"I can't think of a reason why you wouldn't do it that way. If you install analytics through Tag Manager, then it opens up opportunities for you to do other stuff later. You don't necessarily have to - you can just use Tag Manager to install the Analytics code. It tends to make developers quite anxious because you can do all sorts of terrible things in the Tag Manager container that you probably shouldn't. However, once it's in there, you can start to do some pretty interesting things with it, too."

From a traditional SEO perspective, what can an SEO still do nowadays, in terms of taking data from Analytics, to create strategy for their content and their keywords?

"The SEO part is a user searching for the keyword, you rank number one, and they click through to your site. The next key question is, did you convert them? Did they buy the DVD? Did they download that PDF? To paraphrase a golfer, it's rankings for show and conversions for dough. If you're ranking number one, getting boatloads of traffic, but none of it's converting, then what's the point? (Unless you're selling eyeballs and ad clicks.)

You want to get conversions, and you need to see from the data how your content is actually performing. That's where Analytics plays a key role for SEOs. It's when you get people through to a page, and you learn how that page is performing once they're there. Which is your best-performing content? Blog posts about a certain topic may bring most of your revenue, but they don't bring much traffic. Maybe that's a content area you need to expand upon.

The 'not provided' thing in keywords is frustrating, but you should be able to tie some of that stuff up. That's where Data Studio can be another boon for this kind of analysis, because you can show Search Console data and Analytics data in the same dashboard. You can see when a page starts to perform better, the traffic goes up, the conversions go up, and you can start to make cognitive leaps."

Do you tend to favour an attribution model when you're talking about attributing value from traffic to a particular page to a client?

"It depends on the client's model. If you're selling things like cakes and DVDs, where it's a fairly impulse purchase, then you can start to do last-click attribution.

However, there are other parts to this, and you need to consider what your clients are actually selling. I've worked with some really big manufacturers of enormous industrial machines. This is not an impulse purchase, so people do a lot of research before they buy. If you can't buy it on the website, there's no way you could have put your credit card details in for a purchase of this magnitude.

That kind of attribution model gets a little bit blurry. It tends to be a lot more of a long-tail query, and they might have started searching 12 months ago. Eventually, they build up to making this enormous, very expensive purchase after talking to your support team and your sales team, and a rep visit to their warehouse. That kind of attribution model needs to be flexible depending on what the business is selling. I wouldn't say there is one attribution model that everybody should use."

Perhaps generic organic traffic will be higher in the funnel, so it's worth treating that differently to paid traffic, from a conversion perspective. Do you ever have client conversations that articulate the different mindset users have, depending on their stage of the buyer journey?

"I've had that conversation with clients before, and sometimes it depends on the maturity of the client. If they're a new player and nobody's heard of them, you're not going to get a high number of conversions straightaway. You need to have an awareness-raising stage. If you're pivoting a business and moving into a section you've never operated in before, that's great - people have heard of you. They just don't know that you are selling your new product.

That kind of client conversation, where you're talking to them about what function they want search to play, is key. Do they just want to show up in the search results? Often, they're quite happy to just appear quite high in the rankings and not get many clicks and traffic, because they're just planting the seed of another brand to consider. That tends to have a 'half-life' effect, where they start to pick up those purchases later down the line."

What's one thing that SEOs can stop doing to spend more time in Google Analytics?

"It's a cliché, and of course I'm going say this as a White Hat SEO, but stop buying links. Buying links is junk! I think that Google is turning the dial down on this, and they're getting much better at understanding the context and relevance of links. Yes, everybody wants a link from CNN and the BBC, but they are few and far between.

A link from a topical, relevant, and related interest area to your industry does make a difference - but stop buying those 6,000 links from various comments, spams, and blogs. It's a waste of time. It's a waste of money. If you can put a portion of that time into learning to love Analytics more, then it will be time well spent."

You can find Andrew Cock-Starkey over at Optimisey.com.