Google Analytics - Keywords and Covering the Basics
One of the issues that we feel happens when people start using a system like Google Analytics, is they over complicate things and try to figure out super complicated calculations, when at first there really should only be a few things you look at. Once you start using it and get a good grasp on the basics, then you will be at a position to start playing with the more advanced functions that they provide.
What we decided to do is to put together a quick and easy series for you on how to use Google Analytics for basic organic traffic improvement. Each day we will cover one different element to give you bite size pieces to be able to play around with.
This is by no means going to be a detailed course that will make you a Google Analytics pro but we promise it will give you a solid foundation to start with and you will love the information it gives you.
If you have just installed Analytics, you are going to want to bookmark this and come back to it in a couple weeks. We personally like to have a good 4 weeks of data under our belt before we start analyzing it but at minimum you want 2 weeks.
Over the next few days we are going to cover using the analytics function of…
- Keywords
- Incoming links
- Outgoing links
- Content
- Creating Goals
- Tracking through Java-Script events (create for affiliate marketing)
We will cover one topic per day only (trying to keep our posts a little shorter), each lesson will assume that you have already installed Analytics (if not then read yesterdays post on Installing Google Analytics) and will end with a “Purpose” that explains how we use the info.
Today we are going to talk first about…
Google Analytics for Keywords:
One of the first things we like to look at with Google Analytics is what keywords are being used to find our blog. We are always amazed at how words we never even plan to market for that can sneak their way into becoming huge opportunities.
The mistake a lot of people make is they look at these results and look for the keywords they were trying to get traffic for and ignore the other words. What we do is look for the words we want to rank for but also look for the words that are sending us traffic and we try to figure out how to increase that traffic.
Step 1: Log in to your analytics account and click on “View Reports” for the site you are wanting to analyze.
Step 2: In the left hand navigation, click on “Traffic Sources” and then “Search Engines”. Do not click on keywords because you are primarily focused on Google right now.
Step 3: Now you will get a list of all the search engines that have been sending you traffic. Click on “Google”. If you do not see Google then either give the system a little bit of time to gather some data or go back and do some promotion 
Step 4: You will now have a list of all the keywords that analytics has tracked from Google. What you will want to do now is click on the drop down box at the bottom of your screen that says “Show Rows” and select 500. This will now display all your keywords on one screen.
Step 5: Now you will want to start at the top of the list and find out where you are ranking in Google. To do that copy the first term and then go to…
http://www.google.com/advanced_search
…and enter the term and make sure to select 100 for the results per page. You will also want to make sure you are searching in Google.com for the USA unless you are trying for traffic in a different specific country.
Step 6: Now in your browser go to “Edit” in the top menu bar and then click “Find it in this page”. Now enter your URL in the “find it” box.
Purpose of these Steps: What you are looking for here are keywords that are sending you some traffic but are not ranking for you on the first page (in the top 10). So if you find a keyword that has sent you 10 hits in the past month and you see that you are on page 4 of the results, you can safely assume that if you could increase that listing to page one, you could get a lot more traffic.
It is much more effective to focus on keywords that you are already getting some action for then blindly researching for keywords that you currently do not even exist for. We recommend once a month to make a list of the 5 keywords you want to improve on and focus on that every month. Since you are already ranking, it is often very easy with just a little focused keyword focused back link promotion to bump yourself from page 3 to page 1.
So, whats your opinion on this little tip and what we plan on covering?
Part 1: Google Analytics - Installing
Part 2: Google Analytics - Keywords
Part 3: Google Analytics - Incoming Links
Part 4: Google Analytics - Outgoing Traffic
Part 5: Google Analytics - Content
Part 6: Google Analytics - Tracking with JavaScript Events
Part 7: Google Analytics - Creating Goals
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