How to Use Google Analytics and Search Console Appropriate

If you are after one of the best online tools to help you get crucial insight into your website, then look no further than Google Analytics. The Google Analytics service is so well designed, and as part of the Google platform, it filters robots and web spiders, providing you with accurate data generated by actual humans. There is much more to Google Analytics that we’ll cover below, but you need to pair it with the Google Search Console for it to be most effective.

The Google Search Console enables you to see a website’s presence in the Google search results. As we noted, by linking your Google Analytics account with Google Search Console, you get valuable insight into your SEO ranking and get other data that you can use to improve your SEO and SERP standing. Let’s discuss the benefits of using Google Analytics and the Google Search Console appropriately.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a web-based analytics tool that is a part of the Google platform, and it tracks and reports accurate web traffic. The reports generated by Google Analytics are very detailed and provide information based on user activity. These reports are invaluable in helping businesses improve their websites, bring better decisions, and fine-tune their SEO strategies.

What Information Does Google Analytics Provide?

The beauty of Google Analytics is that it provides filtering options, so you can always get actual data based on your preferences. Here is a rundown of the types of reports you get from Google Analytics:

Bounce Rate Info

The bounce rate info gives insight into how the visitors interact with the website once they are on it. The high bounce rate means people spend very little time on the site and don’t interact further. Even if you have a high volume of visitors, spending little time on the site means that the site is not enticing enough for them to be exploring it.

Time on Site

The time spent on the site is another Google Analytics report that shows how people interact with your site. If they spend little time on the site, it may mean that the site is not what they are looking for, or the provided info does not interest them. Based on this, you can improve your SEO and improve your content.

Time on Page

The time on page is an excellent pointer of the popular and unpopular pages on your website. For example, one page can have the usual time on a page of only a few seconds, which means that people click on the page, don’t like what they see, and leave it. If the time on page is longer, it points to people finding your content engaging. However, there can be instances where people spend hours on a page, in which case, it is most likely they’ve opened your page and forgotten about it. Overall, the time on page is an essential metric that shows you what content your visitors find engaging.

Engagements with Your Site

The engagements on the site tell you how people interact with your site when they visit it. These reports come in the form of flow charts allowing you to track the pathways people take through your website. People have different interests, so while not always practical, this report can help you see where people spend the most time and where they leave your site. Based on this, you can tweak and make your content more engaging and interesting.

How People Find Your Site

By seeing how people discover your site and what search phrases they use to find your site, you can see the most effective keywords and phrases in optimizing your site for search. This report can also help you hone your writing skills (or tell you to hire professional SEO writers) to improve the content on the site and make it searchable and relevant to the search terms your visitors use.

What Is the Google Search Console?

The Google Search Console is a free service that Google provides, and it enables you to monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your website’s presence in the Google Search results. While your site doesn’t need to be signed up for Google Search Console to be listed in the Google SERPs, it surely helps you understand and improve how Google sees your website. If you sign up for Google Search Console, you can also use the advanced tools and reports.

What Information Does Google Search Console Provide?

Among the applications of Google Search Console, there is the analysis of the upload speed, the mobile responsiveness of the site, and many others. Here is a rundown of the features of Google Search Console:

Your Site’s Overall Performance

Google Search Console provides tools to help gauge your overall website performance. Among the helpful tools, you can:

• Check the mobile responsiveness of a site
• Confirm that Google can find, crawl, and index your site
• Troubleshoot issues with AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)
• Discover sites that link to yours
• See how many times your site shows up on the Google SERPs
• Check the searches/search results that display your website in the SERPs
• Check the search results that drive traffic to your site

Hacking Attempts

Google Search Console will send you an email notifying you when the Google robots detect malware on your site. Google Search Console will also notify the public if your site is infected, and they’ll prevent visitors from getting access to it until the issues are resolved. While the security measures the hosting companies have in place reduce the chances of this, there are still many instances where hackers can and will try to infiltrate your website and hurt your website. Luckily, it is effortless to fix this, as the Google Search Console points out the malicious files; they have nothing to do with your site and are dated very recently. You can delete them and then submit your website for a new health check and change your password.

Indexing by Google

Among the essential tools of Google Search Console is the option to “make” Google index your site faster. Google indexes new sites in a schedule only they know, which means that you need to wait for your site to get indexed or re-indexed if you make some changes. But if you have been using the Google Search Console for a while, you can use the “Fetch as Google” tool to submit your pages to the Google index. It is a handy tool to use, especially if you’ve made recent changes to your website.

How to Appropriately Use Google Analytics and Google Search Console?

The features of Google Analytics and Google Search Console are only a scratch on the surface, as there are so many more valuable tools and features that, when used adequately, can mean the difference between a good and remarkable online presence.

Now that this is covered, let’s see how you can set up the Google Search Console and Google Analytics of your website:

Submit Your Site to Google Search Console

Before submitting your website to the Google Search Console, you need to log into Google, which is straightforward. Next, set up a Search Console account by visiting the Search Console>Add Property, where you need to add your website’s domain and URL prefix. You need to confirm that you are the actual owner of the website, for which Google will guide you through the procedure, as there are several ways to do this, depending on your preference.

After the verification process, you can start using the Google Search Console. The beauty of the Google Search Console is that it starts gathering data as soon as you submit your website to it instead of waiting for complete verification. As soon as you verify your site, you’ll be shown essential reports about your website, and you can use the available features.

Add Google Analytics Code to Your Website

To use Google Analytics correctly, you need to add the Google Analytics code to your website, and you can follow these steps:

Log into your Google Analytics account, and find Admin in the left-side menu. Select the correct account and property and click Tracking Info>Tracking Code. It will provide you with a unique tracking code for your website that you need to add to your website. Make sure you copy the entire code several lines long and install it correctly in your CMS.

The installation depends on your CMS, and it can be in plugin form, or you’ll need to set this up from the CMS setup window. Google has detailed guides on how you can do this in various CMS platforms.

Link Google Search Console to Google Analytics for Your Site

After you set up your Google Search Console and link your website with Google Analytics, the next step is to link these two together to get the most of both services. To do this, you should follow these steps:

Log into your Google Analytics platform, and on the bottom of the left-side menu, click on Admin. Here, find the property you have connected and click on Property Settings. Please note that you’ll have this option only after verifying your site in the Search Console using the same email address in both tools. If you’ve already done this, the Search Console option will automatically appear, and if not, you’ll need to verify your website in the Search Console before you can move on.

In the Google Search Console window, you can select the reporting view and save your preferences. Once everything is saved, you can see the Google Analytics and Google Search reports in one place. Provided, the Google Search Reports will be located in Acquisition>Search Console in the main left-side menu.

What Reports You Will Get From Google Search Console in Google Analytics?

This effort is not for nothing, as many valuable things are to be seen in both the Google Analytics reports and the Google Search Console reports. Here are just some of the things you’ll get reports on:

• Landing pages info – gives you a direct insight into what people are searching for when they reach your website via Google Search. The report has info on the search queries people made that led them to your page, and based on this, you can hone your keywords and tweak your SE strategy.
• Devices info – gives insight into the types of devices your visitors use when browsing your website. By knowing this, you can optimize accordingly – mobile, tablet or desktop users have different preferences and design requirements.
• Queries info – gives you insight into the types of keywords people had used when Google showed your website in the SERPs. The great thing about this report is that you can see the average ranking of the particular search term for your website.
• Countries info – gives insight into the location of your visitors and the landing pages that have brought them to your website.

To Wrap Up

Google Analytics and Google Search Console are crucial for maintaining a successful online presence, as they provide vital data “right from the source.” Both of these can and need to be used by anyone with a live website. While the general reports seem straightforward to understand, the only way to truly utilize the exhaustive data provided by Google Analytics and Google Search Console is to know what to do with it. There are also many tricks of the trade that require expert help, which is why you should consider hiring SEO professionals to help you utilize all the features and options and benefit the most from a superbly executed SEO strategy.