You have probably noticed that we often talk about Google a lot.
Looking back, that does seem like some kind of morbid fixation on the tech giant, and at times it may appear as if they pay us to say good things about them. We promise you that's not the case, although if anyone from Google reads this, we are open to any kind of financial aid.
Joking aside, we talk about Google so much simply because it offers the most benefits to your website. As mentioned about half a billion times before, Google has about 87% of the global search engine market. That makes the tech giant an unavoidable partner if you want to get organic traffic.
Of course, you can always play it proud and unwilling to cooperate and pay various social media for leads and use Bing and Yahoo for organic traffic. Still, you don't have to be a marketing or sales genius to know that's not a good business plan. That's why it's best to learn how to take full advantage of Google rather than getting frustrated over its colossal influence over your business.
Fortunately, Google offers some of the best measuring tools, and best of all, they are free. Google Analytics (GA) and Google Search Console (GSC) are by far the most well-known and easy to use marketing measurement tools on the market, and their integration with Google makes them even more tasty.
But what are GA and GSC anyway?
What Are Google Analytics And Google Search Console
First of all, let's get the obvious out of the way. Even though many rookie marketers are adamant that GA and GSC are interchangeable. They are not and you should feel bad if you think otherwise. GA has the primary function to track user's behavior, while GSC follows the website's performance and ranking.
Think of it this way, Google Analytics is like a tattletale, who always tells on your audience. It comes and describes your users' preferences and behavior, in full detail. All while they are happily navigating through your website. It tracks everything you need to know to make them stay longer, happier and ultimately relieve them of their money.
Google Search Console, as the name is hardly concealing, has a lot to do with your visibility in Google Search (were you really surprised?). The benefits of being on the top spot of Google Search Results are many, and you should definitely learn more about them here {Link to Why Google should be your BFF article}.
Knowing how your website is doing allows you to make the necessary corrections and make it more visited than a Black Friday sales event at your local Walmart. With the upcoming year {link to 2022 predictions article} this tool will be even more important.
What Will They Show You?
Both tools show vital information for your website. On the one hand, there is Google Analytics that will tell you everything you need to know about your customers. Firstly, their number is very important at any particular moment since it allows you to optimize your content, focus your efforts on a specific page or product, or identify and fix a problem.
Furthermore, this tool will allow you to see where your traffic is coming from. Is it from any ad you might have posted on social media, is it from a backlink to your website, is it from a particular link, an email or simply from the search console? This information will allow you to judge which channels to use for your marketing strategy.
Knowing your user's behavior on your website is crucial for understanding why they click or skip on that sweet, sweet buy button. There might be some issue through the funnel, or there might be something off putting on some of your pages. Knowing where your customers leave with their money still intact is probably the cornerstone beneath your success.
GA shows you precisely what your customers think of your website, where they come from, where they go, what they do, and when and where they leave—a genuine busybody, but, hey, as long as it benefits you, who cares.
On the other hand, there is the GSC with its SEO metrics. When you come to think of it, is there a better tool to show you how you're doing in Google than Google itself?
GSC will tell you everything there is to know about your SEO efforts. It will show you vital keyword information that will allow you to target better and more accurate keyword phrases with better results.
Also, GSC will immediately spill the beans whenever there is a technical issue. No hiding from this one. Last but not least, it will show you information about links pointing from and to at your website.
This is astonishingly useful for understanding which websites are interested in your products and can lead to beautiful partnerships and profitable friendships. Both tools will pave the way to your success if you know how to read and use their detailed metrics.
Now that you know what Google Analytics and Google Search Console are respectively, it's time to dive into the details and find out the important metrics these two tools provide.
Google Analytics Metrics Of Significant Importance
GA is the go-to place to understand your audience. One of the most important features of this tool is the Demographics analysis. For example, knowing whether you attract a 50-year-old blue-collar service worker, a 40-year-old businesswoman, or a 20 something university student has a significant impact on your whole website, its layout, and most of all - its content.
Furthermore, knowing which region your audience comes from will let you know when they are most active, when your ads and offers should be active to be most effective.
The acquisition metrics are just as relevant. They point you in the direction from where your audience comes. They may go directly as a result of writing your domain name in their browser or if a cat ran across the keyboard and entered your website's name by accident.
They can be referred to your web domain through another website, blog or any other backlink leading to your page. The users may also land on your web portal through social media or email referral. The most common method for people who don't care that much for SEO.
For the ones with good SEO practices, most visitors come through organic traffic. Knowing where your customers come from will allow you to concentrate your efforts in making your other channels just as effective. Coming up with a better distribution strategy or simply ignoring the media that doesn't work up to your expectations.
Once you know how they got to your website, you must learn how your landing page performed. Landing pages are the most effective way of converting a visitor into a lead. After learning which landing pages, blog posts or any other page work best for you, it's a simple matter of replicating it, or simply concentrating your efforts on the Golden Cockerel you have.
Another important metric is the time each user spends on your website. The longer a person hangs around, the better the chances of them spending some money. This is relevant when it comes to the unique visitors since those usually are new clients. Although keeping an eye on the returning ones is also not a bad idea.
The scariest GA's metric you will have to keep track of is the bounce rate. Every website has a moderate bounce rate. Actually, on average, it's between 45-65%. Even higher bounce rates are OK for blog posts because it's pretty standard for people to come in, read and leave. However, if that happens to your home page, that means that most people that come in quickly realize you are not what they've been looking for.
The one metric that GA is most useful for, though, is the user's behavior. When browsing through your website, the tool follows your audience like a racist shopkeeper shadowing minorities in his shop. This reveals your audience's movements through the pages, where they initially land, how long they stay on each page and where exactly they leave.
This whole information is critical for creating a potent marketing strategy based on actual data and not on intuition alone. When it comes to your content strategy, though, GSC is king there.
Google Search Console Metrics to Help you Improve
GSC is the place if you want to know how your content reaches the public. Much like GA, GSC has several crucial metrics that you should always be on top of. Probably the most important one is the Search Analysis.
This metric will allow you to glimpse at the keywords people used to reach your website. Through this metric, you will also determine how many impressions your links made in the search engine, how many clicks it took and most importantly, the CTR.
The Search analysis will let you know your Google Position. All of this information is invaluable for your SEO efforts, and if used correctly, you can quadruple your organic reach with little to no effort.
Another GSC metric that's worth mentioning is your website's external links. It will let you know how often a link pointing to your website has been published elsewhere. This makes your page, blog post, and website much more popular and greatly impacts your Google ranking.
It also allows you to see who shared your content, what anchor text they used and what content has often been linked. You can easily optimize your content plan accordingly and capitalize on this popularity by writing similar posts.
Internal links shouldn't be neglected as well. These connects the pages of your website with each other and the primary way that Google searches through your website. Checking if a page is underperforming might give away that Google is being confused by your link paths, which is something you must address immediately.
The best benefit of the GSC, though, is the Keyword research tool. It shows the most searched keywords and phrases by users and how your rankings are according to each one. Understanding your strengths and weaknesses may give you an idea of what you should concentrate on and where it's OK to just keep on track.
GSC gives you a unique view of your website. It's as if you are looking at your website through Google's eyes. This may bring forward problems that need to be addressed immediately and easily fixable errors.
Using GSC's metrics, you will have the opportunity to create your content plan according to your audience's wishes. The metrics allow you to see what people search when they stumble upon your website. That's a bulletproof way to make even better content and attract an even bigger audience.
How Will GSC And GA Help Your Digital Marketing Efforts?
As pointed above, GA and GSC are a cornerstone of understanding your audience, their preferences, demographics, behavior, how they find you, and what they are looking for when they stumble upon you. Knowing all this, it's easy to conclude that:
- GA will help you find all your most popular content, and you will be able to replicate it and find an even greater audience as a result.
- GA enables you to establish how long people are staying on your website and if your landing page needs any boost.
- GA allows you to follow your audience and see where and when they leave.
- GA gives you the user's demographics, behavior and preferences, which is a cornerstone in creating your buyer's persona. It's every marketer's wet dream.
- GSC will show you which websites share your content and which articles are most popular among other websites. This way, you can establish partnerships and profitable friendships.
- GSC tells you how people find you, which allows you to concentrate your efforts on ranking the correct keywords and not waste time on those that are not worth it.
- GSC helps you find the correct keywords to bring you even higher organic traffic.
Now that you know how it will help your digital marketing efforts, let's discuss how it will help you write better content.
How GSC And GA Help You Better Your Content
It's really not that hard to see how they help you better your content. Both show precisely which page, post and content are the most popular, well-liked and referenced. It gives you the opportunity to create even more content of the same caliber and further extend your authority.
GSC is invaluable in following who shares your content, what he uses to share it, and how often this link was shared. On the other hand, GA is there to spill the beans on your most visited pages and how much time people spend there.
If the average time on a specific post is 2 seconds, it's quite obvious that you haven't written a piece of literature of Shakespearean proportions. On the other, if the average time is above 2-3 minutes, that shows that your article is exciting and most people do read it whole.
With this information, you can create an outstanding content strategy that will enlighten your audience and inflate your authority, like the housing market in 2009.
Let's Recap
Google is not paying us, and despite this, we still think it's the most helpful search engine out there. Well, it's more of what people think, and they believe the same as us. Having nearly 90% of the market makes the tech giant an unavoidable partner if you want to get some organic traffic.
This means that using Google's free tools to measure your success is not just a good idea but a need. Thankfully, Google Analytics and Google Search Console have all the metrics you need to make your digital marketing and content marketing strategies based on facts, not by hiring a fortune teller to read your palm.
Google tools are invaluable, and each has its unique benefits. Knowing all of them will let you reach new heights. All you need to do is connect them to your domain, and that's that.
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If this still sounds like too much for you don't hesitate to schedule a free consultation. We are always happy to help.
