Why You Should Be Using Web Analytics Tools to Track your SEO
Last Updated on
May 31, 2024
Published:
May 21, 2024
Web analytics tools are the secret to good SEO, and SEO is what makes the world wide web go around! Search engine optimization is the practice of constructing online content in a way that leads search engines and readers to decide you're a reliable, knowledgeable source of information. If your SEO is good, search engines may position YOUR content as the primary source when users search for answers.
But how do you know whether your pages are ranking? How do you know how much organic traffic your content is getting? Web analytics tools are the key to tracking your KPIs (key performance indicators) and learning whether you're out-ranking your competition. In this article, we'll show you how web analytics tools can help your content reach its highest potential.
What search engines look for
How do you improve organic traffic? You have to send the right signals to search engines that let them know you're a trustworthy authority and that users will get exactly what they're looking for when they click on your web page. Several key factors influence a webpage's ranking on SERPs. Here are some of the most important ones:
- Relevance of content. The content's relevance to the search query is crucial. Pages that closely match the intent behind a user's search are more likely to rank higher. At Rellify, we distill this down to an "R-score" that gives you a numerical representation of how well you've optimized your content.
- Quality of content. High-quality content that is well-written, informative, engaging, and structured properly tends to perform better in search results. This includes factors such as readability, comprehensiveness, and originality.
- User experience (UX). Factors like dwell time, bounce rate, and click-through rate contribute to a page's ranking. Pages that provide a positive user experience and satisfy user intent are more likely to rank well.
- Domain authority. This is the overall authority and trustworthiness of a domain. It's determined by factors like age, history, formatting, and quality of content.
Now that you know what kind of ranking factors search engines use, let's move on to ways to track your website's efficacy in all these categories. The solution: web analytics tools.
What kinds of KPIs can web analytics tools provide?
Web analytics tools are software platforms designed to track, measure, and analyze a website's performance and user behavior. These tools collect data from website visitors and interactions. They present insights to help website owners and marketers understand how their sites are performing and how users engage with their content.
Organic traffic
This metric shows the number of visitors who land on your website through unpaid (organic) search engine results. It helps gauge the effectiveness of your SEO efforts in driving traffic.
Keyword rankings
Web analytics tools often track the rankings of your website for specific keywords in SERPs. Monitoring keyword rankings helps you understand which keywords are driving traffic and where you could use some improvement.
Click-through rate (CTR)
CTR measures the percentage of users who click on your website's link in search results after seeing it. It's an important indicator of how compelling your titles and meta descriptions are and how well your website is positioned in search results.
Bounce rate
This refers to the percentage of visitors who navigate away from your website after viewing only one page. High bounce rates could mean that visitors aren't finding what they're looking for or that your landing pages need optimization.
Conversion rate
Conversion rate measures the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action on your website, such as making a purchase, filling out a form, or signing up for a newsletter. Understanding conversion rates helps evaluate the effectiveness of your SEO strategy in generating valuable actions.
Pages per session
This metric indicates the average number of pages a visitor views during one session on your website. Higher pages per session generally mean greater engagement and interest in your content.
Time on page
This element of technical SEO is how long visitors spend on a particular page of your website. It helps assess the relevance and quality of your content. If visitors spend more time, it suggests they think the content is valuable.
Backlink analysis
Some web analytics tools provide insights into the backlinks pointing to your site. Backlinks are crucial for SEO as they signal to search engines the authority and relevance of your website.
Crawl errors and indexing issues
Web analytics tools may also detect crawl errors and indexing issues that could affect your site's visibility in search results. Addressing these issues quickly can improve your SEO performance and website traffic.
Mobile analytics
Many web analytics tools offer mobile analytics capabilities. They can track and analyze visitor behavior on mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets. Mobile optimization for your website is particularly critical, as so much of our web surfing occurs on our phones.
Page speed
Page speed, the time it takes for a web page to load, is a critical factor in user experience and search engine rankings. Web analytics tools provide insights and recommendations to optimize page speed for better performance, particularly on mobile devices where fast loading times are crucial.
What are some web analytics tools?
Each analytics software tool has a different price point and provides different features. With all the options out there, you may find one with the right balance of price, features, and usability.
Ahrefs. A comprehensive SEO toolset that includes website analytics features such as site audits, keyword research, backlink analysis, and rank tracking.
SEMrush. Another all-in-one website analytics tool that offers features like keyword research, competitive analysis, site audits, rank tracking, backlink analysis and content optimization.
Moz. Provides tools for keyword research, rank tracking, site audits, backlink analysis, local SEO, and content optimization. Moz also offers browser extensions like MozBar for on-page SEO analysis.
Google Search Console. A free tool provided by Google that helps monitor and maintain your site's presence in Google Search results. Its dashboard provides insights into search volume, indexing status, and keyword performance.
Google Analytics. While primarily a web analytics tool, Google Analytics offers valuable insights for SEO, including organic search traffic analytics, user behavior data, and conversion tracking.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider. A website crawler that helps identify technical SEO issues such as broken links, duplicate content, missing metadata, and other on-page optimization issues.
Yoast SEO. A popular WordPress plugin that helps optimize on-page SEO elements such as titles, meta descriptions, headings, and content readability.
UberSuggest. Provides keyword research, content ideas, backlink data for link building, and site audit features to help users improve their SEO performance.
The Rellify difference
All these tools can be helpful, and many digital marketers use more than one. That can become a complicated, time-consuming effort, though. Rellify makes monitoring your content's performance simple by integrating it into your content process. After publishing, you simply add your URL to the file in our content platform and click on “Monitoring.” Data and insights are imported directly from web analytics tools into the platform. No more switching from tool to tool, and staying on top of each one's updates.
Rellify is the all-in-one content marketing platform. We remove the guesswork from content creation, enabling you to decide what topics to cover by using a custom-AI subject-matter expert trained on your relevant focus topics.
Our guided workflow will give you a productivity boost as you create relevant content at scale and fully leverage generative AI faster than ever before.
And you can get great SEO results by optimizing your content for search engine results with detailed AI suggestions. That, along with our built-in monitoring dashboard, means you never miss an opportunity to improve your content.
Curious about how Rellify can revolutionize your content strategy, production, and monitoring? Schedule a free demo with one of our experts today!