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Website Traffic Data Analysis with Google

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Website Traffic Data Analysis with Google

Website traffic is considered one of the main (if not the main) indicators of web success. But there is more to just attracting traffic- website owners and SEO professionals can benefit from doing website traffic data analysis and understanding website statistics and trends. Whether you’re still growing your site or already focusing on acquiring your target market- traffic data analysis can aid in your SEO and marketing strategies. What’s even better is that this can easily be done with free tools such as Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

What are Google Analytics and Google Search Console?

Google Analytics (GA) and Google Search Console (GSC) are two of Google’s own free tools that provide webmasters the ability to track website traffic attribution, search terms, and behavior data. Although there are a ton of options for more “feature-packed” tools that can help marketers to track these things plus other SEO factors of your website, these two already provide everything you need in understanding your website’s progress- both on the big picture and on an intricate standpoint. My team at SEO Hacker also trusts these two free tools from Google providing the necessary information for analyzing a website’s data on traffic and overall SEO performance.

 

Google Analytics

Google Analytics can be considered your main tool for knowing the entire story behind your website and being able to piece it together so you have a clear understanding of everything that’s going on on your website. It’s focused on providing information that is specific to what your website receives and how a user interacts with it.

 

Google Search Console

On the other hand, Google Search Console provides information about your website specifically in the aspect of how it is performing from Google’s search results. Here, you can find information about your website with respect to the following:

 

  • Search Performance
  • Google Indexing
  • Google Page Experience
  • Enhancements and security issues

 

To put it simply, it presents data that allows you to see your website from Google’s perspective.

 

Google Analytics Vs Google Search Console

When it comes to analyzing your website’s data, these two free tools offered by Google provide different sets of information for us SEO professionals and marketers to utilize. The only similarity they have based on the data sets found in their respective dashboards can be stemmed from; Google Analytics providing user traffic data that can provide you an idea of your website’s authority in Google Search, and Google Search Console provides search data that can translate to traffic coming into your website.

 

It is very important to acknowledge that these tools track traffic differently. There will always be certain discrepancies in data but you’ll notice that the numbers presented are still very close to each other. What’s important to take note of is that these tools can give you what you need to know about a website’s growth and how it’s keeping up with certain trends.

 

To learn how to set up Google Analytics, click here. To learn how to set up Google Search Console, click here.

 

How To Approach Website Traffic Data Analysis

Whether you’re providing website traffic data analysis for a newly SEO-optimized site or a well-seasoned website with multiple SEO strategies implemented; growth should always be your priority. Information is king. And with the information that Google Analytics and Google Search Console provide, it’s all about how well you understand that information and what you can do with it.

 

How To Do Initial Website Audits with Google Search Console

Let’s assume that you’ve already laid out the SEO foundation of your website prior to development. Before your website traffic data analysis, the first tool that you should be closely monitoring must be Google Search Console. Starting with the Index Coverage report.

 

Review Coverage Section

google search console coverage section

The Index Coverage report is where you can find how much of your web page is being crawled and indexed by Google. The term “indexed” describes web pages that are stored in Google Search’s database, which allows them to be retrieved when a search query is punched in by a person using Google. There are also instances wherein Google crawled your web page, but decided to exclude it from its database. The report marks these pages as “Excluded”.

 

google search console coverage section excluded pages list

There will always be certain instances wherein an important web page that’s essential in your strategy is marked as Excluded. These are the pages that Google decided to be excluded from the list of pages that can be searched by users. As an SEO professional, this provides you with information for your next action. What should you optimize more? Should you add content to the page? Build better topical authority? Whatever the reason may be, this is a good signal for you to know what to change and improve for your website’s SEO.

 

google search console coverage section error pages list

The Index Coverage report also provides information for pages with SEO-related errors within them. Web pages marked with Error are more penalizing for SEO than a page marked as Excluded. Errors such as your website’s broken pages (404), pages that are set as no-index, and all other errors affecting Google’s capability in indexing your pages are listed here.

 

I highly recommend immediately taking action when receiving this information and then looking for ways to prevent it from happening. Learn more about the common GSC errors and how to fix them by clicking here!

 

Additionally, although the data found here are not directly considered “traffic”, they still play an important role in your website traffic data analysis. Web pages that Google Search Console identifies as having issues will not be indexed. Having non-indexed pages on your website will result in not being searched by users. Which will ultimately lead to less organic traffic coming into your website.

 

Review Performance Section

The last section that you should focus on is the Performance section of Google Search Console. This section provides you with an overview of how often users interact with your website on the  Google engine results pages (SERPs).

 

google search console performance section

Impressions represent how many users are able to see your website within the search results pages, while Clicks provide how many click-throughs it received from those users. The main point of analyzing this data is to provide you with a basic idea of how well your website is performing in Google’s Search Results Pages. When compared to Google Analytics website traffic data, the information is almost proportional to each other. This is mainly because whenever a website receives a high number of impressions and clicks, this is also an indication of website traffic increase.

 

How To Do Search Traffic Analysis with Google Analytics

google analytics main dashboard

Now that you’ve taken the necessary steps in optimizing your website based on Google Search Console, it’s time to further go into website traffic data analysis by understanding how it can affect performance and growth. This can be done by analyzing the user traffic data presented in Google Analytics. To start, the majority of the search traffic data that we need can be found in the Reports section of the tool. From there, proceed to navigate into Traffic Acquisition.

 

google analytics traffic acquisition dashboard

From there, proceed to navigate into Traffic Acquisition. The first thing you’ll notice with the tool is that traffic data is categorized into different types. Since our main focus for website traffic data analysis is SEO, we’ll only tackle Organic Search traffic for this article. 

 

The main indicator in understanding website growth using Google Analytics is how much organic search traffic is coming into the website. This will tell you the specific number of people going into your website coming from Google search results- very similar to Google Search Console’s method of acquiring data. The only difference is that you can actually check which of your web pages people are landing on. This information can easily be taken by doing the following:

 

  1. Add filters to the tabulated data by interacting with the “+” icon, then clicking Landing Page to display what pages the users are clicking within Google Search results
    google analytics filter web traffic
    google analytics filter web traffic through landing page filter
  2. Then input “organic search” in the top left-most search bar of the data to allow the table to only display organic search traffic
    google analytics filter organic search traffic

After having successfully accomplished these instructions, the data presented in the table should appear similar to this,


google analytics filtered list of organic search traffic based on the landing page

The data appearing within the table is now comprised of the list of web pages that are garnering organic search traffic. Since the data is sorted from highest organic traffic to lowest, website traffic data analysis suggests that these web pages are considered the most visible in Google search results. But what’s most important is that through this organized information, you can also acknowledge which of your web pages are the least visible within Google search results. 

 

Only by acknowledging these pages can you employ a strategy focused on improving the SEO of your weakest pages. Maybe consider doing a content gap analysis for these pages and see what you can improve. Learn about it here in our Content Gap Analysis guide

 

As SEO Professionals, it should always be recognized that SEO is holistic by nature. Having the majority of your pages visible online equates to an overall improvement of website SEO authority. The information that Google Analytics present, provides everything you need in optimizing and restrategizing for website growth. So how can I further improve my analysis with both Google Analytics and Google Search Console?

 

Analyzing Website Traffic with Google Analytics and Google Search Console

One of the most volatile types of data in the world of digital marketing is organic search traffic. A lot of factors can affect the search traffic coming into your website. Some of the main factors of volatility in traffic include search algorithms, seasonal trends, an unexpected and unchecked bug in your website, and website server volatility. And all of these can be quickly figured out upon checking the GA and GSC tools. To further expound on the importance of website traffic data analysis, consider the following example.

 

data comparison for website traffic data analysis

 

One of our informational websites is receiving a decline in organic search traffic in comparison to the previous period. It lost an estimated 800 users in 1 month. To every website owner or SEO professional, this is considered an alarming loss in website traffic. Since the issue at hand mainly involves organic search traffic, the best tool to utilize next would be Google Search Console

 

google search console impressions and clicks comparison analysis

Based on the data presented, it appears that it is only expected to experience website traffic since there is a particular loss in impressions for the website. And since there is a visible loss in impressions, this would also affect the number of clicks the website is receiving within Google search results. What does this mean for our website traffic data analysis?

 

Since there are fewer impressions coming to the website, your web pages are appearing less in Google search engine results pages. Luckily, Google Search Console also provides data on the search queries that users typed to discover your website. 

google search console search query list

Based on the keywords shown, it is quite noticeable how particular keywords received a major drop in impressions. This means that the website is either not ranking for the keyword or that the search query is lower for that particular period. And based on manually testing all these keywords by searching them on Google, I was able to discover that the website is ranking on the first page on all of them. And a website that ranks on the first page of Google is guaranteed impression data.

 

Based on all the data that I’ve gathered, we can only conclude that the website is undergoing a particular season wherein its keywords are being searched less by users. Rankings are going well, but there’s less traffic coming into the website. These are the kinds of conclusions that are only possible to hypothesize on when you employ tools like GA and GSC to provide the necessary information for website traffic data analysis.

 

Key Takeaway

It is very easy to be overwhelmed with data and information. But at the same time, as SEO professionals, we should also be grateful that we can easily acquire them through Google Analytics and Google Search Console. There would absolutely be no point in strategizing and executing optimizations if we have no information to prove our efforts. 

 

It’s only a matter of acknowledging the issue at hand, identifying relevant data to collect, and properly translating that data for you to develop the planned course of action for your website. This exactly represents the importance of knowing how to do even the basic website traffic data analysis.

 

Interested in an in-depth guide for GA and GSC? Check out our Google Analytics Tutorial for Beginners and Google Search Console Guide!

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Google Updating Cryptocurrency Advertising Policy For 2024

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Google Updating Cryptocurrency Advertising Policy For 2024

Google published an announcement of upcoming changes to their cryptocurrency advertising policies and advises advertisers to make themselves aware of the changes and prepare to be in compliance with the new requirements.

The upcoming updates are to Google’s Cryptocurrencies and related products policy for the advertisement of Cryptocurrency Coin Trusts. The changes are set to take effect on January 29th, 2024.

Cryptocurrency Coin Trusts are financial products that enable investors to trade shares in trusts holding substantial amounts of digital currency. These trusts provide investors with equity in cryptocurrencies without having direct ownership. They are also an option for creating a more diversified portfolio.

The policy updates by Google that are coming in 2024 aim to describe the scope and requirements for the advertisement of Cryptocurrency Coin Trusts. Advertisers targeting the United States will be able to promote these products and services as long as they abide by specific policies outlined in the updated requirements and that they also obtain certification from Google.

The updated policy changes are not limited to the United States. They will apply globally to all accounts advertising Cryptocurrency Coin Trusts.

Google’s announcement also reminded advertisers of their obligation for compliance to local laws in the areas where the ads are targeted.

Google’s approach for violations of the new policy will be to first give a warning before imposing an account suspension.

Advertisers that fail to comply with the updated policy will receive a warning at least seven days before a potential account suspension. This time period provides advertisers with an opportunity to fix non-compliance issues and to get back into compliance with the revised guidelines.

Advertisers are encouraged to refer to Google’s documentation on “About restricted financial products certification.”

The deadline for the change in policy is January 29th, 2024. Cryptocurrency Coin Trusts advertisers will need to pay close attention to the updated policies in order to ensure compliance.

Read Google’s announcement:

Updates to Cryptocurrencies and related products policy (December 2023)

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SEO Trends You Can’t Ignore In 2024

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SEO Trends You Can’t Ignore In 2024

Most SEO trends fade quickly. But some of them stick and deserve your attention.

Let’s explore what those are and how to take advantage of them.

If you give ChatGPT a title and ask it to write a blog post, it will—in seconds.

This is super impressive, but there are a couple of issues:

  • Everyone else using ChatGPT is creating the same content. It’s the same for users of other GPT-powered AI writing tools, too—which is basically all of them.
  • The content is extremely dull. Sure, you can ask ChatGPT to “make it more entertaining,” but it usually overcompensates and hands back a cringe version of the same boring content.

In the words of Gael Breton:

How to take advantage of this SEO trend

Don’t use AI to write entire articles. They’ll be boring as heck. Instead, use it as a creative sparring partner to help you write better content and automate monotonous tasks.

For example, you can ask ChatGPT To write an outline from a working title and a list of keywords (which you can pull from Ahrefs)—and it does a pretty decent job.

Prompt:

Create an outline for a post entitled “[working title]” based on these keywords: [list]

Result:

ChatGPT's outline for a blog post. Pretty good!ChatGPT's outline for a blog post. Pretty good!

When you’ve written your draft, you can ask to polish it in seconds by asking ChatGPT to proofread it.

ChatGPT proofreading my content and making it betterChatGPT proofreading my content and making it better

Then you can automate the boring stuff, like creating more enticing title tags…

ChatGPT writing enticing title tagsChatGPT writing enticing title tags

… and writing a meta description:

ChatGPT writing a meta descriptionChatGPT writing a meta description

If you notice a few months down the line that your content ranks well but hasn’t won the featured snippet, ChatGPT can help with that, too.

For example, Ahrefs tells us we rank in position 3 for “affiliate marketing” but don’t own the snippet.

Ahrefs showing featured snippets that we don't own, despite ranking in the top 3Ahrefs showing featured snippets that we don't own, despite ranking in the top 3

If we check Google, the snippet is a definition. Asking ChatGPT to simplify our definition may solve this problem.

ChatGPT rewriting a definition and making it betterChatGPT rewriting a definition and making it better

In short, there are a near-infinite number of ways to use ChatGPT (and other AI writing tools) to create better content. And all of them buck the trend of asking it to write boring, boilerplate articles from scratch.

Programmatic SEO refers to the creation of keyword-targeted pages in an automatic (or near automatic) way.

Nomadlist’s location pages are a perfect example:

Example of a page from NomadListExample of a page from NomadList

Each page focuses on a specific city and shares the same core information—internet speeds, cost, temperature, etc. All of this information is pulled programmatically from a database and the site gets an estimated 46k monthly search visits in total.

Estimated monthly search traffic to NomadListEstimated monthly search traffic to NomadList

Programmatic SEO is nothing new. It’s been around forever. It’s just the hot thing right now because AI tools like ChatGPT make it easier and more accessible than ever before.

The problem? As John Mueller pointed out on Twitter X, much of it is spam:

How to take advantage of this SEO trend

Don’t use programmatic SEO to publish insane amounts of spam that’ll probably get hit in the next Google update. Use it to scale valuable content that will stand the test of time.

For example, Wise’s currency conversion pages currently get an estimated 31.7M monthly search visits:

Estimated monthly search traffic to Wise's currently conversion pages (insane!)Estimated monthly search traffic to Wise's currently conversion pages (insane!)

This is because the content is actually useful. Each page features an interactive tool showing the live exchange rate for any amount…

The interactive currently conversion tool on Wise's pagesThe interactive currently conversion tool on Wise's pages

… the exchange rate over time…

The exchange rate over time graph on Wise's pagesThe exchange rate over time graph on Wise's pages

… a handy email notification option when the exchange rates exceed a certain amount…

The email notification option on Wise's pagesThe email notification option on Wise's pages

… handy conversion charts for popular amounts…

The handy conversion charts on Wise's pagesThe handy conversion charts on Wise's pages

… and a comparison of the cheapest ways to send money abroad in your chosen currency:

The useful comparison table on Wise's pagesThe useful comparison table on Wise's pages

It doesn’t matter that all of these pages use the same template. The data is exactly what you want to see when you search [currency 1] to [currency 2].

That’s probably why Wise ranks in the top 10 for over 66,000 of these keywords:

Wise's keyword rankings for currency conversion pagesWise's keyword rankings for currency conversion pages

Looking to take advantage of programmatic content in 2024 like Wise? Check out the guide below.

People love ChatGPT because it answers questions fast and succinctly, so it’s no surprise that generative AI is already making its way into search.

For example, if you ask Bing for a definition or how to do something basic, AI will generate an answer on the fly right there in the search results.

Bing's search results for "definition of mental health"Bing's search results for "definition of mental health"
Bing's search results for "how to add drop down list in google sheets"Bing's search results for "how to add drop down list in google sheets"

In other words, thanks to AI, users no longer have to click on a search result for answers to simple questions. It’s like featured snippets on steroids.

This might not be a huge deal right now, but when Google’s version of this (Search Generative Experience) comes out of beta, many websites will see clicks fall off a cliff.

How to take advantage of this SEO trend

Don’t invest too much in topics that generative AI can easily answer. You’ll only lose clicks like crazy to AI in the long run. Instead, start prioritizing topics that AI will struggle to answer.

How do you know which topics it will struggle to answer? Try asking ChatGPT. If it gives a good and concise answer, it’s clearly an easy question.

For example, there are hundreds of searches for how to calculate a percentage in Google Sheets every month in the US:

Estimated monthly search volume for "google sheets percentage formula" via Ahrefs' Keywords ExplorerEstimated monthly search volume for "google sheets percentage formula" via Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer

If you ask ChatGPT for the solution, it gives you a perfect answer in about fifty words.

ChatGPT's answer to the Google Sheets percentage calculation formulaChatGPT's answer to the Google Sheets percentage calculation formula

This is the perfect example of a topic where generative AI will remove the need to click on a search result for many.

That’s probably not going to be the case for a topic like this:

Example of a topic that AI shouldn't impact too muchExample of a topic that AI shouldn't impact too much

Sure. Generative AI might be able to tell you how to create a template—but it can’t make one for you. And even if it can in the future, it will never be a personal finance expert with experience. You’ll always have to click on a search result for a template created by that person.

These are the kinds of topics to prioritize in 2024 and beyond.

Sidenote.

None of this means you should stop targeting “simple” topics altogether. You’ll always be able to get some traffic from them. My point is not to be obsessed with ranking for keywords whose days are numbered. Prioritize topics with long-term value instead.

Bonus: 3 SEO trends to ignore in 2024

Not all SEO trends move the needle. Here are just a few of those trends and why you should ignore them.

People are using voice search more than ever

In 2014, Google revealed that 41% of Americans use voice search daily. According to research by UpCity, that number was up to 50% as of 2022. I haven’t seen any data for 2023 yet, but I’d imagine it’s above 50%.

Why you should ignore this SEO trend

75% of voice search results come from a page ranking in the top 3, and 40.7% come from a featured snippet. If you’re already optimizing for those things, there’s not much more you can do.

People are using visual search for shopping more than ever

In 2022, Insider Intelligence reported that 22% of US adults have shopped with visual search (Google Lens, Bing Visual Search, etc.). That number is up from just 15% in 2021.

Why you should ignore this SEO trend

Much like voice search, there’s no real way to optimize for visual search. Sure, it helps to have good quality product images, optimized filenames and alt text, and product schema markup on your pages—but you should be doing this stuff anyway as it’s been a best practice since forever.

People are using Bing more than ever before

Bing’s Yusuf Mehdi announced in March 2023 that the search engine had surpassed 100M daily active users for the first time ever. This came just one month after the launch of AI-powered Bing.

Why you should ignore this SEO trend

Bing might be more popular than ever, but its market share still only stands at around ~3% according to estimates by Statcounter. Google’s market share stands at roughly 92%, so that’s the one you should be optimizing for.

Plus, it’s often the case that if you rank in Google, you also rank in Bing—so it really doesn’t deserve any focus.

Final thoughts

Keeping your finger on the pulse and taking advantage of trends makes sense, but don’t let them distract you from the boring stuff that’s always worked: find what people are searching for > create content about it > build backlinks > repeat.

Got questions? Ping me on Twitter X.



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Mozilla VPN Security Risks Discovered

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Mozilla VPN Security Risks Discovered

Mozilla published the results of a recent third-party security audit of its VPN services as part of it’s commitment to user privacy and security. The survey revealed security issues which were presented to Mozilla to be addressed with fixes to ensure user privacy and security.

Many search marketers use VPNs during the course of their business especially when using a Wi-Fi connection in order to protect sensitive data, so the  trustworthiness of a VNP is essential.

Mozilla VPN

A Virtual Private Network (VPN), is a service that hides (encrypts) a user’s Internet traffic so that no third party (like an ISP) can snoop and see what sites a user is visiting.

VPNs also add a layer of security from malicious activities such as session hijacking which can give an attacker full access to the websites a user is visiting.

There is a high expectation from users that the VPN will protect their privacy when they are browsing on the Internet.

Mozilla thus employs the services of a third party to conduct a security audit to make sure their VPN is thoroughly locked down.

Security Risks Discovered

The audit revealed vulnerabilities of medium or higher severity, ranging from Denial of Service (DoS). risks to keychain access leaks (related to encryption) and the lack of access controls.

Cure53, the third party security firm, discovered and addressed several risks. Among the issues were potential VPN leaks to the vulnerability of a rogue extension that disabled the VPN.

The scope of the audit encompassed the following products:

  • Mozilla VPN Qt6 App for macOS
  • Mozilla VPN Qt6 App for Linux
  • Mozilla VPN Qt6 App for Windows
  • Mozilla VPN Qt6 App for iOS
  • Mozilla VPN Qt6 App for Androi

These are the risks identified by the security audit:

  • FVP-03-003: DoS via serialized intent
  • FVP-03-008: Keychain access level leaks WG private key to iCloud
  • VP-03-010: VPN leak via captive portal detection
  • FVP-03-011: Lack of local TCP server access controls
  • FVP-03-012: Rogue extension can disable VPN using mozillavpnnp (High)

The rogue extension issue was rated as high severity. Each risk was subsequently addressed by Mozilla.

Mozilla presented the results of the security audit as part of their commitment to transparency and to maintain the trust and security of their users. Conducting a third party security audit is a best practice for a VPN provider that helps assure that the VPN is trustworthy and reliable.

Read Mozilla’s announcement:
Mozilla VPN Security Audit 2023

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Meilun

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