One of the things I’ve been trying to do recently has been to combine my stats analysis with SEO. Stats analysis and SEO are both powerful marketing strategies so I thought combining them could definitely improve my blog.
Most bloggers just look at their visitor count but if you dig a little deeper in your stats program, you can find data to help you make good decisions about your blog.
Keyword Logs
Everything starts with keyword logs since one of the main foundations of search engines is keywords. A quick look at your keyword logs can tell you which keywords are sending you the most traffic. You can use that info to write posts that target similar keywords.
Landing Pages
Another thing you can do is look at the posts and pages that receive the most amount of search traffic. In Google Analytics, you can get this data by clicking on “Traffic Sources” and then “Search Engines”. Again, you can use this info and write similar types of posts and pages.
Pageviews and Pages per Visit
If you’re in a popular niche like celebrity gossip or tech, many of your monetization options are based on pageviews. Therefore, it make sense to know which type of posts generate the most pageviews. Keyword logs don’t show pageviews but they do show pages per visit, which is a similar stat.
Average Time on Site
If you want to measure the engagement of a post or keyword, average time on site is the stat to look at. This stat is great if you have a blog that’s trying to teach in-depth concepts. My blog is in the gaming niche and I often publish 1000+ word strategy guides. I check to see which guides are being read to completion by observing the average time on site.
Conversion Rate
If you’re selling your own products or are an affiliate marketer, it’s good to know which pages and keywords have the best conversion rate. Figuring out your conversion rate can be a tricky process. This topic really deserves its own post with screenshots and step by step instructions so keep an eye on this space. I’ll try to create a post on the subject sometime in the future.
If you monetize with AdSense, you can link AdSense and Google Analytics to see which posts generate the most profit.
Over to You
Obviously, this is not a comprehensive list. So, what other stats can you use to improve your SEO?
