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Google is Trying to Tell You Something, Are You Listening?

Ileane

Google has put so many awesome tools at the disposal of bloggers and small business owners that at times, it's almost impossible to keep up with them all. Google wants you to succeed with your online endeavors but let's face it, we all know that they are getting more then their fair share out of the deal too.

Yet, as bloggers and webmasters, when we stop to think about all the perks we get from Google, (outside of Google Chrome) two things should stand out in our minds above the rest:

  1. Google Analytics.
  2. Google Webmaster Tools.

We should all be listening to what Google has to say

Most of us already know the importance of using Google Analytics and the wealth of information we can discover from checking our stats. Remember how diligently we would check our stats when we first started our websites? I don't know about you, but I was there every single day, and some days I would look 3 – 4 – 5 times! Back then I was just hoping that I would get 100 visits on one single blog post.

As time passed, and we started using social media sites like: Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; Pinterest etc., we got distracted and spent less and less time checking our stats or even thinking about Analytics.

In some ways that was a good thing.

It's not good to be obsessed with checking stats all the time.

But let's not get distracted by those “shiny objects” and forget about why we came here in the first place.

We all need to set aside a time – maybe once or twice a week – but no less than once a month, to monitor our progress with those two important tools I mentioned earlier (Analytics and Webmaster Tools).

Two Google Tools for the Price of One

What do I mean by “two tools for the price of one”? Well since they are both free Google resources, you know I'm not talking about the actual cost. I'm referring to the amount of time you're going to save by checking your progress in one place rather than two. Isn't that nice of me? You're quite welcome. 🙂

In this video you'll see how easy it is to Connect Google Webmaster Tools to Google Analytics

I know what some of you are thinking:

“What's the real benefit of having data from these two tools in one place. How does this help me?”

The short answer is this:

It will be much easier for you to listen to what Google is telling you about all of the FREE traffic it's sending your way!

Next, I'll give you a more detailed answer starting with a screenshot from my “Search Queries” report in Webmaster Tools.

I added the red numbers and arrows to help illustrate my point:

Using this report from GWT, I need to add up all the #1's, #2's, #3's, etc. to figure out which post is getting the most attention. After doing some homework I'd see that #3 has the highest number of queries and impressions in Google search. The problem with this method is that we're only looking at a small snapshot of the page, therefore a lot more “homework” is necessary on my part in order to determine which post is actually driving the most of the traffic from Google search.

Now let's look at the break down of the “Landing Pages” found in the Search Engine Optimization Report of Google Analytics.

It's so obvious now that I didn't even need to draw any arrows this time! It's crystal clear that the page on my blog with the highest number of impressions in Google search is the one at the top of the list: How To Get Your First 2,000 Twitter Followers (many thanks to a guest post from my pal Amrik Virdi from Monetize Blogging).

More Benefits of Listening to Google

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I use the data from this Landing Page report to determine placement for my AdSense ads.

If you missed that post be sure to check out AdSense for Feeds Dies, AdSense for Search Rocks!

Once I started “listening” I developed this super simple strategy to determine which posts to place AdSense units on (because they get the most targeted Google traffic) and as a result, my AdSense earnings began to increase significantly.

I'm sure you'll find other uses for this new found information. Try sorting the “Landing Pages” report by the “Clicks” column (instead of sorting by impressions as shown above) and you'll have a much clearer picture of the content on your site that is most popular with your Google traffic. Use data from the Search Engine Optimization reports of Google Analytics in the following ways:

I hope you are going to take action and integrate Webmaster Tools with Analytics, or maybe you have done it already. Let me know what you think about combining these two power house tools from our friend Google!

 

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