SEO Analytics

In theory, you could do SEO without measuring and reporting, but a solid grasp of analytics is essential to success. SEO analytics covers a wide range of topics, but often focuses on performance metrics around traffic, keywords, URLs, page speed, conversion rates, and more.

Beyond performance metrics, research metrics present another focal point of SEO analytics. This includes topics like keyword analysis, backlink research, and other areas to inform your SEO strategy.

Here, you can browse our top resources on SEO analytics, as well as find the most recent blog posts on the subject below.

SEO Analytics and Reporting : Check out our free SEO Learning Center where we've collected the top resources on analytics and reporting.

The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Google Analytics : The most popular website analytics platform in the world, Google Analytics is a must-know platform for all SEOs.

A Beginner's Guide to Google Search Console : A companion to any web analytics platform, Google Search Console offers a wealth of SEO information to webmasters.

When and How to Use Domain Authority, Page Authority, and Link Count Metrics : SEO metrics have a special place in analytics. Rand Fishkin shows you how to use these popular metrics correctly.

The Complete Guide to Direct Traffic in Google Analytics : This article covers a very specific niche topic, but also an important one! Learn why that direct traffic in your analytics platform isn't what you think it is.

Most Recent Articles on SEO Analytics

Google Analytics JavaScript is Broken
S

Google Analytics JavaScript is Broken

SEO Analytics

I really like Google Analytics - the interface is easy to use, the information easy to interpret and it's free. You can do great tricks with filters to slice the data in different ways. I do wish that less of the reports used sample data and it'd be nice if you could label points in your data to cross-reference with your SEO activities. But the one thing that really bugs me about Google Analytics is that the JavaScript you tag your site with is broken.

Benchmarking Your Website: Metrics to Review Before an SEO Engagement Begins
Rand Fishkin

Benchmarking Your Website: Metrics to Review Before an SEO Engagement Begins

SEO Analytics

Many SEO projects begin with a site review or audit, identifying potential weaknesses and opportunities. However, a great number of these analyses leave out a healthy dose of collecting metrics - a critical factor in helping to benchmark future progress and see how far you've come (and what effect your SEO changes have had). Thus, I figured it would be valuable to review, in full, the pre-...

The Evil Side of Google? Exploring Google's User Data Collection
Danny Dover

The Evil Side of Google? Exploring Google's User Data Collection

SEO Analytics

Google Inc. is first and foremost a data company. In the past, it competed on a level playing field by manipulating publicly available data better than its competition. By doing this, it had unprecedented success. Enter Web 2.0. Hard drives, processors, bandwidth and even workers are now all relatively inexpensive. This has caused the barriers to entry in the search field to drastic...

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How to Improve Your AdWords Campaigns
J

How to Improve Your AdWords Campaigns

SEO Analytics

In the first company, as I started to work with my Adwords campaigns, the only goal there was to get clicks (visitors) as most clients wishes. This was one of the 2 key figures that my boss was watching everyday. The other one was the CTR. If we were under 12%, the campaign was not good enough, and we had to work on the keywords or the ads. As I moved on to some other companies, im...

Google Analytics Referral Traffic: Get Some Really Granular Data Using UTM
C

Google Analytics Referral Traffic: Get Some Really Granular Data Using UTM

SEO Analytics

We have been using Google Analytics for over a year now and I admit there is lots of stuff that I have squint my eyes at and ask myself how it could possibly make sense. Lots of stuff, that is, except the greatest little trick in the world that I have been using for about the same amount of time. Google Analytics has a parameter tag known as UTM. Sorry, couldn’t tell you what it stands fo...

More SEOmoz Stats than You Can Shake a Stick At
Rand Fishkin

More SEOmoz Stats than You Can Shake a Stick At

SEO Analytics

I've had more than a few people tell me they really missed our old advertising page, not because we sold any ads, but because our monthly traffic, search and referral stats were always there and relatively frequently updated. As consolation (and since I always did intend to keep SEOmoz's stats as public as possible), here's an exhaustive roundup of important analytics data (from Indextools) for...