With Universal Analytics now sunset, many businesses are navigating the transition to Google’s new analytics platform, GA4. While the switch comes with challenges, GA4 also provides valuable new opportunities to gain insights into your SEO performance. Implementing Google Analytics 4 should play an integral role in any comprehensive organic search strategy. When configured properly, GA4 gives you the ability to better understand your website traffic sources, identify issues hindering performance, and reveal areas primed for SEO growth.
In this post, we’ll explore impactful ways to leverage GA4 to elevate your approach to SEO analysis and optimization.
Getting Started with Google Analytics 4
For context, GA4 represents Google’s latest iteration of their analytics suite. It incorporates more machine learning and modeling of users instead of relying solely on sessions and page views. GA4 also aims to provide a more privacy-focused experience. However, the switch from Universal Analytics has not been without challenges. Many users have found GA4 reporting lacks some of the depth available before. Key metrics like average session duration are not as readily accessible anymore. Customizations like dashboards and segments also require more upfront work.
While GA4 has a learning curve, it provides powerful new SEO opportunities through features like attribution modeling and the ability to better understand searcher behavior across devices. With the proper configuration and setup, GA4 enables more insightful analysis of your organic traffic and growth strategies.
Connect GA4 to Search Console for Key Data Sharing
One essential first step is connecting your GA4 property to your Google Search Console account. Linking the two together allows for valuable SEO data sharing between the platforms. Once connected, you can access search analytics like your top performing keywords, most clicked pages from organic, and impressions directly in your GA4 reports. This makes it easy to identify opportunities around high-potential queries and landing pages. Having your Search Console account integrated provides tremendous visibility into the specific search terms and pages generating engagement. You gain clarity into what content resonates most with searchers to guide optimization decisions.
Build Custom Dashboards to Track SEO KPIs
Since GA4 lacksprebuilt dashboards, it’s important to create customized dashboards tailored around your core SEO metrics.
Valuable SEO KPI dashboards to consider include:
- Organic traffic and conversion trends over time
- Top landing pages and keywords driving goals
- Segments isolating new vs. returning organic visitors
- Location and demographic data of search users
Constructing these bespoke dashboards requires some upfront work but enables ongoing at-a-glance visibility into the SEO metrics you care about most.
Quantify SEO’s Influence on Conversions with Modeling
One of the most powerful new tools in GA4 for SEO analysis is the iterative link attribution modeling. This leverages machine learning to model how different marketing channels contribute to a single conversion over time. The visual modeler illustrates the compounding influence SEO has on converting users across multiple touch points when compared to other channels like email or paid ads. You gain visibility into whether your organic traction is directly driving conversions or requires further optimization. The model quantifies the value of improving visibility through SEO.
Assess Engagement with Pages per Session
Since average session duration is not readily available in GA4, you can get a similar metric through Pages/Screen Views per Session under Engagement reports. Seeing that organic visitors view multiple pages suggests they are engaged with and interested in content around those SEO terms and topics. Low page views signal the opposite. This metric helps reveal subjects and pages to double down on with more content development and on-page optimization to satisfy searcher intent. It provides direction for your SEO scaling priorities.
Track Rankings Through Custom Events
While position tracking no longer comes built into GA4, you can simulate it by setting up custom events that pull data from Search Console:
Event Category: SEO Event Action: Rank Tracking
Event Label: {keyword} Event Value: {ranking}
This allows ongoing monitoring of ranking changes for your most important target keywords, helping you better optimize pages for terms driving traffic. Configuring custom metrics is vital for reconstructing the critical SEO data points GA4 lacks out of the box.
While the move to GA4 comes with new complexities, it also provides unique SEO opportunities through machine learning and cross-device behavior analysis. Work closely with your analytics team to ensure your SEO data is properly configured and accessible. GA4’s insights will allow you to make more informed decisions around organic acquisition and growth.
