Sometimes the value of SEO can be difficult to demonstrate. It cannot always be categorically proven that any increase in sales or online presence can be attributed directly to SEO and for this reason I decided to write a post on how to deliver ROI of SEO in March. An additional way to get the most of SEO is to look at the figures in Google Analytics, so I have highlighted 7 reports everyone should use and share with their clients. Google Analytics is a great tool to use to clearly show the impact SEO has on traffic and revenue.
1) Multi Channel Funnel
The multi channel funnel report gives a full picture of how much revenue a particular channel generated, not just focusing on the last click model. This means you can see more revenue generated from SEO for example. From experience email campaigns and PPC can result in a positive impact in sales from SEO.
If the goals have been set up correctly then the assisted conversions in Google Analytics can be seen. This is the amount of revenue and number of transactions that the channel helped to generate.
When adding up the assisted revenue conversions from SEO as well as from the last click, SEO can be seen as generating the largest share of the revenue pie. To view the report, login to your GA, then click on the following:
Conversions – > Multi-Channel Funnels -> Assisted Conversions.
2) Landing Pages Report
This is an extremely relevant report and shows the most popular pages of your site first. It shows the number of impressions and clicks and therefore it is easy see the pages you should be focusing on. The home page is normally the most popular, however if you have a category you are promoting, it is important that this page is generating a high number of visits. If it is not, then you have some other areas to address so that it is generating more visits.
The report gives insight and helps the marketing department to focus on the pages that have the highest number of impressions and lowest click through rate.
To access the report, go to the Behavior section of Google Analytics. Then click on ->Site Content ->Landing Pages
3) Site search
The site search report is a valuable way to see the terms your visitors are searching for on your site. The report gives in depth insight into the behavior of your users. This means if people are looking for terms that you do not have on your site, then you can build out a page or build out content to provide this information.
The report also highlight terms you may not have thought of and which are different to the “vanity” keywords your clients may be asking for.
4) Top Conversion Paths
Another useful report in Google Analytic is the Top Conversion Paths report. This is a great report to use in conjuction with the mulit channel funnel report in point 1 at the beginning of this post. Top Conversion Paths report shows the number of different paths users take on your site to convert. Visitors do not just use one channel to convert. Therefore it is important to see the true path of the visitors and how they have converted.
To access the report, go to Conversions -> Multi-Channel Funnels -> Top Conversions
5) Referral
Referrals are also an important factor in measuring the efficiency of SEO as well as reporting on the amount of organic traffic. The SEO work will impact referral especially when it involves blogger outreach and promoting via social media. It is important to see referral activity from a number of different websites. If bloggers are conducting reviews on their site for your client, there should be a low bounce rate on referral visits from these reviews.
6) Campaigns
It is important to set up campaigns for all marketing activity. For example, when creating email campaigns, make sure you name it with the date and the name of the email. This way you can easily view the number of sessions the emails generated, along with the number of transactions and the revenue. If you are able to track revenue, then you can measure the ROI of the email campaign.
To view the results from this campaign, follow the path:
Acquisition -> Campaigns as the below screenshot shows.
7) Funnel Visualization
The Funnel visualization report is one of the most useful reports in Google Analytics and allows you to easily see where users may be falling out of the goal funnel. This is particularly useful in ecommerce sites and where they may be a long check out process.
The goals have to be set up correctly to enable this report. When they are set up, the report allows webmasters to view how customers are moving from the shopping basket to the sign in and then check out process, completing the transaction. This report is important from an SEO perspective as it helps to show why despite organic bringing in more traffic, the customers may not be converting.
Conclusion
From my current research I have found that these are the most useful reports in Google analytics to show the value of SEO. The most important aspect in all reports is to ensure the goals have been set up correctly and therefore revenue is correctly attributed to each channel. Customers do not operate in silos and often make purchases using different channels.