5 Advanced Google Analytics Tips for SEM analysis

Our selection of the best 5 hacks from 17 presented by Wordstream

Value: [rating=5]

Our commentary: The purpose of this alert is to point you to a great collection of techniques you may not have considered for advanced analysis to diagnose opportunities to improve your marketing and in particular Search engine Marketing within Google Analytics. It's a classic linkbait example, but nothing wrong with that and it has clearly taken a lot of effort to compile through contacting 17 Google Analytics specialists. I think it's proved popular through it's clear layout with screengrabs explaining each technique.

Marketing implications: These are my picks of the techniques covered which I thought were particularly useful for advanced review of search marketing effectiveness:

• 1 Will Critchlow - using custom variables to determine the referring traffic source for the first visit. By default, Google Analytics only records the first visit.
• 2 David Harry - using custom reports to drill-down to evaluate engagement for different primary and secondary SEO keyphrases by country
• 3 Vanessa Fox - Reviewing link-building effectiveness and keyword clusters. A detailed tutorial isn't provided here, but the report tells you enough to see how to review these. For keyphrase analysis I recommend setting up an advanced segment of "contains for each of your top 5-10 keywords common to your products. For example, an online insurer should set up segments that contains "car insurance", "home insurance", "life insurance" so that all phrases containing these can be reviewed. Great for reviewing the impact of your SEO work or the impact of a change like Google Instant
• 4 Brian Clifton - Rollup reports - this is a common challenge - reporting across multiple websites and not one that Google supports well by default. Brian explains the approach and how to solve potential problems
• 5 Tom Demers - Adwords negative Keywords filter - As you'll know, it's important not to advertise against negative keywords which are unlikely to convert and can push down your Quality Score and so increase bid amounts. This is a good hack to show you potential negatives

Recommended link:17 Advanced Google Analytics Tips