Search Engine Optimization: Where are you in Google? Steve Wieda January 29, 2016 Yale University Library

Search engine optimization Configuring your website to optimize your position within search results and increase click-through traffic Many different strategies can be put in place for SEO Content optimization URL optimization Structured data (schema.org) It always helps to know what people are searching for when they find your site

SEO: How Google Analytics can help Google Analytics can tell you: How many times your site came up in a Google search What people searched in Google that made your site pop up Your position within the Google search results How many people clicked your site in the Google search results

Google Search Console By default, GA does not report Google search stats Google Search Console provides all of this information https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ Google Search Console is part of Webmaster Tools Google Search Console must be configured for each domain You’ll need to prove that you “own” the domain before you can add it

Demo of Google Search Console Setup

Getting Search Console stats into GA You need to link your GA property to your Google Search Console You can only link one Google Search Console to your GA property This means you can only choose one domain to include in your GA stats – e.g., web.library.yale.edu, not orbis.library.yale.edu

Demo of Google Search Console – GA Link

First, some lingo … Impression: An instance where your domain came up in a search result list Click: An instance where someone clicked your domain from within Google Search results CTR: “Click-through rate” =clicks/impressions Average Position: The average position of where your domain came up in the results (1=first, 2=second, etc.)

… then the scam (not set) is Google’s way of making you pay Anyone logged into a Google site (gmail, youtube, etc.) when they conducted the search have their search string data obfuscated In order to see search terms for people logged into Google sites, you have to pay for them as AdWords If you get enough search activity, this isn’t as horrible as it sounds

Demo of GA and Google Search Console Stats

Differences between Search Console and GA Google Search Console aggregates all of your impressions and clicks This means that if your domain showed up as five of the top 10 results, you get one impression If a user clicks any of your domain’s links, it’s a 100% click-through count

Differences between Search Console and GA Google Analytics treats each impression and click separately This means that if your domain showed up as five of the top 10 results, you get five impressions If a user clicks any of your domain’s links, it’s a 20% click-through count (1 click, 4 misses)