Skip to content
Biggest Takeaways
You don’t have to be an expert or do everything perfectly Don’t be paralyzed by the “data tsunami” — dive in with the essentials & learn more over time High-level reports are often signals/indicators, but the real “gold” lies in the deeper reports Data is your best friend as a digital business owner. Choosing not to familiarize yourself with it is choosing to be a less competent, worse-equipped, less successful digital business owner — period.
GSC’s “Performance” reporting
Allows you to see how & where you’re ranking keyword-by-keyword Reveals how effective your meta titles are at getting people to click (CTR) Most helpful for growth: Seeing the keywords Google is TRYING to rank you for
“Trying to rank you” meaning you’re not totally optimized (or not optimized at all!) for certain keywords, but getting impressions & clicks anyways In other words: Not top 3 ranking but still getting impressions & clicks
Let’s take a look…
What’s most important within Google Search Console?
Always, always, always add your sitemap at a bare minimum
If you’re using Yoast, it should be at YourDomain.com/sitemap_index.xml
Just like Google Analytics, there’s a mountain of data here But what I find most helpful & important is your “Performance” (shown in next lesson) Also helpful for seeing who’s linked to your site, penalty/index status, and so much more… But maximum impact, especially as you’re early-stage & growing, is your Performance reporting
Setting up basic goals for important events
You can get REALLY deep with this, especially if you’re technical But I’m not, so I’m going to show you page-based goals
IF user visits ____ page = goal completed Great for “thank you” pages after opting in or purchasing Also great for key, non-revenue-producing conversion events
Admin > Goals (under “view” column) > New Goal Template > Add Name > Destination > Add URL (excluding domain) > Verify Goal > Save Then you’ll have a goal to layer on top of other reports! Let’s take a look…
How to reap the valuable data you’ve sewn for CRO
Multiple ways to do this, but the most straightforward way at a granular level is applying a “secondary dimension” Drill down to your key page in Google Analytics
Behavior > Site Content > All Pages (or LP) > Select Your Page
Use “Secondary Dimension” dropdown to view source, campaign, ad content, and more
“Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium” is a good higher-level report for this, too Let’s take a look!
Google Analytics’ “Campaign URL Builder “
Just Google something along those lines & you’ll find it easily No need for pricey monthly fees for links tracking This is built into Google’s functions and is actually really straightforward Input the variables you want to track and copy the link it spits out Now you’ll be able to track key information in Google Analytics I recommend using this for key CRO links on -site AND off Pretty straightforward, but let’s take a look…
Behavior reporting: Where your money will actually be made
My favorite reports: “Landing Pages” & “All Pages”
There’s a ton of other value in this reporting section but those are my go-tos You can add other segments to these easily spot “leaks” & improvements for CRO (visited a page, completed a goal, etc.)
Identify your most popular pages Easily see if people are visiting your key pages Let’s take a look…
Traffic: The lifeblood of your business
This is likely the report you will check most often Whenever you get new rankings, a good mention or link, etc… The first indication of it will likely be found here It’s a high-level report as well, so no real “gold”, but it helps you focus your efforts on what’s working & chart a path forward Let’s take a look…
Audience Overview: Your website’s “dashboard”
Not incredibly insightful but a very good high-level “pulse” Gives you a birds-eye view and should show if anything is blatantly wrong Good for basic traffic levels, engagement, etc. But there really isn’t much “value” here compared to most of GA Let’s take a look…
Post navigation
Scroll back to top
Top