How Google Analytics Can Help Link Builders

Google Analytics and Link Building

You probably know that there’s a wealth of information to be had in Google Analytics. This very data-driven tool is more than handy, it’s crucial. Even so, it’s not known for its usefulness in link building. So how can we leverage it for link building campaigns? Probably many more ways than you would think…

Identifying Valuable Content for Link Building

To build quality links, you need to create valuable content that others will want to link to. No matter what link building tactic you’re using, it will almost always revolve around content in some form or fashion.

Google Analytics can help you identify your website’s most popular pages and the content that generates the most engagement. You can use this as source information to create new content that will attract even more backlinks. Additionally, you can identify pages on your website that receive a lot of traffic but don’t have many backlinks. By creating content that complements these pages, you can attract more links and improve your website’s search engine rankings.

Another useful feature of Google Analytics is the ability to identify the geographic location of your website’s visitors. If you notice that a significant percentage of your traffic comes from a particular region, you can create content that caters to that audience’s interests and needs. This approach can help you attract more links from websites in that region and improve your website’s visibility in search engines. Lastly, this tactic is especially helpful if you incorporate it during your keyword research process, as certain keywords will be more popular in certain geographic areas.

Analyzing Referral Traffic for Link Prospecting

Google Analytics provides data on the sources of traffic to your website, including referral traffic. By analyzing your website’s referral traffic, you can identify websites that are linking to your content. You can then reach out to these websites and request that they link to your website’s other pages. This approach is an effective way to build high-quality backlinks based on your own historical data.

Tracking Link Building Campaigns with Google Analytics

Link building campaigns require careful planning and execution. Google Analytics can help you track the effectiveness of your link building campaigns. Part of measuring that effectiveness is how much traffic is coming from those particular links that you were able to place. Whether it was from a guest post or link insert, you’re likely able to include UTM tags to the link itself.

If that’s the case, I would suggest adding those tags in an organized way. This could be by the campaign, or even by the client. Regardless, this approach would allow you to see the referral traffic from those links, and report that to your client. Sure, they’re paying for link building, but getting traffic in addition to that is going to show the true value of what you’re doing.

Taking this a step further, you can even use addons to pull this data into Google Sheets from Google Analytics. Assuming your client is tracking this information in the longterm, it can be very useful to see historical data in this way.

Uncovering New Keyword Opportunities

Keywords are a critical component of SEO, and Google Analytics can help you identify new keyword opportunities. By analyzing the search terms that people use to find your website, you can identify keywords that are driving traffic to your site. You can then create content that targets these keywords, increasing your website’s visibility in search engines. Additionally, you can identify long-tail keywords that are driving traffic to your site, allowing you to create content that addresses these specific search queries.

Creating Custom Reports and Dashboards

Google Analytics provides a wealth of data, but it can be overwhelming to navigate. Custom reports and dashboards allow you to focus on the data that matters most to you. You can create custom reports that track your website’s backlinks, referral traffic, and keyword rankings (assuming you have connected GSC). Additionally, you can create dashboards that provide an overview of your website’s performance, including traffic sources, user behavior, and conversion rates from those link placements in particular. These reports and dashboards can help you identify trends and make data-driven decisions to improve your SERP rankings.

FAQ

Can Google Analytics help me find broken links on my website?

Yes, you can use the “Site Content” report in Google Analytics to identify pages on your website that are returning a 404 error. This information can help you identify broken links and fix them to improve your website’s user experience and search engine rankings.

Can I use Google Analytics to track social media backlinks?

Yes, you can use Google Analytics to track the traffic coming to your website from social media platforms. By analyzing this data, you can identify which social media platforms are driving the most traffic to your website and which pages are receiving the most social media backlinks.

Can Google Analytics help me identify low-quality backlinks?

Yes, you can use Google Analytics to identify backlinks that are coming from low-quality websites. By analyzing the traffic from these link placements, you can identify low-quality backlinks and either disavow them, or use them as a dataset to understand better what not to do in the next campaign.

Jared Carrizales
Jared Carrizales

Jared leads the Heroic Search link building campaigns, and oversees account management for the company. In his downtime, he enjoys playing tennis and a good cup of coffee.

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