Inbound marketing through the creation of relevant, useful content is quickly becoming the primary SEO tool to drive more organic search traffic to your site.
However, developing content that will rank and drive traffic can be a hit-or-miss affair. There is no guarantee that a piece of content you write will rank highly enough to make the effort worthwhile.
The good news is that people are already asking questions on search engines and coming to your site for answers. Rather than start from scratch, why not make sure your content meets the needs of this existing traffic?
Here’s how to use the Queries report in Google Analytics to take the guesswork out of developing content that meets the needs of your visitors and that will rank highly in the SERPs (hopefully driving more traffic).
- In Google Analytics, go to Acquisition > Search Engine Optimization > Queries. (Note: your Google Analytics account must be connected to Google Webmaster Tools)
- Choose a time period that is relevant to the amount of traffic your site receives – perhaps the last 30 or 60 days.
- Copy the regular expression (regex) below into the search box and hit search:
b(adding|does|do|who|what|where|when|why|how|will|can|?|am|is|are|was|were|be|being|been|versus|vs|vs.)b
You should see a list of queries in the form of questions, along with the number of impressions (how popular the question is) and the number of clicks (how well you are answering it).
Here is an example using queries for a site that I manage which sells video security equipment:
how to connect dvr to pc
how to connect dvr to internet
how much do security cameras cost
how to connect dvr to pc via lan
where to place security cameras
what is wide dynamic range
how to configure dvr with static ip for remote access
how to configure dvr with static ip pdf
how much are security cameras
how to access dvr remotely
how to configure dvr for remote viewing
how to configure dvr online
how to connect dvr to computer
how to connect dvr to network
how to connect dvr to router
how to hide security camera
how to set up a dvr for remote viewing
where to place home security cameras
how much bandwidth does an ip camera use
how much do surveillance cameras cost
how much is a security camera
how to connect dvr to internet with static ip
how to hide a hidden camera
how to hide a security camera
how to place security cameras at home
- Change the number of rows to 500 and export the report into Excel.
- Categorize each search query so that you group them.
- Review your groups of queries. If you already have content that answers the query make sure that it is up-to-date and sufficiently in-depth.
- If you don’t have great content for all or some of the queries in a group, it’s time to start writing articles!
Using the example queries above, it is clear that a lot of people are coming to the video security site looking for help with connecting their security DVR to the internet or their network (a common challenge):
how to connect dvr to pc
how to connect dvr to internet
how to connect dvr to pc via lan
how to configure dvr with static ip for remote access
how to configure dvr with static ip pdf
how to access dvr remotely
how to configure dvr for remote viewing
how to configure dvr online
how to connect dvr to computer
how to connect dvr to network
how to connect dvr to router
how to set up a dvr for remote viewing
how to connect dvr to internet with static ip
They are also looking to learn how to position their security cameras:
where to place security cameras
how to hide security camera
where to place home security cameras
how to hide a hidden camera
how to hide a security camera
how to place security cameras at home
And, they want to know, in general, how much do security cameras cost:
how much do security cameras cost
how much do surveillance cameras cost
how much is a security camera
Here are three great topics about which to write articles or series of articles. Again, these questions are already driving visitors to your website.
Answer them effectively and not only will you serve your existing traffic but your content will rank higher and consequently drive even more traffic.
Regular Expression Tip
I’m no regex expert, but I have found this tip to be very useful when using them to parse data in Google Analytics. If you use b around a regular expression it will only look for whole words.
For example, bipb will return “ip camera” but not “equipment” – very helpful for doing targeted searches in Google Analytics.