How to Carry Out Simple SEO Analysis Using Google Analytics and Google Search Console [UPDATED]
SEO analysis is an essential component of the successful strategy of any online business, allowing you to monitor the performance of your website in search results.
In this guide, we’ll provide ways to carry out simple SEO analysis using Google tools that are completely free.
Careful SEO analysis is important to ensure you are getting the right results.
Google offers two powerful tools that can help you analyse SEO for your website:
Editor’s Note [03.03.25]: Our guide was first written in 2019, and since then, GA4 has replaced Universal Analytics, and Google Search Console has also undergone various changes. In today’s update, we’re making some minor revisions to ensure our advice is up-to-date and correct.
So, let’s jump in and go through a rundown of some of the best features in both Google Analytics and the Google Search Console to undertake great SEO analysis and gain invaluable insights about the performance of your strategy.
What is SEO analysis?
SEO analysis is the process of evaluating your website’s performance in search engines to identify opportunities for improvement. It’s a process that involves assessing factors like organic traffic, keyword rankings, user engagement, indexing, mobile usability, and links, all of which impact how well your site ranks on search engines.
For a detailed breakdown of SEO fundamentals, check out our full guide here:
SEO Basics: The Simple SEO Guide for Website Owners [UPDATED]
SEO analysis using Google Analytics (GA4)
Google Analytics is a brilliant tool for measuring both your current and historical performance covering basic metrics, such as number of users, engagement rate, and top landing pages.
Google Analytics has changed a lot, so if you’re still thinking in terms of Universal Analytics, it’s time to move on. GA4 is the standard now. GA4 focuses on event-based tracking, which means you get a better picture of user interactions across multiple platforms rather than just session-based data.
Google Analytics is very powerful. To understand it fully requires dedication in terms of research, time, and practice.
Here, we will focus on four key elements to quickly master simple but effective SEO analysis using GA4.
Engagement Rate
Instead of the traditional “Bounce Rate” in Universal Analytics, GA4 focuses on “Engagement Rate“. This tells you how many sessions were actively engaged (e.g. lasted more than 10 seconds, had a conversion, or multiple page views).
In GA4, you can find this by checking Reports > Life Cycle > Aquisition > User Aquisition.
GA4 engagement rate analysis
You might be wondering what a good engagement rate is. This will very much depend on your industry and content, but as highlighted in this report, 60% is generally considered “good”.
A low engagement rate could mean your content isn’t grabbing attention, which might indicate issues with the SEO or user experience.
👉 Pro tip 1 – If you identify pages with a low engagement rate, carefully consider the search intent and try to put yourself in your visitor’s shoes. Ask questions like, does the content directly address what visitors are looking for, and do I have the right length and format of content to keep them glued, e.g. videos, images, infographics, tables, and lists. Failing that, consider using heatmaps and visual analytics tools like HotJar or Clarity to identify potential friction points. Both of these also have free versions.
Search Intent for SEO: Understanding Search, User & Keyword Intent [UPDATED]
Top Pages and Screens
By checking Reports > Life Cycle > Engagement > Pages and Screens, you can see which pages bring in the most traffic.
Simple SEO analysis of pages and screens in GA4
You can also check the same data for landing pages by going to Reports > Life Cycle > Engagement > Landing page.
GA4 landing page simple seo analysis
If certain pages are performing well, you might want to replicate their SEO structure on underperforming ones. If you find pages that are under-performing, it would be a good idea to re-evaluate your content and potentially refresh what you have or remove the pages completely.
👉 Pro tip 2 – Remember, you can filter and sort your data by metrics like users, engagement time, and conversions. Check the engagement data for your best and worst-performing pages and revisit pro tip number 1. Create a spreadsheet listing your top 5 pages, analyse each page and make notes about what makes them so strong. Do the same for the top 5 worst-performing pages and make notes outlining what needs to be done to improve them. Create an SEO plan and carry out this check at regular intervals, e.g. quarterly or half yearly.
Traffic Acquisition
GA4 categorises traffic into organic search, direct, referral, organic social, paid social, and paid search.
You can find this by going to Reports > Life Cycle > Aquisition > Traffic Aquisition.
This is critical for analysing your SEO performance and seeing how much of your traffic is coming from search engines and what the quality of that traffic is. Look at metrics like engagement rate, engagement time, and conversions.
👉 Pro tip 3 – If your SEO is working, organic search will be very near the top when you sort the data by sessions. You may also see paid or social search near the top if you invest in PPC advertising or social media marketing. If you notice that organic search is near the bottom of your list with sources like direct or unassigned above, this highlights a potential issue with your GA4 tracking code, website, or SEO. If this is the case, go back to your pages and screens section to make sure all of your pages are showing. If not, look for technical issues. If they are, work on that SEO plan we discussed in pro tip 2.
Conversion Tracking
GA4 allows you to set up custom events to track specific user actions (like form submissions, downloads, or button clicks).
This is essential to measure the effectiveness of your SEO efforts in driving meaningful interactions. If you are an eCommerce store, analysing the number of checkouts, sales funnel, and revenue data will be the top priority. For a B2B or B2C brochure website, analysing contact submissions or brochure downloads could be the top priority.
If you are investing time, effort or finances into SEO, you need to be able to measure your ROI.
To set up your key events and conversion tracking, please refer to the Google Analytics tutorial here.
👉 Pro tip 4 – Virtually every website has a contact page. At the very least, make sure you set up a key event to track your contact page submissions. You can do this by either tracking button clicks or visits to a ‘thank-you’ page or equivalent after the form has been submitted.
Summary
To get a clear SEO overview in GA4:
- Go to Reports > Life Cycle > Aquisition > User Aquisition – Check the user data, including new users, returning users, engagement rate, and engagement time.
- Go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition – Check how much of your traffic is coming from organic search and whether the traffic is good quality.
- Go to Reports > Engagement > Pages and Screens – Find out which pages are driving the most traffic and engagement.
- Set up conversion tracking – You need to measure how SEO is contributing to your overall ROI, e.g. generation or sales.
For more in-depth advice about using GA4 to measure SEO, make sure you visit our guide below:
From UA to GA4, Top Google Analytics Tips to Measure SEO Results [UPDATED]
SEO analysis using Google Search Console
You might be wondering: If I already have Google Analytics, do I really need Google Search Console (GSC)? What additional insights can I glean from GSC to enhance my SEO analysis, and is it worth using?
Google Search Console is an often overlooked tool, but in some ways, it’s even more valuable than GA4 for carrying out SEO analysis activities. And yes, it’s also free.
Don’t get us wrong, GA4 is great for measuring on-site engagement, but Google Search Console is the tool you need for SEO-specific performance data. It provides insights into how your website appears in Google Search, including ranking/position data, click-through rates, indexing issues, and mobile usability.
Now, let’s jump in and explore some of the amazing features of GSC for carrying out simple SEO analysis.
Performance Report & Search Rankings
The Performance report in GSC allows you to track organic impressions, clicks, click-through rate (CTR), and average ranking position for your website in Google Search.
You can find this by navigating to Performance > Search Results.
Search results analysis in Google Search Console
You might be wondering: What’s a good CTR or average ranking position? This depends on your industry and keywords, but a CTR above 3% is generally considered strong, and ideally, you want your pages ranking within the top 10 results for your target keywords, ideally positions 1 to 5.
For help and advise identifying the best keywords, see our guide below.
SEO Keyword Analysis & Planning: How to Choose the Best Keywords For Your Website [UPDATED]
As well as tracking clicks and impressions for your pages, you can also use CGS as a rank track tracker tool to see roughly where you rank in Google search results and the overall trend.
Use Google Search Console as a rank tracker
👉 Pro tip 5 – Sort your data by clicks, impressions, and CTR to identify underperforming pages. If a page has high impressions but low clicks, this suggests that your meta titles or descriptions may need improvement. Try making them more compelling and relevant to search intent.
Indexing & Coverage Report
One of the most critical functions of GSC is ensuring Google can actually find and index your pages.
If a page isn’t indexed, it won’t show up in search results, meaning your SEO efforts go to waste.
To check your index status, go to Indexing > Pages.
Here, you’ll find a breakdown of valid, excluded, and error pages. Ideally, you want all important pages to be indexed without issues.
Analyse page indexing in Google Search Console
👉 Pro tip 6 – If you see more or fewer pages indexed than expected, make sure you investigate. Click on the reasons to list which pages fall into each category. It could be due to a noindex tag issue, duplicate content, or insufficient internal linking. Use GSC’s Inspect URL tool to diagnose and request indexing if needed.
Core Web Vitals
Google prioritises websites that have been developed using a mobile-first approach and optimised for fast load times across all devices and networks, including slower 3G networks. For this reason, ensuring your site performs well on mobile is essential for SEO.
To check for any mobile usability issues, go to Experience > Core Web Vitals.
Core web vitals – a key ingredient within any SEO analysis project
This report highlights issues like slow load times, layout shifts, and interactivity delays, which can negatively impact rankings.
👉 Pro tip 7 – If you notice poor Core Web Vitals scores, use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to diagnose and fix performance issues. Consider using a CDN like Cloudflare and plugins or services to optimise your code and improve your performance. Improving load speeds and mobile usability can directly (and quickly) help to boost rankings.
Backlink & Internal Linking Insights
Links remain a significant ranking factor, and GSC provides data on who is linking to your website and how your internal links are structured.
To find this data, go to Links > External Links & Internal Links.
Simple SEO links analysis using Google Search Console
Here, you will be able to check external links (also known as inbound links or backlinks), internal links between your pages, and also top linking sites and top linking text
👉 Pro tip 8 – Regularly check your external link profile to see what backlinks you have and where these links come from. Look at your top linking sites and top linking text to ensure the sites linking to you and the anchor text (link text) they are using look helpful and relevant. For internal links, ensure your most important pages have strong internal linking structures, as this helps with navigation, crawlability, indexing and SEO performance.
Summary
To get a clear SEO overview using Google Search Console:
- Go to Performance > Search Results – Check your rankings, impressions, and CTR to identify which pages need improvements.
- Go to Indexing > Pages – Ensure your important pages are indexed and fix any coverage issues.
- Check Experience > Core Web Vitals – Identify and resolve mobile and performance issues that could impact rankings.
- Go to Links > External Links & Internal Links – Monitor backlinks and internal linking to improve SEO strength.
Final thoughts
Mastering the art of simple SEO analysis is one of the most basic but fundamental skills you can acquire as a website owner or marketer.
By using Google Analytics and Google Search Console (GSC), you can gain powerful insights into how your SEO is performing and where improvements are needed. Regularly reviewing engagement metrics, indexing status, search results, rankings, and core web vitals will help you refine your strategy and provide the best possible experience for your visitors.
For visitors who want more in-depth SEO analysis tips, check out our guides below that explain how to use ChatGPT to uncover hidden insights:
How to use ChatGPT with Google Search Console CSV Data to Uncover SEO Analytics & Hidden Insights
SEO Analysis Using ChatGPT Google Analytics Data Exports (Advanced ChatGPT Analytics)
Just remember, keep analysing, keep optimising, and over time, you’ll see the results of a well-executed SEO plan.
Getting help with your SEO
Opace is a forward-thinking SEO company that focuses on delivering ethical and measurable SEO strategies.
Whether it’s technical SEO, on-page optimisation, content marketing, or linking strategies, our goal is to drive sustainable improvements and genuine results for businesses looking to grow their online presence. Contact us today to find out more.
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