While SEO is an ever-evolving topic, there are multiple ways to use data to help improve the overall website search presence. One of the biggest mistakes people make is not spending enough time with the information they can access. Unfortunately, this becomes a barrier to further improving the overall SEO success of their website.
An hour or two per month to analyze your data in front of you allows you to make better-educated decisions and be more strategic for your business.
Below we’ve put together a list of 3 tools to help your website traffic grow in 2023 and beyond. The first two tools are completely free, while the third requires a paid subscription, but, in our estimation, it is entirely worth it!
Google Analytics
The first tool is probably one you’ve heard of, Google Analytics (GA). GA is a free tool that is easy to set up and install on your website.
GA on your website will provide a ton of data for you to decipher and analyze – probably more than you care to go through! The following are four main reasons why GA is critical to install on your website:
- Understand Your Audience: GA provides detailed information about your website’s visitors’ demographics, interests, and location. This can help you better understand your audience and tailor your content to meet their needs.
- Track Performance: GA allows you to track key metrics like page views, session duration, and bounce rate, which can help you understand how well your website performs. You can also use it to set goals and track conversions, such as when a visitor purchases or subscribes to your email list.
- Identify Opportunities: By analyzing your website’s traffic data, you can identify opportunities to improve your website and attract more visitors. For example, you might discover that a particular blog post is generating a lot of traffic and create similar content to capitalize on that success.
- Monitor and Troubleshoot Issues: GA can alert you to problems with your website, such as broken links or slow page load times. This can help you quickly identify and fix issues affecting your website’s performance.
Overall, GA is a valuable tool for website owners because it provides a wealth of data and insights that can help you understand your audience, track your website’s performance, identify opportunities for improvement, and troubleshoot issues.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool provided by Google that allows you to monitor and maintain your website’s presence in Google search results. There are several reasons why you might want to use Google Search Console on your website:
- Monitor Your Website’s Performance: GSC provides data on your website’s performance in Google search results. This includes information on the number of clicks, impressions, and average position your website is getting for specific queries. You can also see which queries are driving the most traffic to your website and which pages on your website are performing the best.
- Identify and Fix Technical Issues: GSC can alert you to technical issues with your website, such as crawl errors, security issues, and mobile usability issues. This can help you quickly identify and fix problems affecting your website’s performance in search results.
- Submit Sitemaps and Individual URLs: You can use GSC to submit your website’s sitemap and individual URLs for crawling by Google’s search bots. This can help ensure all the pages on your website are indexed by Google, improving your website’s visibility in search results.
- Monitor Your Website’s Backlinks: GSC provides data on the websites that are linking to your website, which can help identify and address any spammy or low-quality links.
Overall, GSC is a valuable tool for website owners because it provides useful data and insights about your website’s presence in Google search results and helps you identify and fix technical issues that might be affecting your website’s performance.
Ahrefs (Paid Tool)
Ahrefs is a comprehensive toolset for SEO and marketing professionals. It offers a wide range of features that can be useful for improving your website’s search engine rankings and online visibility, including:
- Keyword Research: Ahrefs provides detailed data on search volumes, keyword difficulty, and related keywords, which can help you identify the most promising keywords to target in your SEO efforts.
- Site Audit: Ahrefs can scan your website for technical SEO issues, such as broken links, duplicate content, and crawl errors, and provide recommendations for how to fix them.
- Backlink Analysis: Ahrefs allows you to track your website’s backlinks and see where they’re coming from, which can help identify opportunities to acquire more high-quality links and monitor your backlink profile to ensure that it’s healthy and natural.
- Rank Tracking: Ahrefs can track your website’s rankings for specific keywords in different regions and search engines, which can help you monitor your progress and identify areas for improvement.
- Content Marketing: Ahrefs has a range of features that can help you identify opportunities for creating content that will perform well in search results, such as seeing which topics and headlines are getting the most social media shares and backlinks.
Overall, Ahrefs is a powerful tool that can be useful for a wide range of SEO and marketing activities. It provides a wealth of data and insights that can help you improve your website’s search engine rankings and online visibility.
For more information about optimizing your website’s success and SEO solutions for small businesses, we invite you to view our recent blog Ultimate Guide to Small Business SEO Services, or contact the marketing and SEO specialists at Threaded Marketing Group.
