Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How to identify rising keywords in analytics?
-
Hi Guys
I just spotted in the Google Analytics > Traffic Sources > Search Engine Optimisation > Queries section a keyword that on the 27th Feb went from generating 35 impressions per day to 2000 impressions per day.
This was down to people searching for a newly launched product.
Does anyone know how I can identify any increases like this easily? I only came across this by accident, and I am 1 month behind the times. It would have been ideal to pick this up closer to the time so I could capitalise and write some great content on the topic.
Thanks
Paul
-
I totally dorked up the cells in step 9 - I fixed that in my answer above.
As far as the Step 10 - 11 thing, I don't think I did. I think you skipped the second half of step 10. Here's my original text, with bold.
- Highlight the cells from H1 to H12. Grab the black square in the bottom right of the border box. Drag this selection down all the way to H2000. **Copy all your cells from A1 to H2000 and paste values to remove any formulas. We want just text now. **
---------------------
Instead of copying and paste values for Column H, I just said do the whole thing. At this point you only want text so it makes sense. I was going to edit but I think the correct step is already in there.
-
I'm glad you liked the answer. Sometimes it's difficult to take the time to write up a long answer like that but once in awhile it just happens and comes out. I had a feeling others may like being able to mess with that sort of data so why not, right?
I'll write it up soon - I think I may do a bit on "playing with your food data in Excel."
I'm going to go make a few edits to my post so it has all the right steps. Thanks! I see that I messed up my Bs and Hs. After awhile I think I lost track of typing up each step and tried to recreate in my head what I had done. lol
-
Excellent, did it, got data, very happy.
Just incase anyone else comes across this there is 1 correction to the above, and 1 missing step:
- To match keywords to their change line, follow this specifically. In H4, type =B1 This should now say your keyword. Manually type in a few of these, so go to B8 and insert the formula =B5, then do the same with B12. The formula is =B9. You should see three keywords in Column H.
should be
- To match keywords to their change line, follow this specifically. In H4, type =B1 This should now say your keyword. Manually type in a few of these, so go to H8 and insert the formula =B5, then do the same with H12. The formula is =B9. You should see three keywords in Column H.
So you only put this formula in Column H, referencing column B.
Then, between Step 10 and 11 you need to copy column H and do Paste Values, otherwise when you sort in step 11 you will end up with #REF errors.
This has yielded some excellent data for me to slice and dice.
-
WOW!
That is the most detailed response I have seen in a Q&A. Thanks for going to so much detail.
Definitely write this up as a YouMoz, as I have a feeling this would be a great interest to a lot of people, and could well get promoted to the main blog.
Right, I'm off to fire up Analytics and Excel and see what I can see.
This truly is brilliant. Thanks so much.
Keri, thanks for the heads up on the alerts blog post. I have used alerts, but for some reason I just didn't think to use these to identify changing trends in keyword usage. So I will give this a look also.
Thanks Guys
-
Ahh, the problem is that the OP changed jobs, and the new person removed those custom alerts. I hadn't realized that until just now. Thanks for letting me know, and I'll see if we can do anything to get it fixed.
-
Thanks for the endorsement Keri! Appreciate that.
From the post you linked - it doesn't look like the Grab It link works with the new Analytics. Those are great alerts to setup but maybe someone can write up a 2013 version.
TY!
-
Awesome response here! I'd also like to add we did have a great YouMoz post two years ago about essential alerts for GA that would email you when certain events happened. It's at http://www.seomoz.org/blog/7-essential-google-intelligence-custom-alerts-that-keep-me-sane.
-
Sure, you mostly care about ones that have already jumped up in impressions or clicks, right? I'm going to be very specific on the steps but this isn't as hard as it looks.
-
Go to Traffic Sources > Search Engine Optimization > Queries
-
Select a date range and then use "Compare to" and use "Previous Period."
-
Set Show Rows to 500.
-
Sort the table by Impressions.
-
Copy all the data from the table starting from "1. keyword" and finishing with the end of the table (last change%). Paste this data directly into Excel. You should have columns A-F used, it'll look very messy. Something like the attached "sorting1.jpg"
-
Find & Replace "% Change" with "Change"
-
In Column G put this formula: =IF(LEFT(B1,6)="Change","Yes!","") Copy this formula from G1 to G2000. Every line that says "Change" should now say "Yes!" at the end.
-
Copy column G and use "Paste Values" to remove the formula and leave only the "Yes!" in place.
-
To match keywords to their change line, follow this specifically. In H4, type =B1 This should now say your keyword. Manually type in a few of these, so go to H8 and insert the formula =B5, then do the same with H12. The formula is =B9. You should see three keywords in Column H.
-
Highlight the cells from H1 to H12. Grab the black square in the bottom right of the border box. Drag this selection down all the way to H2000. Copy all your cells from A1 to H2000 and paste values to remove any formulas. We want just text now.
You should see a list of keywords in column H now, every 4 cells or so. Check Sorting2 attached. The rest is very simple.
-
Sort by Column G, Sort by Values, Z to A. This should be looking valuable now.
-
Delete Rows 501-2000. All rows should be "Yes!" now.
-
Delete Columns A, B and G. Feel free to move Column E to Column A if it makes you feel better.
-
Insert a new Row 1 at the very top. Label each like this:
Cell A1: Impressions
Cell B1: Clicks
Cell C1: Avg Pos.
Cell D1: CTR
Cell E1: Keyword
- Highlight Row A and push View > Freeze Panes > Freeze Top Row. Highlight all the data, press Ctrl T to create a Table. Now you can easily sort any row and sort through your data. See sorting3.jpg attached.
It's really not as complex as it looks. Just use the two formulas, follow the steps and boom, sortable and pretty data.
(I may write this up as a YouMoz post with better screenshots, maybe a video tutorial or something, so thanks for giving us the chance to help!)
-
-
The fact that you went from generating 35 impressions per day to 2000 impressions per day, could mean that one of your pages is on the first page of a SERP that has high traffic. However, that can also mean that it is in the last spot and not driving any conversion.
To find out the keyword go to secondary dimension and select: Traffic sources > Keywords
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Tasks for Google Analytics training
Hi Mozzers, I'm delivering some Google Analytics (Fundamentals level) training, and trying to make it was fun and as interesting as possible... which is quite a challenge when it comes to GA. I was just wondering if you're aware of training tasks, or interactions, I could bring into this kind of training session? The group are particularly interested in user journeys and the effectiveness of content. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | A_Q0 -
Tracking 301 redirect traffic in Google Analytics
if I 301 redirect www.mywebsite.com to go to www.yourwebsite.com, how can I track the traffic in Google Analytics that is coming from mywebsite.com?? I don't think that's a referral traffic, is it?
Reporting & Analytics | | Armen-SEO0 -
Would updating Meta Titles affect Google analytics tracking?
Hi All, I need a little bit of help. We need to optimize our blog's articles Meta titles for SEO which all exceed 100 characters. I was told that if we change the titles, google analytics would split the tracking pages and count the data as 2 pages (old title and new title). Has any of you have this experience before and if so, is there a way to avoid google analytics counting this as two pages? Thanks in advance! Viviana http://analyteguru.com/ http://analyteguru.com/ http://analyteguru.com/
Reporting & Analytics | | mchoi0 -
Google Analytics - Keywords (not set) or ( not provided) WHY???
In Analytics, most of my visitors are landing on my home page, but when trying to see wich keywords they use, most of them are: (not set) or ( not provided) See screencast: http://screencast.com/t/AKwPW76qLVsN Can you tell why? What is going on? Is there a way to solve this? Thank you, BigBlaze
Reporting & Analytics | | BigBlaze2050 -
Localhost:4444 Showing Up in Google Analytics
Hello All, Lately in my Google Analytics account I have noticed a referral source labelled: localhost:4444 The number of visits is really high from this source, but I have no idea (no clue!) what it actually means. Can anyone shed some light on what this is about? Should I be creating some sort of filter to screen out this as a referral source (assuming it is not legitimate)? Many thanks in advance. Cheers!
Reporting & Analytics | | Robert-B0 -
Weird info from google analytics?
Hi Could anyone explain what these visits are in Google Analytics? Under traffic sources and organic I am seeing lots of entries with data like below. Any ideas what kind of traffic this is? Is it a bot and if so what is their purpose of it and is it recommended that you block it? Pages/Visit 1.00 Avg. Time on Site 00:00:00 % New Visits : 100% Bounce Rate: 100.00% Many Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | ocelot0 -
Setting up Google Analytics default URL
If someone has set: the default url in Google Analytics to a non-www address (http://mysite.com) then placed the UA tracking script from that GA account within the CMS framework of the website... ... and then set the permanent 301 redirect in the htaccess file to redirect to the www address (http://www.mysite.com). How less accurrate will my GA analytics measurements be considering the default url within GA is non-www and the permanent 301 redirect in htacess is to the www-address? Anyone know how reliable GA reports are until the default url in GA analytics is changed to match what is the redirected url in htaccess file? _Cindy
Reporting & Analytics | | CeCeBar0