Let’s start at the beginning. What is a blog? Aren’t blogs those websites people use to talk about themselves and rant? Why would I want one for my business?
A blog contains regularly updated informational content which is displayed on a website. The blog article topics are generally related to the overall focus of the website. Of course, you can choose to rant about your day, but that isn’t commonly found on business blogs.
Why Should I Have a Blog?
A blog provides you an opportunity to add content to your website that isn’t directly related to your core product. This allows you to optimize the pages of your website for keywords and phrases that wouldn’t naturally appear on your main landing pages. This content can help you target an audience higher up the funnel process. You can bring some new people to your site before they have realized your product could help them solve a problem.
How to Configure Your Blog
Where Should the Blog Live on Your Site?
There are two common places where you would put a blog on your website. The first place is as a subdomain, such as blog.yoursite.com. The second place is as a directory, such as yoursite.com/blog. The other place you might see a blog is right at the root of the homepage, such as yourblogsite.com. Since it should be clear to you if your blog belongs on the homepage, we will focus on the subdomain and directory placement options.
The Difference Between a Subdomain and a Directory
The number one most significant difference between a subdomain and a directory is that a subdomain (blog.yoursite.com) is considered a separate site, whereas a directory lives on the root domain.
What that means is a subdomain keeps your blog completely separated from your main website. This can be beneficial for a couple of reasons. You can link to relevant pages on your main site from your blog site, and they will count as external links. This setup also gives you a little protection if you receive a ranking penalty. Since it is considered a separate site, the penalty won’t necessarily apply to your main website.
One of the main downsides of setting up your blog as a subdomain—and the primary upside for setting it up as a directory—is that any backlinks your blog site acquires won’t directly benefit your main site. This is one of the principal reasons to set your site up as a directory. Typically, your blog’s primary goal is to reach a larger audience through social shares and backlinks. If your blog is a directory on your root domain, those backlinks help increase your root domain’s backlink profile.
To decide if your blog should be a subdomain or a directory, you have to think about your blog’s goal and what’s best for your readers. For small businesses, having a blog as a directory is typically the smarter option.
Do All Blogs Have Comments?
Traditionally yes, blogs have comments. These days, however, more and more companies are removing commenting systems from their blogs. About fifty-percent of blogs have a commenting system in place. Some companies find they spend a considerable amount of time maintaining the comment system and the vast majority of comments are low-quality or spam.
With that being said, a company would want to have comments on a blog to build a sense of community. It provides a way for your readers to reach out and ask questions. This not only gives you a channel to communicate directly with people and publicly offer exceptional service, but you can also take these comments and feedback to get ideas for new content and new questions to answer on future blog articles.
Another benefit of having comments on your blog—and arguably the most practical reason—is that they keep your blog article fresh with keyword-rich content. New comments make the piece appear current and updated. When people add comments to blogs, they naturally use keyword-rich phrases more often than you can insert them organically to the main content piece.
Like any other online marketing tactic, you need to decide if comments make sense for your demographic and your blog’s goals. If you decide a commenting system is right for your blog, make sure you maintain it. When appropriate, reply to people and make sure to remove spam to keep a high-quality blog.
Do Blogs Need Social Share Icons?
Almost every blog makes it easy to share on popular social networks. The most common purpose for a business to maintain a blog is to increase traffic to their website. One of the main tactics to do this is for people to share the content on social media. Why not make this easy to do?
If you’ve decided it makes sense to have a blog for your business, you might as well make it easy for people to share the content. If you don’t, you’re missing an ample opportunity.
What makes this an even more straightforward decision is that there are so many free tools these days to make this a super simple experience, both in regards to technical implementation and the user experience. Some of the most popular social share tools today are AddThis, ShareThis, and AddToAny.
How Often Should I Update My Blog?
The easy answer is: as often as possible. It’s recommended that you post a blog article a minimum of once a week. Large companies will post much more often than that, anywhere from three times a week, to every single day, to multiple times a day.
I would recommend setting up a blogging schedule that makes sense for you and your business. Do you have time to blog every day? Great! Then do that. Do you only have time to do one blog a month? Well, one blog per month is better than no blogs. Start with that. The most important thing is to keep a consistent blog schedule.
If you have the time and resources necessary, commit to a weekly blog article. Otherwise, create a schedule that works for you and stick to it.
So, Do I Need a Blog?
About eighty-percent of the top business websites have a blog. If maintained, a blog can be a great traffic resource and expand your audience and bring new people that may not have been directly searching for your product.
Content is a vital piece for search engine optimization. The content on your site is the valuable asset you want search engines to provide to users. So, how do you know what content is the right content for you to direct your focus? Let’s go over three different scenarios.
Scenario 1: Your website already has excellent content on all of your product pages. You already have a thorough FAQ section, and your website answers every question people have about your core product. But you want to keep expanding content and get more traffic. Then yes, build a blog!
Scenario 2: Your website doesn’t have great existing content. But you aren’t worried about that. You have enough time or resources that you’ll be able to continue to build out landing page content for your core product while creating and maintaining a blog. Then yes, build a blog!
Scenario 3: You’re just getting started. Your website doesn’t yet clearly describe your core offering. You have limited time and no budget. In this situation, where you feel forced to choose between starting a blog and creating product-specific landing pages on your main website, start by optimizing and maximizing your landing page product copy. But as soon as you’ve taken care of that, start focusing on your blog articles.
A blog is essential, and it’s beneficial for business websites to maintain one. Find a blog schedule that works for you and stick with it.
Do you want to listen to this article? Here’s the podcast episode:
Clear URLs can help both people and search engines better understand what the webpage will be about. But what makes a URL clear? And what is the best URL structure for SEO? Here, I present 10 tips you can follow to create user- and search-engine-friendly URLs.
First, it is worth pointing out that the URL does not always appear in search engine results. Google typically displays what resembles more of a breadcrumb than a URL.
Although this can change, Google search results typically display the domain name and then alter the file path to resemble a breadcrumb. This makes it easier to identify where the link lives in the hierarchy of the site. The full URL is not displayed but it still directly affects what is shown in the search results and can benefit from using an optimized URL structure.
How to Structure URLs for SEO
Make Them Easily Human Readable
Make sure your URLs are easy to read. They should include plain English words with no codes or IDs. This makes it easier to remember the URLs and recognize whether the page you landed on has relevant content for your query.
Include the Keyword
Ideally, whenever you write a new article, you will have performed keyword research and have a specific keyword in mind. Include that keyword in the URL. It is best to put the keyword as close to the beginning of the URL as possible.
Keep the URL Relevant to the Page
Make sure your URL is relevant to the page title and subject. Normally, this happens naturally, especially when you add the keyword to the URL. Still, confirm that the URL is relevant to the page and matches the content covered on the page.
Write in Lowercase
To standardize your URLs and prevent linking errors, ensure that all your URLs use all lowercase letters. This consistency in lowercase will make it easier for you and anyone to add links. Even if the same URL with uppercase letters redirects to the lowercase version, it can cause issues on digital analytics platforms. It is best to use all lowercase letters to avoid any potential problems.
Use Hyphens to Separate Words
Using hyphens to separate the words in your URL will make it easier to read. This way, both the user and the search engine can better understand the different words in the URL and gain a clearer insight into what the page is about.
Avoid using underscores. They cannot be read when the URL is underlined, making the hyperlink harder to read.
Future-proof Your URLs
URLs are not something you want to change regularly. Once they start ranking well, changing the URL can cause a temporary drop in traffic, even if you add a redirect from the old one to the new one. While the redirect helps alleviate any long-term traffic drop, it is best to avoid any decrease in traffic.
To future-proof your URLs, do not include the year or date. They make URLs longer. Leave them off, and your URL can be more concise and reliable long term.
Avoid Dynamic Parameters
Avoid including dynamic parameters in your URLs. They make the URL awkward and unreadable. Moreover, if a different version of the URL gets indexed other than your primary version, it can cause duplicate content issues.
Limit Folders
Try to limit your folders in the URL to a maximum of one or two. The folders are the directories on your site where the file for the page lives. So, on ClearPath Online, most pages live in the /resources folder. Some pages live deeper in the /resources/seo folders. The deeper the page, the harder it is for search engines to understand its relevance and importance.
Keep URLs Organized
Keep your URLs organized and use a consistent naming convention. Before you start creating URLs, try to have an overall idea of what folders/directories will be used and how you will style your URLs (such as all lowercase with hyphens).
Shorter is Better
Remember, the shorter and more concise you can keep your URL, the better. It makes it easier to type and remember and unlikely to be truncated when people share it via Twitter and text message.
The best rule of thumb is to keep URLs concise and clear to make it easier for everyone.
Do you want to listen to this article? Here’s the podcast episode:
There are hundreds of different domain extensions you can choose from when selecting the domain for your website. They all vary in availability and popularity. How should you choose the right one for your website and which ones are the best domain extensions for SEO?
What is a Domain Extension?
Before we start digging into the best domain extensions for SEO, let’s discuss what a domain extension is. A domain extension is also referred to as a Top-Level Domain or TLD.
The domain extension is the part of your website URL that appears after the last dot. So, in the URL https://clearpathonline.com, the domain extension is .com. In the URL https://clearpath.online, the domain extension is .online.
Most Common Domain Extensions
The most common domain extensions are .com, .net, and .org. The .com TLD is used by 52% of all websites. Since .com is the most common, it’s also the most memorable and least confusing. That also makes it the most popular and makes it difficult to find the desired domain name.
What TLD Should I Use?
Try .com First
If the .com domain is available for the domain you want, then go with that. Since .com is the most common, it’s the expectation and is the easiest for people to remember. If it’s available, that’s the best bet. However, it’s becoming more and more likely that any desirable .com domain names will already be taken.
Use a ccTLD if You Have a Local Business
If the business you’re purchasing a domain for is a local business, consider purchasing the domain extension for your country code. A country code domain extension is also referred to as a ccTLD. Some examples are .us and .uk.
Use an Industry TLD to Keep it Relevant
Depending on your industry, there are hundreds of different domain extensions that you can choose from to help keep your domain name relevant to your industry. A few examples are .game, .beer, .app, and .health. If there is a relevant industry term for your business, this can be used to keep your URL shorter. For example, https://clearpath.online is shorter and easier to say than https://clearpathonline.com.
Don’t Use .co
The .co and .com domain extensions are confusingly similar. If you use .co, expect a certain percentage of people to type in .com by mistake, which will cause them to end up on the wrong site. They will either forget that your domain was only .co, or they will assume you forgot the m in .com.
Don’t Use Hyphens
When your first domain choice is taken, you may be tempted to add hyphens. Don’t do it. You want your domain name and website URL to be easy to remember and easy to tell people, whether you’re in person or on the phone. Don’t add confusing characters such as hyphens, or intentionally misspell anything.
Get Ideas with Domainr
If your first choice isn’t available, and now you feel stuck and need some domain ideas, use Domainr. This site allows you to enter the name you’d like for your domain, and then it suggests all of the different combinations of TLDs and even directories that you can use to get that domain name. For example, if I want a domain name that includes the phrase clearpathgame, it suggests that I can use clearpathga.me, clearpath.games, or clearpath.fun.
This is an easy way to see what other TLD options might be a good fit if .com isn’t available.
How Do TLDs Impact SEO?
No Boost From More Relevant TLDs
There are hundreds of factors that influence your rank on Google, and if domain extension is a factor, it doesn’t play a big role. When the industry-specific TLDs were released years ago, Google stated that they won’t provide a boost in search. They will return the best result for the user, regardless of what TLD the site is on.
Can Impact Credibility
The TLD your website uses does have a chance to impact the credibility and branding of your business. It’s hard to say what the future will bring. If you choose a TLD that is often associated with spam sites you can be negatively impacted. Even if Google doesn’t penalize you for it, people may start to recognize it as potential spam and stay away.
You can view which TLDs have the highest percentage of spam at Spamhaus. It’s common that they’ll all have some spam, but before you buy a TLD for your business, check and make sure it isn’t overflowing with spam.
Why I Choose ClearPath.Online
Here’s my own experience and my own reasoning that I went through when choosing the domain name for ClearPath Online.
As with many website name ideas, the .com was already taken for the name I wanted to use. I didn’t want to add a hyphen. I also didn’t want to change the name and I wanted the domain name to match the business name.
That’s when I started looking at different TLDs. I decided to go with .online since that would allow me to use the same original domain name idea (minus the .com) and even make it slightly shorter.
Years later, the .com domain became available. I bought it and redirected it to the existing .online website. I didn’t make it the main domain even though it was my initial choice years before. Since the website was already ranking there was no reason to try to change it. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Do you want to listen to this article? Here’s the podcast episode:
You know you should have your business on social media networks. You’ve already heard how important social media is, and how every business has to be on social media these days. You’ve played around with social media personally, and might have even created an account for your business on one or two platforms. But what you are missing is a strategy for how social media will positively impact your business. Let’s walk through what you need to know about social networking for business.
Choosing the Right Social Networks
Let’s back up one step. Which networks specifically should you focus on for your business? Where should you create a profile? Everywhere, right? You never know which one will be the next big thing.
Wrong! If you get excited about new social media platforms, then go ahead, sign up and claim a custom URL for your business. Snag it early so you have an account if or when you choose to use it.
Focus on only one to three social networks
However, what you want to do is choose one to three social networks to focus on. If you try to focus on everything, you’ll get burned out and end up accomplishing nothing. So, instead, determine the one to three networks you want to focus on, and don’t worry about the others.
Re-evaluate Annually
If you’re concerned about missing the next big thing, choose a schedule to re-evaluate your networks. New networks don’t often have a large audience, so you don’t need to worry about being an early adopter for your business. Looking at the top social networks on an annual basis, and choosing which ones you’d like to focus on for the year should be enough to stay current on popular networks.
Figure out where your audience is
How do you choose the right networks for your business to focus on? You want to figure out where your audience is and concentrate on them. Choose a social network that has your targeted demographic. You can review your social data in Google Analytics. You can also look at social media demographic studies to get an idea of which networks might be a good match.
Choose based on demographics
Facebook is almost always a good choice. There are more people on Facebook than any other social network and they have a broad range of demographics. If you’re targeting a younger audience, Instagram and Twitter are both good options. For college graduates and users with a higher income, LinkedIn is a good option. If your demographic is women and your content is visually appealing, you should look into Pinterest.
Choose based on your vertical
Sometimes a social network makes more sense for one industry than another. For example, retail typically performs well on Facebook and Instagram. Instagram makes it easy to showcase inventory, and Facebook gives customers an easy option to communicate with your company. If your business is in the B2B space, LinkedIn is a must. For high regulatory industries, such as healthcare and government, it can be difficult to determine which networks make sense. Twitter has proven to be a great network for those industries to communicate with the public.
If you’re in technology, people expect you to be aware of trends, and be able to find your company on whatever social network they want to look at. Users expect to find technology companies on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and even Pinterest. But, don’t stretch yourself too thinly. I have recommended that you choose one to three networks, and I meant it. Unless you have a team to support your social efforts, limit yourself to the most effective networks. Decide on the top networks for your business. If you’re a B2B company, focus on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. If you’re a B2C company, decide what makes the most sense. You can probably skip LinkedIn, and instead focus on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Look at Your Competition
It’s always a good idea to keep an eye on your competition, and social media networks are no exception. Take a look at not only what networks your competitors are on, but see which ones actually have a large following. You can use Buzzsumo to get an idea of which networks are working for your competitors and what types of content users want to see on those networks.
Create Your Profile(s)
Once you’ve decided on the networks you want your business to focus on, create your profiles. Be thorough, fill out everything!
Take advantage of every profile field. Add images and information about your business. This will help make it easier for people to find you. Not only people who know your business, but people who don’t know you but need the solution you offer.
Once you get everything set up, use it! Share posts, leave comments, and participate. Don’t only talk about your own company. Find a way to educate or entertain people. Try and keep self-promotional posts to around 20% of your social content and spend the rest of the time adding value.
Do you want to listen to this article? Here’s the podcast episode:
There are several different platforms to choose from when you’re building your website. A few of the options include WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, and Weebly. But which one is the best platform for SEO? Spoiler, WordPress is the best option. Instead of comparing feature to feature, we’ll explain why WordPress is our platform of choice to create a site optimized for SEO.
Non-WordPress Options
Let’s start by discussing some of the platforms you may consider other than WordPress.
Squarespace
Squarespace makes it simple to build websites. But with the simplicity comes constraints. To optimize your Squarespace site for SEO you don’t need to install any plugins. It’s all built into the system which is nice. It takes the responsibility off of you which can be good and bad. If you want to improve your page speed further than the default settings, you can’t. Squarespace also doesn’t include any prompts to assist in optimizing your onpage elements. They have a resource guide you can follow, but the page doesn’t keep track when you’ve successfully optimized each onpage element. And one last con to Squarespace, it isn’t free.
Weebly
Weebly includes the majority of basic SEO elements. They don’t by default allow you to add an H1 tag though. They do allow you to make HTML edits so there is a way around it but that is such a simple and important SEO aspect it’s silly it isn’t included by default.
Wix
Wix also includes SEO basics, but that’s where it stops. This is the bare minimum of SEO you’d want to do. You have very little control over truly optimizing for SEO. You can customize your URL, but then they append tags to the end so that isn’t ideal for SEO.
How WordPress Can Help with SEO
First, let’s clarify what we mean by WordPress. Throughout the article, any mention of WordPress is specifically the WordPress.org self-hosted option. The WordPress.com hosted option is not a good choice for a business website because it doesn’t give you enough control or ownership over your website.
WordPress Gives You Flexibility
In my opinion, WordPress is the only way to go. It gives you flexibility, and that seems to be the most important aspect. SEO is always changing. You don’t want to switch your web platform to accommodate new SEO changes. You also don’t want to be held hostage waiting for your platform to release an update to accommodate a new SEO change. You need a flexible platform that puts you in control.
The key to SEO isn’t as simple as adding a title tag. It encompasses much more than that including the entire user experience. Go with a platform where you won’t have constraints and you can build the perfect system for your community.
Grow Into Your Platform — Not Out Of It
Even if it doesn’t happen all in one day, WordPress gives you the option to build out your website to meet your needs. You want to be able to grow into your website platform, not out of it. This is not the type of thing you want to change as your business grows, so choose a platform that can grow with you.
The best platform for SEO will be the one that allows you to create the optimal user experience. That’s why I lean on WordPress. It does have a bit of a learning curve at first, but it isn’t steep and the internet is filled with free WordPress resources. If you need help getting started, I’ve created a guide you can follow to build your WordPress website.
The bottom line is WordPress provides the flexibility you need to not only check off the SEO basics but also continue to grow and optimize your site throughout the years.
Do you want to listen to this article? Here’s the podcast episode:
WordPress is a great platform to create your website and optimize it for SEO. It has a vast amount of themes and plugins that allow you to manipulate and customize your site as needed. With that level of customization, comes the potential for issues as well. Though the system can be optimized for SEO, if you aren’t aware of the WordPress SEO basics you can unintentionally configure your site so it isn’t reaching it’s full SEO potential. Here are seven WordPress SEO improvements to add to your site.
Recommended SEO WordPress Plugin
Before we dig into the WordPress SEO aspects you’ll want to be aware of, let’s talk about Yoast SEO. Yoast SEO is a WordPress plugin. There are several SEO plugins available, and a few that aren’t too bad, but Yoast SEO is the one I go with because it has all the features you need in the free option. There are additional enhancements in the premium version, but they aren’t necessary. And you don’t need to run multiple plugins to optimize for SEO.
Many of the SEO improvements we’re going to discuss are easier to implement with Yoast SEO.
Check Search Engine Visibility
First, you want to confirm you don’t have your website flagged to be hidden in search engines. In WordPress, go to Settings > Reading > Search engine visibility. Make sure the checkbox next to “discourage search engines from indexing this site” is not checked. If you had to uncheck it, remember to click Save Changes at the bottom.
Optimize Permalink Structure
You want your website URLs to be human-readable and concise. You don’t want them to include any codes or IDs. If your URLs aren’t already human-readable, you can change this under the permalink settings.
In WordPress, go to Settings > Permalink. I like to use the Post Name setting. You can choose a setting that makes sense for your website and then click Save Changes.
The best time to take care of changing the permalink structure is at launch. If you change your Permalink Settings once pages and posts are already created, it will change the URL structure for every existing URL on your website. This means any website currently linking to you will now be linking to a broken link. All of the pages indexed in search engines will also now be broken links. If you go this route, you’ll want to have a plan to add 301 redirects from the old URLs to the new.
If your site is ranking well already, you may want to just leave it. The URL structure is one of hundreds of different ranking factors. If it isn’t completely optimized, you’ll still be able to rank. If it’s working for your website it’s fine to leave it, don’t stress about it.
If you do decide to change it, back up your site first. You can use the UpDraftPlus plugin to do that. Once you change the permalink, you can use the Redirection plugin to add 301 redirects.
Create an XML Sitemap
You’ll want to include an XML sitemap on your website to make it easier for search engines to index your website content. If you’re using the Yoast SEO plugin, this is as easy as clicking a toggle button.
In WordPress, go to SEO > General. Then click the Features tab at the top. Make sure XML Sitemaps is set to On.
Optimize Your Content
Each post and page you create should be keyword focused and optimized for SEO. There are a handful of on-page optimizations you’ll want to add to each article. If you use the Yoast SEO plugin, they make it super simple to identify and implement these optimizations.
Make sure you enter in your target keyword into the Yoast SEO section of the page. That way, the recommendations update. Now, you don’t have to go through and follow every single recommendation but they do provide a nice list to start with. The most important optimizations you want to make to your content is to add your keyword to the title tag, create a meta description and add your keyword to it, and include the keyword in the H1 tag and first paragraph of your article.
When optimizing your content for SEO, remember to think of the reader. Creating a high quality article is more important than checking off all the boxes in SEO best practices. If optimizing for perfect SEO makes the article less useful to the reader, then don’t do it.
Improve Page Speed
Improving the load times on your website improves both SEO and the user experience. You can run scans through Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix to get a list of recommended improvements. Both tools will provide more information for each item and explain how to implement improvements. GTmetrix actually has an entire guide to optimize WordPress sites as well.
Make Sure Your Site is Mobile-Friendly
You’ll want to use a theme that is responsive so your website is mobile-friendly. No matter what device people are on (a computer, tablet, or phone) you want them to be able to navigate and interact with your website. If you aren’t sure which themes are responsive and not sure what would be a good fit, here are my recommended themes to get started with.
Google Analytics tracks website visits so you can understand where site visitors come from and what they do when they’re on your site. Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools are both tools created directly by search engines to provide webmasters with personalized information about how their site is performing in search. This is where you’ll receive messages from search engines, get notified about penalties, and view search impressions and crawl errors.
In Summary
Once you’ve tackled these items, you’ll be on your way to increased search rankings. The key will be creating consistent content and creating a routine to optimize that content each time.
Do you want to listen to this article? Here’s the podcast episode:
Does a business website need a blog? What about an ecommerce site? Is a blog only for personal websites or is there a benefit to having a blog on your business website? Setting up a blog is simple and well worth the time. Here are five reasons why the answer to the question “Should I start a blog for my business?” is a definite yes!
Blog Content Attracts People in the Research Stage
Having a blog on your business website allows you to create content to attract people in the research stage. This allows you to bring people to your website higher up in the funnel. Content such as product descriptions and information about the services you provide will attract people with intent to buy. While, that is also helpful, that won’t help people find you who don’t know you exist.
Blog content allows you to write content to demonstrate to people how your product or service could be helpful even when they have never heard of you and didn’t realize a solution such as yours exists.
Blogs Can Build Trust and Authority
Creating consistent blog content helps build your brand. It adds a voice to your business. It allows you to build trust and become an authority in your niche. Blog content can help both people and search engines understand what you’re known for.
Blogs Help You Better Understand Your Audience
Reviewing blog data and understanding what content is the most popular can help you better understand your audience. By understanding what content people are reading on your website you can get a better idea about what pains they are trying to solve and what topics they are interested in.
Blogs Can Grow Your Email List
When you have a business blog, ideally you also want some kind of download or freebie that site visitors can opt into. If you do, a blog can grow your email list. When people visit your blog, they can provide an email to get your freebie. The trick with this is to align your freebie with your product. You want to make sure your offer attracts people who would be your ideal customer, then you want that item to help those people overcome a hurdle that would be stopping them from purchasing your product.
Blogs Make it Easier to Get Social Exposure
Lastly, blogs make it easier to get social shares and exposure on social networks. The type of content that naturally appears in blogs is more educational, conversational, and insightful. So, it naturally attracts much more social shares and attention than your standard website pages.
In Summary
Blogs are useful for all business websites. They allow you to connect with your community in a way you can’t with the rest of your site content.
Do you want to listen to this article? Here’s the podcast episode:
Google Analytics has released a new version that completely overhauls the system, called Google Analytics GA4. But, what is Google Analytics GA4? This update includes AI, increased security, and a new user interface. We’ll dig into what’s changing, what you need to know, and if it’s worth setting up on your website.
Now, before we dig into all the details, I want to share my experience when I initially used GA4. I’ve been using Google Analytics for well over a decade. Changes and updates to the system excite me, they don’t scare me. So, when I saw that I could upgrade my Google Analytics profile to the new GA4 system, I eagerly agreed.
Once the simple setup wizard was complete, I viewed my new GA4 profile. I was immediately overwhelmed. Everything was one-hundred percent different than what I was used to. I’m normally excited about change but this was so drastically different I didn’t even know where to begin. So I didn’t. I looked it over briefly, then decided I’d let this collect data but I’d go back to my Universal Analytics version and revisit this another day in the future.
Well, I let a few months go by, then I decided I really needed to figure this out because it’s the future of Google Analytics. I read through documentation and watched YouTube tutorials until I finally felt like I had a firm grasp on exactly how GA4 works. And now, I love it. These changes are very exciting and seems like a great new direction for Google Analytics. But, I do feel the transition has a bit of a learning curve to feel comfortable with it.
So, this article will summarize the most important findings that I discovered, explain simply yet clearly how to configure it for your website, and guide you through the transition so you aren’t stumbling to find your way like I was.
What is different about Google Analytics GA4?
GA4 consolidates data from websites and mobile apps, allowing cross-platform analysis. Instead of your website and mobile data living in two different Google Analytics properties, everything is combined in one place so you have a more complete picture of the customer journey.
Now, that doesn’t mean you have to have a mobile app to benefit from GA4. Even if you only have a website, there are still several new features you will benefit from. We will go through each of those in detail below.
AI to Fill in Data Gaps
The new GA4 version of Google Analytics includes Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help fill in the gaps. This will become more and more useful in the future. With security improvements such as GDPR and increased 3rd party cookie constraints our Google Analytics data is going to get more and more holes. AI allows Google Analytics to focus on a privacy-centric design. Using AI, Google Analytics is able to fill in those gaps so it’s easier to make sense of the data you have and continue to improve your website using data-driven decisions.
Focused on the Customer Journey
GA4 introduces a completely new User Interface (UI). The entire interface is now focused on giving marketers a better way to understand the complete customer journey. The primary navigation items now include the stages in a customer life cycle: Acquisition, Engagement, Monetization, and Retention.
Everything is Based on Events
Another big change in GA4, is now everything is based on events. And I mean everything. Even pageviews are now considered an event. And, GA4 events are completely different from Universal Analytics events.
In Universal Analytics, every event had to include a category and an action. Events had to be configured in one very particular and specific manner. In GA4, you have different attributes depending on the event.
In Google Analytics GA4 there are three types of events: automatically collected events, recommended events, and custom events.
Automatic Events
Automatically collected events do exactly that. They collect events automatically just from having GA4 configured on your website. There is no code that needs to be added for these events. Automatic events include items such as page title, screen resolution, and page referrer.
For websites (not mobile apps) there are additional automatic events that you can enable. They are called enhanced measurements. And they also require absolutely no code. They can track items such as page scroll, outbound link clicks, and file downloads.
To enable enhanced measurements, go to Admin > Data Streams. Click on your website stream. At the top you’ll see a toggle to enable enhanced measurements.
Recommended Events
GA4 also includes several recommended events. The recommended events are similar to the custom events, except Google has predefined event names and suggested attributes. It is not mandatory to use their recommended events. However, if these are events you wish to add regardless, it’s recommended to use their predefined naming convention so the system can use the data more intelligently. Using their names will allow Google Analytics to understand the data type and leverage the data in standard reports.
Some recommended events include login, sign up, and share. We’ll provide a step-by-step guide to setup recommended and custom events later in this article.
Custom Events
And lastly, are custom events. Custom events are events that aren’t included in the automatic or recommended events. Whenever possible, it’s preferable to use an automatic or recommended event. Custom events won’t show up in the standard reports so you’ll have to create custom reports to analyze the data.
Includes YouTube Measurement
Another automatic event GA4 is able to track, are metrics to measure YouTube videos. If you have embedded YouTube videos on your website you can now track video plays automatically. We’ll walk through how to set this up later in the article.
Easily Mark Anything As a Conversion
So, every item in GA4 is an event, and any event can be marked as a conversion. It’s as easy as reviewing a list of your events and enabling a toggle to identify that event as a conversion.
No More Bounce Rate
The bounce rate metric has been completely removed in GA4. Since GA4 encompasses both websites and mobile apps, bounce rate no longer made sense. Bounce rate only applied to websites.
Additionally, bounce rate didn’t apply to every website. Bounce rate was never an accurate metric for one-page websites and sites where the primary goal was an offline action such as a phone call.
GA4 includes AnalysisHub. This is a feature that’s been available in the paid Google Analytics 360 version, but has never been included in the free Google Analytics product.
AnalysisHub allows you to create custom reports. You can choose from a variety of charts including cohort, funnel, and path analysis. Then, you can drag and drop the metrics, dimensions, and filters that you want applied to the chart.
When you’re done the report with your configurations is saved so you can come back and easily refer back to it.
Debugging Included
And lastly, Google Analytics 4 includes a debugging interface. This combined with real-time metrics makes it much easier to test your changes and confirm everything is tracking properly. To find out exactly how the debugging feature works, continue to the end of the article.
Is Google Analytics GA4 Worth Setting Up?
The short answer is yes! You can have both GA4 and Universal Analytics set up. There’s no reason not to set up GA4 because it doesn’t do anything to interfere with your existing Universal Analytics set up.
If you’re setting up Google Analytics for the first time, GA4 is now the default configuration. Although the setup wizard includes a checkbox to easily add a Universal Analytics profile as well. For now, it’s best to set them both up.
Even if you don’t use it, adding it will allow GA4 to start gathering data. It won’t pull in any historical data so the data will start the day you set it up. It’s best to get it configured and collecting data so it’s there for you when you’re ready to use it.
Google is encouraging people to create a new Google Analytics 4 property alongside existing properties. That way, you can start gathering data and benefit from the latest innovations as they become available. While keeping the current implementation intact.
How to Add GA4 Events
There are a few different ways to add events in Google Analytics 4. You can add them directly in Google Analytics, through Google Tag Manager, or add code to your website. We’ll discuss how to add them through the Google Analytics interface and through Google Tag Manager.
If you’re adding a recommended event, make sure to refer to the Google documentation to get the event name and parameters.
Both Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager allow you to add an event without any code. If your event is simple, it’s going to be easiest to add it directly in Google Analytics. If your event requires special firing conditions or a variable then it will be best to set it up in Google Tag Manager.
Setting Up GA4 Events Directly in Google Analytics
To set up an event in Google Analytics:
Go to Events > All events > Create event.
Click Create.
Enter a Custom event name. Remember to check the Google predefined event tags to see if there is already a naming convention you should use for this event.
Then add in your matching conditions. The event will trigger when all of your matching conditions are true. So, if you want to track when people visit a particular page on your website so you can mark it as a conversion just select page_title as the parameter, then equals or contains as the operator, and then enter the title of the page you want to track as the value.
When finished, click Create.
Setting Up GA4 Events in Google Tag Manager
To demonstrate how to set up a GA4 event in Google Tag Manager, we’re going to walk through how to set up the predefined login recommended event.
To configure an event using Google Tag Manager:
In Google Tag Manager, navigate to Tags > New.
Click the pencil icon in the Tag Configuration box to configure the tag.
Under Choose tag type select Google Analytics: GA4 Event.
Under Configuration Tag select Google Analytics GA4 Configuration.
Under Event Name, enter the name for your event. Since we’re setting up a predefined event, we will name it the name specified by Google, which is login.
Then we enter in any parameters. On the same table we got the predefined event name, we can also see predefined parameters. For login, the parameter is method. So, under Parameter Name enter method. The value can vary depending on your site. It can either be static text or a custom variable. If your website has multiple login types such as logging in via Google, via Facebook, or email then your parameter should be a variable. Since our site only has one login type, we simply entered in email as the value.
Next you need to configure the Triggering section. Click on the pencil icon in the Triggering box to choose a trigger.
Select an existing trigger from the list or click the + icon to create a new one.
There are multiple ways you can choose to trigger your login (or any) event. The best option just depends on how your website is configured. It can be based on a button click, a form submission, or a pageview. For our site, I decided to trigger it based on pageview.
I created a page view trigger type that triggers on some page views.
I specified that the Page Path equals the page URL that people see when first logged in. I also specified that the Referrer contains the login page URL. Both of these need to be true to trigger the event. (Page Path and Referrer are both built-in variables but make sure that they are enabled in the Variables section.)
Once your trigger has been added click Save.
Then Preview your changes (we’ll talk about this more under the debugging section) and Submit.
How to Mark an Event as a Conversion
To mark the event as a conversion:
Go to Events > All events.
You can click the toggle under the Mark as conversion column to set any event as a conversion.
If the event you want to mark as a conversion isn’t yet displayed under the events list, go to Events > Conversions > New conversion event. Follow the prompts to add your event as a conversion through that menu instead.
How to Track Embedded YouTube Videos in GA4
Tracking YouTube videos embedded on your website is a built-in function with Google Analytics 4. However, depending on how your website is configured, there still could be a few adjustments you need to make before you start seeing the data come through.
Enable Video Engagement Enhanced Measurement
First, you need to make sure the enhanced measurement for Video engagement is enabled. To do this, go to Admin > Data Streams and click on your web stream. At the top you’ll see a toggle to enable enhanced measurement. Once that is enabled, click the gear icon to confirm video engagement is enabled.
Make Sure JS API is Enabled
Next, you need to make sure your embedded YouTube videos have jsapi enabled. By default, this value isn’t included in the iFrame embed code, which disables it. If you have this value but it is set to 0, that also means it is disabled. To enable it, append ?enablejsapi=1 to the end of your YouTube URL.
Make Sure YouTube API Loads with Initial Page Load
Lastly, you need to make sure the YouTube API loads when the page is loaded. If the system doesn’t see a YouTube video when initially loading the page it won’t activate and track the video engagement metrics on that page.
The instances where this would happen is if your video plays in a lightbox modal or appears in a lazy load. If you can’t see the video from the first page load, if an additional action is required to load the video then your video metrics won’t be tracked by default.
To fix this, add the YouTube API to the page load. The easiest way to add this is with Google Tag Manager. Add a Custom HTML tag with the following HTML:
<script src="https://www.youtube.com/iframe_api">
Then, set it to trigger on all pages.
To test it out, continue on to the debugging section.
How to Use the DebugView and Test Configurations
To use the DebugView in Google Analytics 4, you have to also use Tag Assistant. You’ll use Tag Assistant to load your website in a new window, and actions you perform in that instance of your site will be monitored in DebugView.
Tag Assistant is the same thing that launches when you click Preview in Google Tag Manager. So, if you are previewing a change in Tag Manager you can open DebugView in Google Analytics to get additional information about the change you’re testing.
When you add a new event, you can test it by performing the action that should trigger the event on your website using Tag Assistant. Then you can look at the Tag Assistant interface, Google Analytics DebugView, or the Google Analytics realtime report to confirm it is tracking properly and pulling in the expected data.
In Summary
Hopefully this gave you the information and confidence you need to get started with Google Analytics 4. If it’s still a bit overwhelming, just start by setting it up, and worry about fine-tuning it later. You can rest easy knowing it’s gathering data and go back to using Universal Analytics for now.
Do you want to listen to this article? Here’s the podcast episode:
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