k SEO performance using this Looker Studio template

Since I started in SEO, I have envied the agility and performance monitoring of my paid media colleagues.

SEOs have traditionally had to be patient and do a lot manual work to obtain actionable performance metrics.

Inspired by the Looker Studio dashboard created by our Paid Media team, I put on my sleeve and built one for SEO.

My team has benefited greatly from the Looker Studio Dashboard. I would like to show others how they can build their own.

This article will cover the most important insights and benefits from the report as well as the step-bystep process of building the dashboard.

The Looker Studio Report’s most important insights

The report provides an overview of SEO traffic in real-time, and allows you to segment the data (for example, brand vs. not-for-profit).

You can create separate reports by geography (e.g. U.S. or international) and compare dates.

Connecting SEO properties (channels pages etc.) to acquisition will provide the most valuable insights. to acquisition.

• What pages or content was useful?
• Where are the traffic increases/drops?
• What is the most common way to sign up?

You can also compare SEO to other marketing channels, such as paid and direct (but you can also separate out PR if that is done separately).

This is a great tool to determine where traffic and conversions come from. With enough data you can decide where to focus more on optimization and where to invest.

Report: The most important benefits

SEOs are well aware that tracking their performance and impact can lead to a rather murky narrative.

This discipline is more reliant on the scientific method (hypothesize, measure, test) than other channels that have tighter input/output cycle.

SEO is a mysterious field. Only the data and tests can tell you what’s going on. It’s important to have the right data.

This report allows you to use and present the data closest to its source, which can be incredibly helpful when presenting it to internal stakeholders or clients, checking with your morning cup of coffee, or helping to dictate a long-term strategy.

Connecting directly to Google Analytics and Search Console is another benefit of using Looker rather than third-party tools.

Looker is a great tool for our Google data. I’m certainly not promoting Google. The software comes with two big bonuses:

• It’s free.
• You can easily share your work with colleagues and clients without having to log in.

It’s easy to get feedback from SEO stakeholders and take action quickly.

A shared reference point allows for richer discussions, and it gives clients a better understanding of what you are doing.

The biggest benefit is that you and your client will have more time for strategy and idea sharing once the report has been set up and automatically updated.

Let’s assume you are convinced that you need your own version.

How to create a report

Open Looker Studio first and create a new report.

Connect Search Console data:

Click URL Impression and then Web in order to connect the data.

Click Time Series to get an overview of the traffic.

Select Date(Year/Month). Select Clicks under Metrics.

Select Custom under Default Data range and .

Click this arrow to bring up a monthly calendar side-by-side. Scroll down to the bottom to select Advance.

You can adjust your ranges according to your preferences. Compare the last two months, for example:

• Choose today and then less. 2 month is the start date.
• Choose today and then minus. Then 1 month as an end date.

Play around with Looker Studio to find your favorite lookback window.

Add a table beneath your graph for more nuance in your reporting.

Drag both Query and Landing Page into Dimensions by going to Chart > Setup.

Drag Average Position, CTR, and Impressions to the Chart > Setup Metrics.

You can also adjust the pagination of footer pages (under Chart) and rows per page.

The chart can be expanded and contracted horizontally or vertically by dragging it manually.

Let’s make this even more interesting by comparing brand metrics with non-brand metrics.

Go to Setup, Filter, and Add an additional filter.

Select Exclude and Contains. You can also select whatever you want to match your brand (in this case “jordan” from Jordan Digital Marketing). Save your work.

You can filter out non-brands to view performance over time.

Click out of the filter to see all traffic. Note that adding a filter to show the results of your branding is also a good idea.

You can create dashboards to compare brands, non-brands, blended products, side-byside comparisons and more.

Let’s now add a date range control.

Date range comparison.

You can add any date ranges and see the performance of your data over time.

You can add a chart to your report using Add A Chart> Scoring.

Drag the box to the top.

Note : When you open your report your scorecard will automatically fill in the date range that you have selected (although you may change this at any time).

Custom date ranges are only valid for working sessions, whereas controls are displayed by default for all users upon login.

Scorecards can be pinned for different metrics, and you can select comparison periods such as year-overyear, month-overmonth, etc. If you wish, you can add non-brand filters for analyzing non-brand trends. The interface is incredibly flexible.

I would like to add another step to my reporting: signups.

You can add Google Analytics to your data sources by clicking Add Data > Google Analytics. (If you are capturing signup data with GA, this is the way to do it)

Note : Because everyone names their events in GA, (in this case “generate_lead”) you will need to cross-reference GA to make sure you are including the correct metric on your reports. This is not a standard metric such as clicks or impressions, but a custom-named metric.

Write down the name of your custom metric.

Click Event count in your report to add a metric:

You need to now tell Looker the actual event that you are tracking.

Click Chart > Setup, then Add a Filter. Then click Create a Filter (blue box in the bottom column). This will specify the custom event that you have just searched for on GA, and GA will automatically populate as the data source of your new filter.

Select Include Event Name Equal (=) and enter your event name.

You should be able to see the number of events for the same dates in GA4 by going back to the report. (If not, double-check your event name.)

If you want to compare the performance of events over time, add another date range control.

Let’s now check the source of each of these events. Click on Create a chart and Pie.

Select Session default grouping and Event count under Setup.

This will give you a pie graph showing the breakdown of all events.

The pie chart will show you the custom events that are driven by each channel.

You can then create a chart with dimensions such as page paths to track conversion journeys. This will, for example, show you how many visitors to your blog convert over a certain time period.

You should now have a good idea of how to slice and dice data, compare dates, add nuance and segment by brand or non-brand. Each person can interact with the report as they please.

What I haven’t shown is something that I am happy to leave to you and your company: how to jazz up the visuals in the report by using labels, colors, etc. I think our report looks great, but don’t assume you are here because of my design skills.

My final piece of advice is to get started, familiarize yourself, experiment, and then workshop your results with other stakeholders. You may be surprised at what you discover. Happy reporting!

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