wangarific

Here’s a slick little tip I learned by reading Avinash Kaushik’s analytics blog, download all of your search keywords into a text file and paste them into Wordle. The rest of the post is a fantastic read on how to create more actionable custom reports in Google Analytics but this is the easiest and quickest way to get a fast handle on your search traffic. This also makes it something you’re more likely to do, rather than put in the “do this later” pile that will eventually get ignored.

Keyword List in Google Analytics

To get a list of your keywords, log into Google Analytics and click on Traffic Sources in the left sidebar. Then click on the Keywords item in the sub-menu. Now go to the bottom of the keyword table and have it show 500 rows.

In the main menu, above the graph and the “Keywords” title, there should be an export button with a triangle next to it. Click that to reveal a menu that lists PDF, XML, CSV, CSV for Excel, and TSV as options. I chose CSV, clicking will save the file to your computer. Open it and scroll down until you read the keyword list. Now just copy the keywords and paste them in Wordle.

Compare With RSS

Once you’ve done that, another fun comparison is to enter your RSS feed to see how that chart differs. One gives you an indication of what you’ve written recently, one gives you a better idea of what has performed well in search engines.

If you want a little more fun, Juice Analytics definitely has two really slick visualizations (again, hat tip to Kaushik and in the same post!). It uses the Google Analytics API so you’ll have to have a Google Analytics account.