Get & Track Google Rank Position Data in Analytics

Congratulations! You’re only 3 steps away from tracking Google keyword rank data in analytics!

Inspired by the following questions:

• “Is is possible to get the rank or position that our site showed up on the SERPs for a particular keyword when someone clicked to visit our site?”
• “How do you see where your site ranks for different keywords?”
• “Do you know how to track keyword rankings in Google analytics?”
• “I use Microsite Master’s rank tracker to know where I rank for specific keywords, but I want to know where I rank for the keywords that I’m not tracking which also drive traffic to my site… can we get this data in analytics?”

To all of you I say “YES! – See the tutorial below…”

[HOW TO] Parse Google keyword rank in Google Analytics

You will need:

• Basic understanding of Google Analytics
• Administrative access to the analytics account you wish to do with this

Follow the steps below to get search engine result page (SERP) keyword rank positioning data into analytics.

Step 1: Create a new profile

Because you don’t want to ruin your other data

From within the admin area of the Google Analytics property, create a new profile.

Call it whatever you please.. maybe something like: “Keyword rankings”

Step 2: Create a custom filter

This is the secret sauce.

From within the admin area of the new web property, create a custom filter. Use the following specifications:

Filter Name: Specific Google Rank
Filter Type: Custom filter

Advanced…
Field A -> Extract A: Campaign Term — (.*)
Field B -> Extract B: Referral — (?|&)cd=([^&]*)
Output To -> Constructor: User Defined — $A1 (rank: $B2)

Step 3: Wait.. check your data!

Not retroactive: Does NOT work for historic data, sorry!

Wait an hour, two, twenty-four.. enough time for Google Analytics to receive a Google / Organic keyword visit…

Visit Audience-> Custom -> User Defined to see your data!

You can create custom reports & advanced segments with the keyword ranking data, just like you would do for any other dimension 🙂

You can expand on this as you please, but that’s how simple it is to track rank data with Google Analytics…
Now if we could only figure out a way to get that “not provided” keyword data back!

If you’re into search engine optimization, you certainly find the data table above interesting.

If you can’t tell, the (not provided) keywords are landing on our blog posts & leaving after they learn or get what they’re looking for.  Now look at the pages/visit for the “webmechanix” keyword – a lot more engagement there, huh?

Please share & leave your comments below.. then…

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