Google merges Analytics and Webmaster accounts | Digital Clicks Blog
Want to hear a great little bit of news that has flown under a lot of people’s radar? Google Webmaster Tools reports are now available within Google Analytics. I know, hardly the biggest news this month, but it is an extremely handy update and is a definite timesaver for any internet marketing company. It is particularly useful for SEO operatives as it combines two of the most commonly used tools into a workspace; good news indeed. The integration comes four months after Google Analytics launched a pilot programme that connected the two services, and now after the initial testing is over, every user can link the two accounts together. So how do you set this up? Follow these steps: First, log in to your Webmaster Tools account. On the home page, click on the “Manage site” button for the website you wish to link and choose the “Google Analytics property” option. You will be greeted with a page where you can manage your associations between the two services. Click save, and you will be presented with a confirmation box. Choose OK and move on. There you go; it’s as simple as that. If you have done it correctly, the two accounts will be connected, and your reports will be displayed in Google Analytics. Currently, there are only three types of reports using Webmaster Tools data that are available. The first is the queries report, which provides useful information on the terms searched for in Google where your website has been displayed in the results. The data includes the number of impressions for each term, the clicks, the average position in the SERP's, and the click-through rate it receives. That is most of the essential data right there. The second report is about landing pages; it includes a list of the most popular web content that acted as a gateway to your website and uses the same metrics as the previous report. The final report is the geographical summary report. This report simply lists the top countries from which your visitors have originated and includes the data for the number of impressions, clicks, and CTR. This data, while useful, is hardly comprehensive; however, it is a step in the right direction, and you must remember that this merging of the two tools is still in its infancy. While I don’t believe that analytics will ever quite replace the need for any digital marketing company to use Webmaster Tools, I do think that there will likely be an expansion to integrate a larger chunk of this information into Analytics.