- Show pages most visited by searchers for a time period
- Clicking the URL shows the queries the page ranks for
If you sort your top pages by clicks, you can see that, for a given date range, these are the pages most visited by searchers, whereas before we saw the query that brought our site the most traffic, now we are seeing the pages most visited by searchers.
It is obvious that you want to investigate these pages to make sure that they are clear, well-written, and providing easy way for a visitor to further navigate your site, buy your product or otherwise convert.
Google Analytics helps you understand the onsite behavior of the user. You can gain a better sense of what users are doing on these pages through Google Analytics.
Next, you can sort "top pages" by impressions. Because these pages are often shown to users in search results, it is likely that Google considers them relevant pages.
Given that these Top Pages are valuable from a search engine perspective, you can use them to link to your high quality but lower ranking or less featured pages for more visibility for users and search engines.
Steps to optimize your existing top pages:
- Accept that top pages for users and Google might not be what you originally imagined.
- Check that all Top Pages are user-friendly and perhaps even conversion-friendly.
- Implement the following linking strategy: Consider utilizing your top pages to internally link to your high quality but lower ranking pages.
Search Queries and ranking are an important step in bringing qualified visitors to your site, and meeting your business goals. Remember they are not the only step.
For example, better marketing can lead to more searchers looking for your product or service; good content can upsell to your visitors. By providing a great user experience, this can bring direct referrals and repeat customers.