Track SEO Rankings with Google Analytics

So, there are many ways to tracking keyword rankings. There are paid tools like Web Position-which was recently blocked by Google for a short period. There are free tools like Exact Factor - but the tool is limited to 9 keywords it can track. Market Samurai, one of the hottest SEO tools available is also a viable option for tracking keyword rankings. Because of these reasons as well as others, it makes sense to track rankings at the source - Google Analytics. I originally found the idea behind tracking seo rankings with google analytics at Yoast.com but decided to repost with some additional detail based on the questions I had while trying to implement.

So, the first steps are to setup a filter in Google Analytics. There will be a total of 3 filters needed to implement this Google Analytics SEO tracking. Filter 1 and 2 will take care of filtering out everything other than organic traffic. The 3rd will provide the tracking filter. This is important: you will also have to create a new profile to apply these filters to otherwise it will screw up your main profile's tracking! Now, onto the filters!

Filter 1: Google Analytics SEO Keyword Tracking

This filter will allow only Organic traffic into the profile. Create a new filter, choose filter type "custom filter". Then choose the "include" option, set the filter field on "Campaign Medium" and the filter pattern on "organic". A screenshot is below:

Filter 2: Google Analytics SEO Keyword Tracking

The second filter tells Google Analytics to capture traffic from Google, Yahoo and MSN. Create a new filter, choose filter type "custom filter". Then choose the "include" option, set the filter field on "Campaign Source" and filter pattern on "googleliveyahoo".

Filter 3: Google Analytics SEO Keyword Tracking

Set up the 3rd filter as an advanced filter like so-->


The SEO Keyword Ranking Results:

After a while the "User Defined" report will look like this (ignore the language):

What you see are not the actual rankings, but the number of the first result of the page the keyword was on. So when you see 20, it means the keyword was on the third page, and a 50 means the sixth page. (Yahoo and Live Search will report 21 and 51 in stead of 20 and 50).

There were a number of questions in the comments surrounding about not seeing a number but only "(page: ): it means the keyword was on the first page - a good thing:)

Got any additional tips? Suggestions? Share in the comments!

You can also read about advanced 3rd party PPC tracking with Google Analytics, Google Analytis 101 and 10 tips to get the most out of Google Analytics for additional tips.