How to Do a Google Analytics Audit for

A properly configured Google Analytics account is your single source of truth for SEO performance, but only if you can trust the data it's showing you. An audit ensures you’re making strategic decisions based on accurate information, not flawed metrics that could be leading you down the wrong path. This guide will walk you through a step-by-step Google Analytics audit framework specifically for checking your SEO health, with practical examples for businesses targeting a London-based audience.

Verifying Your GA4 Setup and Configuration

First things first, you need to ensure your Google Analytics 4 property is set up correctly. Faulty initial setup is the root cause of most data integrity issues, so it's the perfect place to start.

Check Your Tracking Code Installation

The first check is fundamental: is your GA4 tracking code present on every single page of your website? Inconsistent tracking is common, especially on sites with different templates (like a blog, main pages, and a separate checkout or booking system).

• How to check: Use Google's Tag Assistant browser extension. Navigate through key pages of your site - homepage, a service page, a blog post, a contact page - and check if the GA4 tag is firing correctly and without errors.
• What to look for: You want to see the correct Google Tag ID firing once on each page load. If it’s firing multiple times, you’re over-counting pageviews and sessions. If it’s not firing on certain pages, you have holes in your data collection.

Confirm Accurate Data Streams

GA4 uses "data streams" to collect information. For most websites, you'll have a main "Web" stream. If you also have an iOS or Android app, you'll have separate streams for those. Ensure the correct stream is connected to your asset and is configured properly.

• How to check: In your GA4 property, go to Admin > Data Streams. Click on your web stream and make sure the URL is your website's primary domain. Check the "Enhanced measurement" settings to ensure key interactions like scrolls, outbound clicks, and site search are being tracked automatically.

Filter Out Internal and Spam Traffic

Visits from your own team, your developers, or freelance marketers can inflate your traffic and skew engagement metrics. If your team is based in a Central London office or working from home across the capital, their activity can muddy the data of your actual customers. It’s crucial to filter this out.

• How to filter internal traffic: Go to Admin > Data Streams > Configure tag settings > Show all > Define internal traffic. Here, you can create a rule to exclude traffic from specific IP addresses. You can find your IP address by searching "what is my IP address" on Google. Give it a descriptive name like "Holborn Office IP" or "Remote Team IPs".
• How to filter unwanted referrals: Sometimes, spammy domains send bot traffic to your site, clouding your referral data. In the same "Configure tag settings" section, go to "List unwanted referrals" and add any domains that are sending you obvious bot traffic.

Assessing Your SEO Data Integrity

Once you’ve confirmed the basic setup is sound, the next step is to ensure your most important SEO-related data is flowing into Google Analytics cleanly and accurately.

Link Google Search Console to GA4

This is non-negotiable for anyone serious about SEO. Google Search Console (GSC) provides user query data - the actual keywords people use to find you. Linking GSC to GA4 lets you analyze this invaluable search data alongside GA4's behavioral metrics, all in one place.

• How to check the link: In GA4, go to Admin > Product links > Search Console links. You should see your GSC property listed there. If not, follow the prompts to link it immediately.
• Why it matters for London searchers: This lets you see if Londoners are finding your "artisan bakery in Hackney" page by searching for "sourdough Hackney," "best coffee E9," or other local-intent keywords. Without this link, you're flying blind.

Test Your Key Conversion Events

All the organic traffic in the world means nothing if it doesn't lead to business results. Are you tracking form submissions, newsletter sign-ups, or demo requests as "conversion events" in GA4?

• How to test: Use GA4's "DebugView" (found under Admin) in one window while you complete a conversion action in another. For example, fill out your own contact form. You should see the generate_lead or corresponding {event_name} fire in DebugView.
• Example: An estate agent in Islington would want to mark "Property viewing requested" as a conversion. An independent bookstore in Notting Hill would want clicks on their "Buy on Bookshop.org" affiliate link tracked as a conversion event. Audit this to ensure your business goals are reflected in your analytics.

Deep Dive into Organic Traffic Performance

With a clean and validated setup, you can now trust the data enough to start your SEO-specific analysis. This part of the audit is where you find actionable insights.

Analyze Organic Search as a Channel

This is your high-level view. How is your SEO generally performing over time? Are you seeing growth, decline, or stagnation?

• How to analyze: Go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition. Change the Primary Dimension to "Session default channel group". Here, you can see how "Organic Search" performs against other channels like "Paid Search" and "Organic Social". Adjust the date range to compare performance month-over-month or year-over-year. A positive trend in Organic Search sessions and engaged sessions is a great sign.

Identify Your Top-Performing SEO Landing Pages

Which pages are pulling their weight and acting as the main "front doors" to your site from search engines?

• How to analyze: In the same Traffic acquisition report, click the "+" sign next to "Session default channel group" and add "Landing page + query string" as a secondary dimension. Then, filter the report to only show the "Organic Search" channel group. You'll now have a list of your top organic landing pages.
• What to look for: Identify your workhorse pages. Is your top page an informative blog post, a core service page, or your homepage? Do these pages have high engagement rates and drive conversions? Conversely, which important pages are getting little to no organic traffic? This right here is your content optimization priority list.

Review Keyword Data with Search Console Reports

Now that GSC is linked, you can dig into the queries driving traffic. Within GA4 reports, look for the "Search Console" card collections (you may have to add it from the Library).

• How to analyze: Under Reports > Search Console > Queries, you'll see a list of actual search queries linking to your site, along with impressions, clicks, CTR, and average position. Look for queries with high impressions but low click-through rates (CTR). These are "opportunity keywords" where improving your title tag and meta description could result in a quick traffic win.

Auditing Local SEO Performance in London

For any service-based business, retailer, restaurant, or consultant in London, analyzing location-based data is critical. You need to know not just that people are finding you, but that the right people are finding you.

Analyze Traffic by Geographic Location

Google Analytics lets you zoom right into your audience's location, from the country level all the way down to the city. Is your audience predominantly in the UK? London? A specific part of London?

• How to analyze: Go to Reports > User > User attributes > Details. Change the "User attribute" dimension dropdown to "Geolocation: City." You can then use the search bar to filter for "London."
• Drill deeper: Add "Region" as a secondary dimension. While it won't always map perfectly to boroughs, you can often see breakouts for Greater London vs. the City of London and get clues about user location. For a more granular view, developers can configure custom events that capture user postcode data with consent.

Evaluate Locally-Focused Landing Pages

Does your business serve specific areas? Perhaps you’re a photographer specializing in weddings in Richmond or a PT covering South West London. Do your dedicated landing pages for these areas get organic traffic?

• How to analyze: Go back to your landing pages report (Traffic acquisition, filtered by Organic Search with "Landing page + query string" as the dimension). Search for the URL slugs of your location-specific pages (e.g., "/SW-london-personal-training/"). Do they appear? If not, they likely aren't ranking and need an SEO boost.

Track Engagement and Conversions from Local Users

Are your London-based users more engaged than users from other areas? Do a higher percentage of them convert?

• How to analyze: In the Geolocation report, add "Conversions" and "Engagement rate" to your metrics comparison. Are London users more likely to complete a goal? This justifies further investment in local SEO ads and content campaigns targeted at a specific Greater London audience.

Turning Your Audit Findings into Action

An audit is just data collection until you use it to form a strategy. Your analysis should result in a clear, prioritized to-do list.

• Content Gaps: You discovered your key services aren't represented in your top 20 organic landing pages. Action: Start a plan to build out more in-depth content around those services.
• CTR Opportunities: You found keywords with lots of impressions but few clicks. Action: Rewrite the meta titles and descriptions for those pages to make them more compelling in search results.
• Local Disconnect: You realized a key landing page for "West London corporate events" gets most of its traffic from Manchester. Action: Revise the on-page content and internal linking to better align with the West London audience and consider targeted digital PR in that area.
• Technical Alarms: A top organic landing page has an unusually low engagement rate and average session duration. Action: Investigate its page speed and mobile-friendliness. Commuters on the Tube won't wait for a slow-loading page.

Final Thoughts

Conducting this kind of SEO audit in Google Analytics moves you from guessing to knowing. It removes assumption and gives you a concrete, data-backed plan to improve your organic visibility, attract more qualified traffic, and ultimately achieve your business goals.

Regularly performing this kind of analysis is a common pain point - it’s time-consuming to manually build reports across different platforms just to get a clear picture. Here at Graphed, we’ve made connecting to sources like Google Analytics and Search Console practically instant. You can just ask for "a dashboard showing my top organic landing pages in London with conversion rates," and our AI-powered analyst builds it for you in real-time, letting you get straight to the insights instead of wasting time wrangling data. You can explore a simpler, faster way to analyze your performance and get started with Graphed for free.