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How to Reference Google Analytics

Cody Schneider••8 min read

Trying to figure out if your SEO efforts are actually reaching and resonating with people in London? Google Analytics has all the clues you need, showing you not just who is visiting your site, but where they're coming from and what they care about most. This guide will walk you through exactly how to use Google Analytics to measure and improve your SEO performance specifically for your London-based audience.

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First Things First: Connect Google Analytics and Google Search Console

Before you can get any meaningful SEO data, you need to connect your Google Analytics property with your Google Search Console (GSC) account. Think of them as two sides of the same coin. GA tells you what people do on your website, while GSC tells you how people find your website on Google search.

Hooking them up is essential because it pulls your GSC data - like the exact search queries people use to find you - directly into your Analytics reports. Without this link, your SEO analysis will have a massive blind spot.

Here’s how to do it:

  1. Log in to your Google Analytics account.
  2. Click on 'Admin' (the gear icon) in the bottom-left corner.
  3. Under the 'Property' column, scroll down to 'Product integrations' and click on 'Search Console links.'
  4. Click the blue 'Link' button.
  5. If you’ve already set up GSC with the same Google account, you should see your site listed. Choose the account you want to link, confirm the web stream, and hit submit.

Once linked (it can take a day or two for data to appear), you'll unlock a new set of reports in the 'Acquisition' section. This simple step is non-negotiable for anyone serious about improving their SEO.

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How to See Who's Visiting You From London

Now that you're set up, let's find out if you're reaching your local target audience. The geographic report is your best friend here. It shows you precisely where your website visitors are located, from the country level right down to the city.

For a London-based business, this is gold. Are your marketing efforts targeting Camden paying off? Are you getting surprise traffic from Croydon? This report tells you.

Finding the Geographic Report in GA4:

  • In the left-hand menu, navigate to Reports > User > User attributes.
  • Click on Demographic details.
  • The default view will likely be by country. You can change this primary dimension by clicking the dropdown arrow next to 'Country' and selecting 'City'.

Now you'll see a list of cities where your website visitors are located. You can use the search bar above the table to filter for "London" to isolate that traffic. What can you do with this information?

  • Validate Your Targeting: If you're a local plumber targeting boroughs like Islington and Hackney, you should see those areas pop up. If most of your traffic is coming from Manchester or outside the UK, you might have an issue with your keyword targeting.
  • Spot New Opportunities: Are you suddenly getting a lot of traffic from a specific part of London where you don't advertise? That could be a sign of organic demand or a new market opportunity to explore.
  • Analyze Engagement: Alongside the city, you'll see metrics like Engaged sessions and Engagement rate. Are London users more engaged than users from other cities? A high engagement rate suggests you're attracting the right kind of traffic. If it's low, they might be landing on your homepage and realizing you don't serve their area.

Uncovering Your Top London Keywords

Ever wonder what people in London are actually typing into Google to find you? Thanks to the GSC integration you set up earlier, you can find out.

Understanding these keywords is a game-changer. It helps you see what's currently working and which terms you could focus on to attract even more qualified local traffic.

Finding the Google Search Queries Report:

  1. In the left-hand menu, go to Reports > Acquisition > Acquisition overview.
  2. Scroll down and find the card titled 'Google Organic Search Traffic'. Click 'View Google Organic Search queries' at the bottom of that card.
  3. This takes you to a detailed report showing the search terms (queries) that drove clicks and impressions to your website from Google.

But how do we filter this for just our London audience?

Unfortunately, GA4 doesn't currently allow you to directly filter this query report by city in the main interface. Annoying, we know! This is where you might need to use Looker Studio (for a more advanced GSC dashboard) or simply cross-reference your findings. For now, look through the list for keywords with local intent.

Look for terms that explicitly mention London or its boroughs, like:

  • "best italian restaurant soho"
  • "emergency plumber london"
  • "seo agency near shoreditch"

Pay close attention to the clicks and impressions for these terms. High impressions but low clicks might mean your title tag and meta description aren't compelling enough to earn the click, even if you’re ranking.

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Measuring What Matters: Setting Up Local Conversion Goals

Getting traffic is great, but traffic doesn't pay the bills. For a local London business, a conversion could be someone filling out a contact form, clicking your phone number, or getting directions to your shop. You must track these actions to know if your SEO is actually generating business.

In GA4, these actions are tracked as 'Conversion Events'. Let's walk through setting one up for a 'thank you' page submission, which is one of the easiest and most reliable goals to track.

How to Set Up a "Contact Form Submission" Conversion:

Let's assume when someone fills out your contact form, they are redirected to a page like yourwebsite.com/thank-you.

  1. Go to Admin > Data display > Events in your GA4 property account.
  2. Click 'Create event' and then 'Create' again.
  3. Give your new event a name. Names should be unique and use underscores instead of spaces, like generate_lead or form_submission.
  4. Under 'Matching conditions', set the condition to be:
  5. Click 'Create'.
  6. Now, wait a day for the new event to start collecting data. Once it appears in your 'Events' list, go to Admin > Data display > Conversions.
  7. Click 'New conversion event' and enter the exact name you created (e.g., generate_lead), then hit 'Save'.

That's it! Now, whenever someone lands on your thank-you page after filling out a form, GA4 will count it as a conversion. You can see how many conversions you’re getting from London, specifically in the same City report we looked at earlier. A location driving lots of traffic but zero conversions is a major red flag.

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Find Your 'Money' Pages for London SEO

Not all pages on your site are created equal. Some bring in far more organic traffic than others. Identifying these powerhouse pages helps you understand what content is resonating with your audience.

The Landing Page report in GA4 shows you the first page a user 'lands' on when they arrive at your site from a specific channel, like organic search.

Finding the Landing Pages Report:

  1. Go to Reports > Engagement > Landing page.
  2. You will see a list of pages with metrics like Users, Sessions, Engagement rate, and Conversions.
  3. To see data from just Google Search, click the 'Add filter' button at the top of the report. Build a filter where Session source / medium exactly matches google / organic.

Now, you're looking at your top-performing pages for SEO. Analyze this list:

  • Are the pages you expect to be a top performer there? If your 'East London Services' page isn't getting much organic love, it might need more optimization.
  • What pages are converting? Sort the table by the 'Conversions' column. This instantly highlights which content is effectively driving business goals. These are your most valuable pages. You should work on getting even more Londoners to these pages.
  • What kind of content performs best? Are blog posts about "The Top 5 ____ in London" bringing in traffic? Or are your service pages for specific boroughs the winners? This helps inform your future content strategy.

Final Thoughts

Using Google Analytics for your London SEO doesn't need to be complicated. By linking Search Console, checking your City reports, analyzing your keywords, tracking conversions, and identifying your top pages, you'll have a clear and powerful view of what's working and where you can improve.

We know that navigating different reports and filtering data in Google Analytics can feel cumbersome and time-consuming. That's why we created Graphed. Instead of clicking through menus and trying to cross-reference data, you can connect your Google Analytics account and simply ask questions in plain English like, "show me a dashboard of my organic traffic and conversions from London this quarter," and get a live, automated dashboard in seconds. It pulls everything together for you, so you can spend less time wrangling data and more time growing your business.

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