Link Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics

It is now possible to link your site in Google Webmaster Tools to Google Analytics. By linking the two products you are able to see which sites are linking to your site. You might be saying 'So what, I can already see that in Google Analytics!', but it does give you some very quick insights for improving your organic optimization (SEO).

Firstly, you need to get Google Webmaster Tools linked to Google Analytics, if you have already done this then feel free to skip to the end of this post.

Step 1: Select the site in Google Webmaster Tools

Login into Google Webmaster Tools, click 'manage' for the site you would like to link to Google Analytics and then click 'Google Analytics profile'.

Step 2: Select the appropriate Google Analytics profile

Make sure you select your primary Google Analytics profile for the particular website you have selected. Then click 'save'.

Your Google Webmaster Tools site profile should now be linked to Google Analytics.

Get quick SEO insights from within Google Webmaster Tools

You will now be able to see which sites are linking to your site and even which pages within your site that they are linking to. All of this data is also available within your Google Analytics reports, but the data is quicker to browse through.

The data that you can't get inside your Google Analytics reports is that you can actually see the keywords used within the links that are directing people to your site. This is really valuable information, the example below shows you what you don't want to see;

I am not sure about you, but I am not interested in ranking for 'disclaimer privacy policy & legal'.

If you do see something like this, don't panic, it means you have room for improvement. You will need to develop a list of keywords that you want to optimize for and start getting those keywords in the links to your website.

If you have been doing SEO then you can also browse the full list by clicking on 'more' and you can start to compare this to the individual sites that link to you and identify any sites that aren't using your keywords.