Track Clicked Links in Google Analytics - Page-Level Insights

Understanding Visitor Link Clicks with Google Analytics

It's common to question whether alterations to your site's navigation impact visitor engagement, specifically link click-through rates. Perhaps you've introduced related links at the page's end, or strategically placed a link within the content itself. Determining which links are most frequently selected from category pages can be incredibly insightful.

Fortunately, Google Analytics provides a straightforward and visually intuitive method for achieving this. Begin by selecting the desired date range using the calendar located in the lower-left corner of the interface.

Accessing the Site Overlay Feature

Navigate to Content Optimization, then Navigational Analysis, and finally select Site Overlay. This will present a view of your webpage within a window.

Pay attention to the address bar, as it allows you to input any URL from your website and view that specific page in overlay mode. You can also directly click through the links on your site, examining each one individually within the overlay.

For demonstration purposes, I chose to examine the VMware category to assess its performance.

Analyzing Link Performance

My VMware-related articles consistently rank among the most popular on my site, despite a comparatively smaller number of articles within that category. The visual representation displays a small bar chart indicating the performance of each link.

Clicking on any of these overlay graphs reveals more detailed information regarding the number of clicks each link has received.

In this instance, I had recently updated my original VMware Tools article with a link directing users to a guide for the newer VMware version. I wanted to ascertain whether this new link was successfully guiding visitors to the correct resource.

Detailed Click Data

Upon clicking the graph, it expanded to reveal that, over the past week, 202 users had clicked through to the updated guide. This confirms that visitors are being directed to the appropriate information.

Providing current and accurate information is a priority, and this data assures me that users aren't encountering outdated content.