Google Analytics vs. Yoast

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Analytics
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Google Analytics is perhaps the best-known web analytics product and, as a free product, it has massive adoption. Although it lacks some enterprise-level features compared to its competitors in the space, the launch of the paid Google Analytics Premium edition seems likely to close the gap.
$0
per month
Yoast
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Yoast offers a set of tools developed by Joost de Valk and team, founder of yoast.com and Wordpress enthusiast. These tools are designed to help content rank higher and are subsumed under the Yoast Complete pack, which includes Video SEO for rank climbing with embedded videos in a Wordpress site, WooCommerce SEO for the WP ecommerce plugin, News SEO for rank climbing in Google news, Local SEO for (as the name implies) climbing in local listings with more complete information so can be located…
$0
per year
Pricing
Google AnalyticsYoast
Editions & Modules
Google Analytics 360
150,000
per year
Google Analytics
Free
Premium
$99.00
Per Site
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google AnalyticsYoast
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google AnalyticsYoast
Considered Both Products
Google Analytics
Chose Google Analytics
I can't think of another competitor who provides a free service that is as good as Google Analytics. That being said, I haven't done a ton of research or use other software like Google Analytics because there is no need to fix what is not already broken. I just use what works.
Yoast
Chose Yoast
Yoast WordPress SEO Plugins is better than some other apps only because it is integrated into your WordPress. You have everything inside your dashboard. Sure, there are some other more powerful SEO tools, but Yoast is right where you need it. The best way is to use it alongside …
Chose Yoast
Yoast is one of the best SEO plugins, because it really gamifies the ability to achieve the optimum SEO reach for your content.
Chose Yoast
I've looked at a few other SEO plugins, such as the Premium SEO Pack, WP Meta, and All in One SEO Pack, but I haven't found anything that has the same set of tools and simplified interface. The ease of use and out-of-the-box tools are what have me committed to using Yoast.
Chose Yoast
I have used a wide variety of SEO plugins for WordPress sites, and the difference that I have found are:
  • The free products are free because of their limitations compared to Yoast.
Chose Yoast
Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugin is the only SEO plugin we evaluated. Due to its' social proof, convenience, simple training, and affordable cost, and at the recommendation of our team's external SEO consultant we decided to purchase Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugin and not evaluate it …
Chose Yoast
Ultimate SEO is a pretty good plugin, but it's really meant more for the "power-user" SEO person. For the average user I've found from feedback to be too complicated.
Chose Yoast
Yoast WordPress SEO Plugins are the best-in-class tools. They are better than what we have used before because they are more robust and have greater capabilities. In today's fast-paced business world, our company doesn't have time to utilize a bunch of different SEO tools and …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Google AnalyticsYoast
SEO
Comparison of SEO features of Product A and Product B
Google Analytics
-
Ratings
Yoast
7.4
60 Ratings
5% below category average
Keyword analysis00 Ratings10.050 Ratings
Backlink management00 Ratings8.933 Ratings
SERP ranking tracking00 Ratings6.019 Ratings
Page grader00 Ratings10.054 Ratings
Competitive analysis00 Ratings4.124 Ratings
Site audit / diagnostics00 Ratings8.041 Ratings
Site recommendations00 Ratings10.043 Ratings
Task management00 Ratings2.022 Ratings
SEO Channels
Comparison of SEO Channels features of Product A and Product B
Google Analytics
-
Ratings
Yoast
5.9
51 Ratings
26% below category average
Local SEO00 Ratings5.440 Ratings
Social SEO00 Ratings6.041 Ratings
Mobile SEO00 Ratings6.041 Ratings
Global SEO00 Ratings6.034 Ratings
SEO Platform & Account Management
Comparison of SEO Platform & Account Management features of Product A and Product B
Google Analytics
-
Ratings
Yoast
9.2
47 Ratings
8% above category average
Multi-domain support00 Ratings10.020 Ratings
Integration with web analytics tools00 Ratings8.543 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Google AnalyticsYoast
Small Businesses
Serpstat
Serpstat
Score 9.6 out of 10
Nozzle
Nozzle
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Matomo Analytics
Matomo Analytics
Score 9.4 out of 10
Advanced Web Ranking
Advanced Web Ranking
Score 8.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Matomo Analytics
Matomo Analytics
Score 9.4 out of 10
Dupli Checker (DupliChecker.com)
Dupli Checker (DupliChecker.com)
Score 8.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google AnalyticsYoast
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(183 ratings)
10.0
(60 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(51 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.8
(8 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(42 ratings)
7.7
(19 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
6.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google AnalyticsYoast
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
Google Analytics is particularly well suited for tracking and analyzing customer behavior on a grocery e-commerce platform. It provides a wealth of information about customer behavior, including what products are most popular, what pages are visited the most, and where customers are coming from. This information can help the platform optimize its website for better customer engagement and conversion rates. However, Google Analytics may not be the best tool for more advanced, granular analysis of customer behavior, such as tracking individual customer journeys or understanding customer motivations. In these cases, it may be more appropriate to use additional tools or solutions that provide deeper insights into customer behavior.
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yoast.com
Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins is really great for any application - home pages, blogs, etc. It saves a lot of time researching keywords, but it is time-consuming crafting content, which I think is a necessary evil. I wasn't really seeing the immediate results I had hoped for, but there could be a variety of reasons for that (cookies, caches, etc.). Overall, if you have the time to dedicate and utilize the tool, it's awesome!
Read full review
Pros
Google
  • Multiple reports to see website use and behavior
  • Allows you to customize reports with days, weeks, months, and years
  • You can build out a dashboard to easily view stats from multiple websites in one place
  • You can share analytics reports via the dashboard, automatically emailed PDFs or in other formats
Read full review
yoast.com
  • Evaluate the SEO score of any given page's content.
  • Makes it simple to manage the title and description for a page (what shows up on Google search results).
  • Boils down complicated topics such as canonical URLs for non-technical users.
  • Easy explanations for any and all options, including why to use or not use an option.
Read full review
Cons
Google
  • Data sampling is somewhat inaccurate on the free tier - this is addressed in premium but is expensive.
  • Some of the UI is very similar in naming when presenting different data, some in-situ information might be useful.
  • Gotchas around filtering and data validation.
  • Implementation can be tricky, it can take a lot of time and expertise to get a full, accurate picture of your metrics.
Read full review
yoast.com
  • Density: Because even the free, basic Yoast SEO tool has SO MANY FEATURES, if you're brand new to SEO as a concept/practice, you might feel a little overwhelmed at first. Just go watch the training videos!
  • Bulk Title Editing: I'm sure this tool can be useful, but I've never found it to be particularly intuitive or helpful.
  • Limitations: I'm grasping at straws here, but it would be nice if some of the premium (paid) features- specifically the social media previews- were available in the free version. Like I said, grasping.
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Likelihood to Renew
Google
We will continue to use Google Analytics for several reasons. It is free, which is a huge selling point. It houses all of our ecommerce stores' data, and though it can't account for refunds or fraud orders, gives us and our clients directional, real time information on individual and group store performance.
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yoast.com
I see no reason to discontinue using Yoast as it has been very beneficial for my website and my business.
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Usability
Google
Google Analytics provides a wealth of data, down to minute levels. That is it's greatest detriment: find the right information when you need it can be a cumbersome task. You are able to create shortcuts, however, so it can mitigate some of this problem. Google is continually refining Analytics, so I do not doubt there will be improvements
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yoast.com
It's super easy to use. Really, it requires little-to-know tutorials or walkthroughs at all — it explains everything you need to know in the description and tooltips built straight into the tool. I've never had to google a how-to or tutorial to use Yoast — it just works, and it works well
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Reliability and Availability
Google
We all know Google is at top when it comes to availability. We have never faced any such instances where I can suggest otherwise. All you need is a Google account, a device and internet connection to use this super powerful tool for reporting and visualising your site data, traffic, events, etc. that too in real time.
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yoast.com
No answers on this topic
Performance
Google
This has been a catalyst for improving our site's traffic handling capabilities. We were able to identify exit% from our sites through it and we used recommendations to handle and implement the same in our sites. We have been increasing the usage of Google Analytics in our sites and never had any performance related issues if we used Analytics
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yoast.com
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Google
The Google reps respond very quickly. However, sometimes they can overly call you to set up an apportionment. I'm very proficient and sometimes when I talk to reps, they give beginner tutorials and insights that are a waste of time. I wish Google would understand my level of expertise and assign me to a rep (long-term) that doesn't have to walk me through the basics.
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yoast.com
There are plenty of amazing articles published on their site, however, I don't rate their actual support team as being particularly helpful. I made multiple points of contact regarding the internal link counter not working and even though they began troubleshooting I think when it became too hard it was just forgotten about and so is still unresolved.
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Online Training
Google
love the product and training they provide for businesses of all sizes. The following list of links will help you get started with Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented by Google Analytics.
  1. How to Use Google Analytics for Beginners – Mahalo’s how-to guide for beginners.
  2. A beginner’s guide to Google Analytics – A free eBook walking you through Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented.
  3. Getting to Know Your Google Analytics Dashboard – The title says it all! This is a brief post with one goal: to introduce you to the Google Analytics dashboard.
  4. Google Analytics for Beginners: How to Make the Most of Your Traffic Reports– This guide doesn’t cover setup, but it does a great job of helping you to better understand the data being presented.
  5. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 1: Setup – A video presentation that walks you through Google Analytics setup.
  6. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 2: Essential Stats – A video presentation that introduces you to some of the most important data being presented in Google Analytics.
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yoast.com
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Google
I think my biggest take away from the Google Analytics implementation was that there needs to be a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it before you start. Originally the analytics were added to track visitors, but as we became more savvy with the product, we began adding more and more functionality, and defining guidelines as we went along. While not detrimental to our success, this lack of an overarching goal resulted in some minor setbacks in implementation and the collection of some messy data that is unusable.
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yoast.com
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Google
I have not used Adobe Analytics as much, but I know they offer something called customer journey analytics, which we are evaluating now. I have used Semrush, and I find them much better than Google Analytics. I feel a fairly nontechnical person could learn Semrush in about a month. They also offer features like competitive analysis (on content, keywords, traffic, etc.), which is very useful. If you have to choose one among Semrush and Google Analytics, I would say go for Semrush.
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yoast.com
This is my go-to plugin for SEO. It is easy, and I trust Yoast will give me solid results. In a short time period, our website has seen measurable results in organic search traffic. Our previous website didn't use page level SEO tools to this extent. We are systematically updating each page using the Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin. We are pleased with the results
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Scalability
Google
Google Analytics is currently handling the reporting and tracking of near about 80 sites in our project. And I am not talking about the sites from different projects. They may have way more accounts than that. Never ever felt a performance issue from Google's end while generating or customising reports or tracking custom events or creating custom dimensions
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yoast.com
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Google
  • It has helped us gain understanding of what is going on on our website.
  • It has helped us determine areas that need fixing (i.e. pages with extremely high bounce rates may need to be redone).
  • It has helped us understand our biggest avenues for bringing traffic to the website and business in general.
  • It has helped guide our website redesign.
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yoast.com
  • Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugin along with other SEO investments we have made with our new website has extremely paid off on new business opportunity creation. Since August 2018 we have added over $100K of new business opps solely sourced from SEO searches on pages and posts that Yoast has helped us optimize.
  • Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugin saves our marketing team a lot of time. Since the plugin lives in WordPress and provides live tips we can make to the page or post, our team doesn't have to guess on what keyword, or meta-tag, or how many internal and external links a page or post should have using an additional platform. It is just conveniently there for us to use regularly.
  • Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugin cannot be the only piece of software your website relies on to obtain SEO optimization with search engines. It is a piece of the puzzle, and you can only maximize its' value by making sure your website is scam free, the code under the hood is healthy, and the load time and page weight is light.
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ScreenShots