What is your first thought when you hear about Google Analytics?
Most people believe that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the only way to improve their website ranking. However, Google Analytics (GA) can also provide data that can help create better content for businesses.
To save time and money for your company, it would be better if you could create better content, instead of more content.
Wouldn’t it be better to create content that is more likely to help you rank better for the search terms you want to be found for? Instead of just trying to create as much content as possible in the hopes that you will eventually rank?
Although there are many ways to analyze the data in Google Analytics to generate ideas for content, it can be difficult to know where to start.
This article provides an overview of how to set up and use Google Analytics to get the most out of content marketing. It covers the most common terminology and provides tips for making the most of reports and data.
Why Is Google Analytics Important for Content Marketing?
Peter Drucker was right when he said that in order to improve any part of your business, you need to be able to measure it. Google Analytics is a great tool for measuring because it offers lots of reporting features and it’s free. Google is already collecting a lot of data from your company and customers.
Google Analytics can help you understand your business and improve your marketing by providing data-informed insights.
If you have an idea for a piece of content, your customers may find it helpful. This is because content marketing involves creating material that addresses the same issues that your product or service solves.
You do some research online and create a piece of content. You think it is the best piece of content around the subject and hit the publish button.
Your story will not go any further if you do not have any form of analytics. Your content will be online, but you will only be able to see new leads, and you will not be able to improve upon that.
You can use analytics to see if your content is successful and also to find out other related information. Google Analytics is a good, free tool that can help you with this.
Google Analytics can also help you answer questions like:
- How effective are my Content Marketing efforts?
- What are the pieces of content that are the least effective and turn visitors away?
- Are my efforts improving over time?
- Which types of content are most effective for converting visitors? Which types of content are most effective to build traffic?
- What are some content topics that I’m missing out on?
- What are some quick wins that I can implement?
The more data you have, the more you can learn about your content marketing strategy and how to improve it.
Implementing Google Analytics on Your Site
Now that you understand how important it is to use Google Analytics to measure your Content Marketing efforts, let’s go over the basics so you can get started.
Creating a Google Analytics Account
Obviously, you cannot use Google Analytics until you have set it up on your website.
You can create a free Google Analytics account on the Google Analytics website if you don’t already have one.
Installing Google Analytics using Google Tag Manager
The next thing you have to do is set up Google Analytics on your website. If you’re running WordPress like us, there are three different ways to do this:
If you are comfortable coding, you can add the Tracking ID to your WordPress theme yourself. If not, you will need to ask your developer to do it for you.
A plugin like Monster Insights can help you to easily add the basic tracking functionality to your website.
Google Tag Manager can help you to implement your tracking ID more effectively.
Our preference goes for the last method.
Google Tag Manager allows you to manage your website’s Google Analytics code as well as any other tracking code snippets or pixels, such as the Facebook Pixel or Snapchat Pixel, without needing a developer.
To get started with Google Tag Manager, sign up for an account. Enter an account name and location to create a new account. Follow the prompts to enter the name of your website as the container name and choose web as the place to use the container.
Now we need to create a new tag by pressing the “New Tag” button in Google Tag Manager.
To create a Custom Dimension, you first need to come up with a name. We suggest using “Google Analytics”, but you can use whatever you want. This name will be used to help identify the Custom Dimension in the future.
Now that you have chosen Universal Analytics, click on the big button that says “continue.” There are many different tags to choose from, but the first one is for “Universal Analytics,” which is the one you want.
As well, right now you will want to keep the “Tracking Type” set to “Pageview” and choose “New Variable…” in the Google Analytics settings.
On the next screen, enter your Tracking ID from the Google Analytics you set up earlier. Google Tag Manager asks you to name the variable for later use in other places; keep that name as it is.
Click the “Choose a trigger to make this tag fire…” button. Then, select “All Pages” to implement a basic Google Analytics.
To complete the process of adding Google Analytics to your website so that it will work on every page, click the Submit Button.
Ways to Use Content Marketing Analytics
There are many ways that you can use content marketing analytics to your advantage, whether you are a beginner or a seasoned marketer. This is especially true when it comes to applying insights to real-life campaigns.
- Use Bounce Rate to See Which Pages Have the Highest Engagement and Identify Common Themes
The average bounce rate for e-commerce sites is 47 percent, which means that if your pages have a bounce rate above that, you can consider them “high.” However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing – you can use high bounce rates to your advantage. After all, this means that traffic is going to the page in question. So the next question is, where are these visitors going?
To find the pages with the highest bounce rate in Google Analytics, go to Behavior > Site Content > Content Drilldown. Click the “Bounce Rate” metric and a down arrow will appear, indicating the metric is sorted from highest to lowest.
You’ll notice that many of the top pages have a very low number of sessions. To filter those out, we’re going to create a segment. Click “Add Segment” to the right of “All Users” at the top of the report.
Click on the “New Segment” button on the left side of the page. A drop-down menu will appear. Select “Behavior.” This page will allow you to decide how many pages you want to exclude.
When you click save, you will see the bounce rate by two different segments, All Users and the new segment you just created.
Click on the first webpage on the list and the primary dimension will change to “page path level 2”
The following is a list of the pages the user went to after they bounced from the initial page. This information can help you understand how users navigate your site, as well as what may have been missing from the bounced page to bring them to the next one.
- Use Content Marketing Analytics to Identify Content Gaps and Create New Content
You can learn what keywords users are searching for on your site, how many times they’re doing it, and whether or not they’re finding what they’re looking for. Not only does analytics tell you what pages your users visit, it also tells you what content your visitors want but can’t find. You can learn what keywords users are searching for on your site, how many times they search, and whether or not they find what they’re looking for.
The “where and when” part of that journey can tell you what content users engage with the most, how long they stay on your site, and where they drop off if they don’t convert. Content marketing analytics tools examine how users get to your website, what they do while they are there, and why they leave. The data gathered from these tools can help you improve your website and content to better meet the needs of your users.
Text Creation is a major issue for businesses. Just consider that 66 percent of businesses want to increase spending on content creation, It makes perfect sense.
Ubersuggest provides a free keyword tool which allows users to see the most popular search terms and the pages that rank for those terms.
To find content gaps, you can check your page’s analytics to see how often people leave after viewing it, how long they stay on the page, and what keywords they look for.
What will this tell you?
Pages that receive a lot of traffic but have high rates of people leaving or “bouncing” off the page are not fulfilling the needs of the visitor. However, by doing keyword research, you can figure out what exactly it is that visitors are looking for and add content that addresses that.
- Research What Terms Your Top Pages Rank for and Create Content for Related Terms
You can figure out which terms your top pages rank for by looking at your page rankings. With this information, you can then create content on related search terms.
Google Search Console is a powerful tool that allows you to see which keywords your website’s pages are ranking for. Here’s a quick overview of how it works.
If you have a Google Search Console account with a verified web property, you can follow the steps below.
To create a new page in Google Search Console, first log in and then go to the Performance section in the left navigation. Click “+ New” and then select “Page” from the dropdown menu.
You can use this tool to see how popular a given URL on your website is. Simply enter the URL and click “Apply.” Then, scroll down to “Queries” to see a list of the top queries related to that URL, including the number of times the URL was shown (impressions) and the number of times it was clicked.
You don’t have to enter a specific URL to research if your website or blog is relatively small. You can look at queries for your entire website, which could be a useful way to research if your website or blog is relatively small.
Ubersuggest and Google Ads keyword planner are both tools that allow you to find related keywords that you are not currently ranking for.
Using targeted keywords can help reduce content gaps, increase the number of times your content is seen, and increase clicks on your current URLs. With organic search accounting for 53.3 percent of content consumption, now is a good time to take control of targeted keywords.
- Compare Engagement Across Platforms to Determine Mobile-Friendliness and Implement Changes
Do you know which devices your website’s visitors use to access your site? If not, you could be inadvertently driving traffic away and damaging your brand strategy.
Worldwide internet traffic is broken down by device as follows:
- 56.05 percent mobile
- 41.52 percent desktop
- 2.43 percent tablet
The percentage of users who regularly access the internet via mobile devices varies by country, region, and website, but the fact remains that the majority of users do so.
You can learn about your visitors’ platform habits through Google Analytics. This will give you insights into your content marketing.