GOOGLE ANALYTICS FOR BLOGGERS: 5 METRICS TO IMPROVE YOUR CONTENT [BLOGGING BASICS]
Want to improve your content? It all starts with your analytics.
P.S. Welcome to VEDA! Throughout the month of April I'll be publishing one video and blog post per day as part of the ABCs of blogging series.
Google analytics can be daunting. Most people think the dashboard is way too complicated for them.
But in amongst all the charts and data are some pieces of info that are pure gold and help you understand what your audience wants.
Instead of creating content that you want, you'll be able to create content that they want and that's how you start to build a successful blog.
So I'm going to take you through 5 metrics to help you create content your users want.
#1 | AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHICS
Google Analytics has some really useful information about your audience.
You can see their age and gender which are both really good in terms of creating your reader persona. You can also see their interests which can help you underhand your audience even more.
If you're not sure about your target audience, start with your demographics.
#2 | MOST POPULAR CONTENT
Your popular posts are popular for a reason - your audience wants more of that content. Create more content like that and you're in your way to creating a successful blog.
When you look at this information it also gives you other metrics for each piece of content on your site.
You want to look at a couple of things here:
- Pageviews - this quickly gives you an idea of what content is the most popular so you can produce more content like this.
- Time on page - this tells you what content on your blog is getting the most engagement so you can create more content like that to increase your engagement.
#3 | BOUNCE RATE
This is the percentage of users who go to one page on your site and then leave.
This could mean that the user came to your site, found what they were looking for and then left - this is a good bounce event.
Or they came to your site, didn't find what they expected and left.
You need to figure out which one it is for you. Look at your pages with a high bounce rate and ask yourself why is it like this.
#4 | HOW PEOPLE ARE GETTING TO YOUR SITE
This is one of the best things about Google Analytics.
Basically this tells you which channels are performing best for you out of organic, direct, social, referral, email, and paid advertising if you use it.
This is such powerful information and really useful to help you evolve your strategy moving forward.
#5 | TRAFFIC FROM SOCIAL MEDIA
Why would you want to know which of your blog posts do best through social media? There are a few reasons:
- Social media is one of the most time effective and cost effective ways of promoting your blog posts.
- Social media is versatile - you can repurpose content, schedule in bulk and repost your top posts.
You need to find out which posts are perfuming best on social media and create more content like that.
Do you now feel more confident to dig into your analytics? Let me know in the comments!
Remember to check in with your numbers so you can get one step closer to a breakthrough.
