While you can use the data from Google Analytics in infinite ways, you need to understand the four most helpful reports for your content marketing – traffic, navigation summary, traffic from organic search, and conversions.
Once you understand what this data is and how to track it, you’ll be able to mix and match insights to take advantage of opportunities with your web-based content, driving more traffic to your website and (more importantly) doing more with the traffic you have.
Traffic
Why this report is useful:
The traffic report (referred to as Pages report in Google Analytics) looks at the pages getting the most traffic on your website. By default, it also displays metrics such as time on site and bounce rate.
How to find in Google Analytics:
Go to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages.
To expand the list of pages, change the number of rows displayed by going to “Show Rows” at the bottom left of the screen.
Also, make sure the report encompasses a sufficient period. I typically look at search volume from the past quarter, six months, or year for this exercise.
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How to act on this data:
This list of pages is a gold mine! Because so many people arrive on your website through these pages, keep a running list and review them on a regular basis. Remember, though, just because a page gets a lot of traffic does not mean it’s an effective page. That’s why you should review the pages that get the most traffic to:Just because a page gets a lot of traffic does not mean it’s an effective page, says @michelelinn. Click To Tweet
Ensure that the page puts your brand’s best foot forward. Is this page on message? Does it have current information and the best calls to action?
Include your best links. Given that high-traffic pages bring a lot of visitors, make sure to include links to relevant, high-converting pages and posts.
See what visitors are doing. Are visitors spending time on the page? Are they exiting or moving to other pages on the site? (See the next section on Navigation Summary for more details.)
Navigation Summary
Why this report is useful:
Though there are several ways to dig into pages to see how visitors are behaving, my favorite report is the Navigation Summary, where you can see 1) how visitors get to a page and 2) where they click once they are there.
How to find this data in Google Analytics:
When you are in the traffic report, click on any page. At the top of the page, you’ll see an option for Navigation Summary.
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This page shows how visitors are navigating to this page from within your website – and you can see where visitors are clicking. Just as you can do with the traffic report, you can adjust the number of rows displayed.
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Alternative: You can use In-Page Analytics to view where visitors are clicking on any page on your website, but this report does not show how visitors are getting to the page. When viewing single-page data, this option is next to Navigation Summary or you can download the Google Page Analytics extension for Chrome.
How to act on this data:
There are two parts of this report to which you’ll want to pay attention:
The Previous Page Path is useful to know which page someone visited on your website right before they arrived on this page. It offers some context to understand how people get to this page, and it may offer clues as to what information people have – and what they still need.
The Next Page Path shows what people click on from that page when they are continuing on your site. This data is useful as it shows what questions people still have. Additionally, you can see whether people are clicking to pages that convert well (more on that later).
Traffic from organic search
Why this report is useful:
Not only do you want to know which pages are getting traffic in general, but it’s also useful to understand which pages are popular in organic search.
There are two reasons why search traffic matters:
If a page is getting a lot of traffic from search, it’s useful to be more sensitive when you make changes to that page. For instance, you would not want to rewrite it because that could significantly affect how Google ranks that page.
It offers the opportunity to learn more about the traffic on these pages with some additional work.
How to find this data in Google Analytics:
Go to Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels. You see a list of the channels driving traffic to your web pages.
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Select Organic Search and then Landing Page (under Primary Dimension)
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To find traffic on a specific page, such as a blog post, search by pasting everything after your primary URL into the search box. You can see the effect of organic search traffic on that page by looking at the absolute number of sessions as well as a percentage of your search traffic.
How to act on this data:
There are two things to consider with pages that get a lot of search traffic.
First, use caution when making changes. Understand that these pages likely rank well in Google. Be careful of how much you change on this page as you don’t want to negatively impact how it comes up in search. I’m not suggesting that you never change anything on the page, but tread more carefully and monitor more frequently how the pages perform after you make changes.For web pages that get a lot of search traffic, use caution when making changes, says @michelelinn. Click To Tweet
The good news is that there are ways to learn more about why people are visiting these pages. I use SEMrush for this purpose.
Here’s an example of how to do this using one of our search-magnet pages – Developing a Strategy.
Go to SEMrush and paste in the URL of the page.
Scroll down on the page to the section for top organic keywords.
In this example, we can see that people who arrive on this page want to learn more about content strategy, content marketing strategy, marketing plan, and content plan. As such, it’s a good idea to make sure the page addresses each of these topic areas. (Note that your high-traffic search-landing pages often are works in progress and should be continually reviewed and updated to best answer searchers’ questions.)
See how well your keyword results for the page match your intentions for the page. If you intended for this page to do something else but you see it is working for something different relevant to your business, keep this page as is. Then create a new page that better helps with the initial topic you had in mind.
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Does Your Content Answer Searchers’ Questions?
Conversions
Why this report is useful:
In most content marketing programs, conversions are a critical metric – they are action(s) you want visitors to take when they arrive on your website. Do you want them to sign up for an email? Download something? Attend an event?
How to find this data in Google Analytics:
How you get this info varies and likely requires manual work. First, you need to set up your goals. Andy Crestodina, my go-to person on setting up goals, outlines the eight-step process in this video, How to Set Up Goals in Google Analytics:
Once your goals are set up, you can track them under Conversion > Goals > Overview. You can either look at all goals in aggregate or you can look at which pages are converting to specific goals.
How you can act on this data:
While the raw number of conversions is somewhat useful, what is even more useful is the number of conversions divided by the number of page views. This results in your conversion percentage.
The higher your conversion percentage, the more likely a visitor to that page will convert. These are the pages (which Andy calls conversion champions) that you should share and promote.Share and promote your conversion champion web pages, says @michelelinn. Click To Tweet
Once you identify your conversion champions:
Optimize these pages so they have a higher likelihood to show up in search.
Push these pages on social.
Link to these pages from your high-traffic pages.
These are just four ways to use Google Analytics so you can take action. Want more? Read How to Apply Analytics Data to Make Better Content Marketing Decisions.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
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