How to Get More From Your Blogging Efforts by Using Google Analytics

If you’re a blogger, it’s a safe bet that you are passionate about something. Maybe it’s the product line that your blog promotes or social cause that you have decided to support through blogging. Naturally, you would prefer to spend your time creating great posts and interacting with your followers. Unless data analysis is your thing, sifting through a bunch of statistics related to your blog and the traffic that you are or aren’t receiving, probably doesn’t seem like a lot of fun. Unfortunately, analytics are an important part of

The bulk of users employing this tool reflects the advanced ability Google has in online website or blog analysis. Google Analytics is a powerful tool for brands, bloggers or businesses alike. Through the use of Google Analytics, you’ll uncover an incredible quantity of knowledge regarding your website or blog that may enhance your business.

The following is a simple walk-thru that should be helpful, even for those of us who are decidedly non-technical.

Creating Your Google Analytics Account

The first thing you will need to do is set up your Google Analytics account. Signing up is quite simple. The difficult part comes when it’s time to add the analytics code into your blog site. Rather than going into that here, let’s take advantage of the facts that there are many great resources for setting up analytics. This is a great get started guide. If you’d prefer something a bit more visual, you can try this video.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kogALUKhiPE[/youtube]

Hitting The Blogging Wall

It’s quite common for bloggers to hit a wall after they’ve been blogging for a few months. This isn’t referring writer’s block or lack in motivation but to a sudden downturn in traffic, subscribers, and social shares. Why does this happen? When bloggers first launch, there’s often quite a bit of buzz created. Even likes, shares and recommendations from friends and family members can quickly earn a blogger a decent sized following. It’s also very common for initial posts to receive a lot of positive attention.

The result of this is that bloggers continue to create and publish the same blog content that earned them an audience to begin with. Unfortunately, audience’s needs and desires change. If bloggers don’t keep up with this, or get a handle on what content truly is working for them, they will likely see a reduction in traffic.

Figuring Out What You Want

One of the best features of Google Analytics is that it doesn’t simply throw numbers at you. Instead, you set up goals, and the tool helps you to understand how you are doing when it comes to achieving those goals. For example, you might be in the midst of a marketing campaign that is pushing a line of products that your small business offers. Naturally, you will promote that campaign in your blog posts in hopes that readers will answer your call to action and then get routed to the landing page that you have created. In Google Analytics, you can set that landing page as your goal.

To set up your goals, go into your dashboard, click on the admin tab, then select goals. After that, click on the new goal button. Next, click on template. Enter in the name of your goal, and select the type of destination. Finally, fill in the name of the landing page or another web page where you want to see increased traffic.  That’s it! Click save and you are done.

What Does Your Data Mean?

If your blog has relatively light traffic, it might take a while to get enough data gathered to be worthwhile. Once you get to that point, however, you can start looking at the information that has been collected. To do this, go back into your dashboard and click on the reports tab. One of the most useful reports for bloggers is the Goal Flows report. You can get there by bread crumbing out using the sidebar Conversions, then goals, then the goal flows report. You can use this report to determine which blog posts led people to your goal landing page within a certain period of time. If you post elsewhere, as a guest blogger, you can use the same method. Google Analytics also measures the traffic to your ‘goal’ landing page from outside sources.

Next Steps

Once you have some insights, it’s time to apply what you have learned. That might not be as simple as it seems. For example, if you have identified a particular post as having driven a lot of conversions, what do you do next? Do you write about the same topic again? Are you sure that’s what you did right? Is that topic still relevant today?

Before you try to repeat past successes, be sure to analyze what could have driven people to respond. Maybe you used lots of visuals, or there was a particular tone in your writing that people found engaging. Now that analytics have given you the numbers, you can add in the human element of the equation by taking a look at the comments and other feedback you received. This should give you a much better picture of what you need to do in the future.

So, Google Analytics is an incredibly powerful tool.

By being attentive to the demographics of your audience, you’ll be able to produce content and representational process that you just apprehend your audience needs. This permits you to craft a custom and relevant blog for your audience.

By utilizing and analyzing numerous sections at Google Analytics, you will have a deep understanding of WHO your audience is, what they require and where they find you.

Image: Ostersund, Sweden – August 1, 2015: Close up of Google analytics main page on a computer screen. Google Analytics is a service offered by Google that generates statistics about a website’s traffic.