If you want to create killer content that your readers will love, you need to use every tool you have at your disposal. While a dictionary and the like are nice ways to spice up your writing, there’s another tool you might not think about even though you should. We’re talking about Google Analytics – which is actually a great way to help you create better content no matter what topic you’re writing about. Want to know more? Keep reading.
How Google Analytics Can Help
If you’re wondering how Google Analytics can help you create quality content that will keep your readers coming back, here are three specific ways you can use the data.
Find Topics Of Interest
The first way you can use Google Analytics is simple and something a lot of people are already probably doing. Basically, you want to take a look at how people are finding your website. The more you know about keywords they’re using to find your website, the easier it’s going to be to come up with great topics to write about that will attract even more of them.
Improve Pages
While it might not seem like a good idea to go back and rewrite old posts, this is actually one of the best ways to create killer content online. The reason is simple – if you have an article that’s already performing well, it’s going to be easier to take the numbers out of this world with a little work. Compare this with starting from scratch on a new topic. Use Google Analytics to find pages that are performing well but could still be tweaked – adding new information – in order to make them even more useful.
Examine Time On Site
By looking at how long visitors are staying on an article page, you can begin to gauge whether or not they’re actually reading your content. You should have a good idea of the general amount of time it takes to read any of your articles – be it two minutes or even ten minutes. If people aren’t sticking around that long, your content is probably dry, not entertaining, difficult to read or even just not filled with enough new facts. You can use this knowledge to go back to previous posts and make them better which will help increase your TOS numbers.
Knowing Your Audience
Another way that Google Analytics can help your content is by letting you know a little about your audience. If you look at the “Audience” tab in Google Analytics, you’re going to find a wealth of information about your users that you can then use to create content specifically for them.
Visitor Retention
If you’re able to pinpoint the various search terms that people are using to find your site, you’re going to be able to write content that will keep them wanting to come back over and over again. Remember, if you can get a consumer to come back on their own, you’re not going to have to spend money to get them to stick around.
Content Experiments
This is another feature of Google Analytics that will allow you to create simple (and complex) A/B testing for your website. This will give you a very good idea of what your visitors really want when they come to your website. Google has very clear instructions on setting these up so that you can use the data to create better content.
Create Similar Content
While you want to make sure you’re writing unique content that’s useful – and maybe even entertaining – there’s nothing wrong with using Google Analytics data to find out what you should write about next. By creating similar content, you can leverage the success you’re already having on your blog.
Bounce Rate
Another important thing to look at in Google Analytics if you want to have better content is the bounce rate. By looking at the specific bounce rate of articles, you’re going to find out which pages and articles on your website are not keeping people’s attention. You want to have as low of a bounce rate as possible, so use this metric to find posts that aren’t doing well and look at what you can do to improve them.
Using the three simple tips above, you’re going to be able to create content that will keep your readers coming back again and again. And once this happens, it becomes entirely possible to make a good living being a writer. If you have any of your own tips or techniques for using Google Analytics to become a better writer, write up a comment below and share your wisdom with us. Thanks!