Using Google analytics to know how effective is your content

Often when you want to know how effective your content is you gauge its popularity by the number of people retweeting the link or the number of people coming to your blog and leaving comments.

Although it feels good to know how popular your particular page or blog post is growing, the real effectiveness of your content can only be gauged by what people do after coming to that page. If people are visiting your link in hordes and then leaving for other external links immediately after reading that page you aren’t achieving much (actually you are in terms of brand building and recognition but that’s different subject).

Google analytics can give you an in-depth analysis of user behaviour when they access your content. It is a free tool and you can easily put the tracking code in one of your common files so that all your pages and blog posts are tracked.

So assuming that you are tracking your websites with Google analytics, after logging in select the website or the blog profile you would like to see an on the left-hand sidebar you get the “Content” tab. When you click it there is a further drop down menu and you will see links like “Pages”, “Landing Pages” and so on. In these two sections you will see:

• The number of unique visitors to individual pages
• The time they spend on these pages and blog posts
• The bounce rate
• The exit rate

If the number of unique visitors is increasing to a particular page it means the page is getting more exposure on search engine and other websites.

It matters how much time people spend on that page. The more compelling and relevant content you have on that page or blog post, the more time people are going to spend on it.

The bounce rate is when people come to your landing page and then immediately leave your website without exploring other parts of your website. If they don’t find your content valuable then obviously they are going to assume that it represents the overall quality of content on your website and then they leave your website straightaway.

So even if traffic to a particular page is increasing but then it also has a higher bounce rate it is not doing you much good. You have to analyse its content quality and see why people are leaving your website without exploring other pages or blog posts.

This is where you can gauge the effectiveness of your content. If more people are coming to that particular page or blog post and the bounce rate is lower it means the content on that page is effective.

Then there is the exit rate. How many people who come to your website leave your website completely from a particular web page or blog post. Although this is a subjective matter you should carefully examine the content of a particular page or the blog post if more people are exiting your website from that link.

You cannot gauge the overall effectiveness of your content by its search engine and social media popularity. Effective content engages your visitors and gives them a reason to stay on your website for a longer time. The longer they stay the better are your chances of converting them into your paying customers and clients.