Understanding traffic performance on your website is an intricate part of success with any marketing initiative and assistance for identifying quantifiable ROI.  Google Analytics offers a free web-based analytical tool that provides website owners with ability to dive in deeper into user behavior, monitor newly emerging trends, setup goals, multi-channel funnels, and more.  A 24/7/365 mechanism running non-stop in attempt to analyze and pinpoint specific activity and engagement of your target audience.

Blogging strategies have become more important than ever before in lieu of content marketing efforts.  Used primarily for community cultivation, thought leadership, and lead generation across most industries in today’s competitive landscape.  How do you monetize blogging efforts though?  Is your audience finding the content on your site informative, engaging, authoritative?  Is the “No Comments” text below each blog post working up a sweat?

All valid concerns ladies and gentlemen.  We’ve all been in that situation before at one point or another.  Thinking back to my early blogging days, striving for a blogging content strategy. Using Google Analytics web tracking software you’ll be able to keep tabs on your visitors and particularly on those articles you’ve been pumping out so aggressively.

1. Sign up for Google Analytics

The free version of GA can be installed on your site in a matter of minutes.  Head on over to the GA website and sign up.  Users with pre-existing Gmail accounts can jump to the front of the line and fly thru the sign-up.

2. Setup profile on GA for your domain

The setup process of GA is fairly straightforward.  It’s important that you setup the correct profile though for each individual domain that you’d like to track.  GA provides a unique JavaScript tracking code for each entity.  Contact a web developer if needed to install GA properly on your site and ensure uniform tracking capabilities are intact.  Commonly the tracking code of GA is installed in the wrong section of your site therefore creating interference with data tracking.  Ensure recommended GA suggestions have been followed thoroughly.

3. Start collecting the data that matters

Post installation of tracking code on your site it will take GA approximately 24 hours before any actual data is reported in the dashboard area.  Rumors are that GA operates on a secondary server at times resulting in data reporting as early as 2 hours.  There have been certain cases where I’ve seen this happen.  Perhaps just being lucky or Google playing mind tricks on me.

4.  Analyze Site Content – All Pages activity

GA is up and operating properly.  Great!  Now let’s dive into some big data.  The Site Content section of GA shows the Top Performing Content of your site broken down into relative paths (i.e /path-to-domain).  A great resource indicator for identifying user engagement with site content specifically those blog posts you’ve been so anxiously worried about.  Just because people do not comment on your articles doesn’t mean they ignore them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The image above shows the Content Section of GA broken down by All Pages where you’ll find a thorough analysis of site content.  The filter option comes in quite handy (upper right-hand corner) if seeking to dive in deeper into specific pages.  Be mindful that all paths are relative and it’s important to search in such fashion when seeking other pages activity.

The full feature list of GA provides a holistic overview of its capabilities.  An access point that I would personally recommend especially for those interested in squeezing the most of GA’s options.

What are your GA challenges?  Share your thoughts and suggestions below.