Category: Online Marketing

Google Analytics provides content marketers with the data they need to make informed decisions. But, it can be overwhelming. If you’re new to Google Analytics you may not know where to look. Let’s discuss the reports you need to know about in Google Analytics for content marketing.

Google Analytics can help you determine what type of content converts (and does not convert), ideas for new content, and who your content should target. It will also show how your existing content and content distribution channels are performing.

Determine What Content Converts

Knowing what type of content converts will guide your content strategy. It will show what should be updated and what type of content to create in the future.

Set Up Goals

Before you can gauge what converts, you need to set up your goals. Configure goals so you can measure what matters most for your business.

To configure goals, go to the Admin panel and click Goals under the View section. Then click New Goal and follow the steps to set goals that make sense for your website.

Find Patterns / Themes in Top Content

Take a look at your top landing pages to identify if there are any patterns you can identify and leverage. If the top performing content pieces are all on a similar topic, write more articles on that topic. If they all share a common element such as an infographic, add more infographics to your articles.

To view your top landing pages go to Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages. In the right-hand section you’ll see the Conversions metrics. Select your primary goal from the dropdown in the Conversions section. Then, click the heading name for the primary metric you want to track. This will sort the data by that metric so you can identify the landing pages that had the biggest impact on the metric you want to improve.

Once you’ve sorted the data by the performance of your primary metric, that is when you’ll want to review the top content to identify any patterns or themes.

What Doesn’t Convert?

Not only can Google Analytics show you what does convert so you can make more of it, but it can also show you what isn’t converting so it can be improved.

You can view this data on the landing pages report but I’d recommend navigating to all pages to get a better overall picture of the under performers.

Go to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages. To add a filter click on Advanced above the metric names. You’ll want to include pageviews and add a second metric to also include bounce rate.

Keep both metrics set to Greater than and input a value that makes sense for your website. The values are going to vary depending on the length of your date range and your website traffic. You can try setting pageviews to greater than 100 and bounce rate greater than 50.

If this returns no results, lower the pageviews to 75 or 50. If this returns too many results, increase the bounce rate to 70, or 80. Play with the values until you have a list of 5-10 problem pages that you can try to improve.

The goal of this is to narrow the list of pages down to a few key issues. You’re looking for pages that receive traffic (so they’re worth your time) but aren’t performing as well as the site average.

Find Content Ideas

Google Analytics is a great tool to review and analyze your existing content. But, there are also a few reports you may be able to take advantage of to generate new content ideas.

Leverage Internal Site Search Data

If you have an internal site search you can track this data in Google Analytics. To enable this feature, go to the Admin panel. Under View, click on View Settings. Scroll down to the Site Search Settings and turn Site search Tracking to On.

You’ll need to enter the query parameter. You can add up to five, just add a comma between each one.

To find the query parameter, run a search on your website and look at the URL on the result page. You should see your search term in the URL somewhere. Right before the term you will see your query parameter. It could look like ?search= or ?q= or ?s=.

You’ll want to add just the query parameter designation and no additional characters. So, if the parameter is ?q=, you’ll just add q to the query parameter field in Google Analytics.

Find Gaps in Your Content

Once you’re tracking your internal site search data, you’ll be able to review the terms people search for on your website.

To view the data go to Behavior > Site Search > Search Terms.

Look at the most popular search terms. Does your website already provide relevant content to address these topics? If not, add this to your content idea list.

These are topics your readers are looking for and they already see you as the expert that will guide them through the answer. Now you need to make sure you’re providing content with the answer.

Fine-Tune Existing Content Based on Demand

When you’re reviewing the search terms report from your internal site search, you may also notice there are terms or concepts that you have content for already.

Make sure that the language you use matches the terms your readers are looking for. If you notice in the search terms report that people search for conversion optimization but you normally refer to it as conversion rate optimization or CRO, consider updating your language to mirror what users are searching for.

You may also uncover a sub-topic or question that doesn’t require an entire article but may be a section worth adding to an existing article.

Review Search Queries

Keyword data has been gone from Google Analytics for years. But, if you connect your Google Search Console account to Google Analytics you can review search queries directly through Google Analytics.

To connect your Search Console account go to the Admin panel in Google Analytics. Under the property settings, click on All Products under the Product Linking section. Then follow the prompts to link your accounts.

Once you’ve connected your accounts, Google Analytics will begin collecting Search Console data.

To review your search query data go to Acquisition > Search Console > Queries. Use this data similar to how you leveraged the internal site search data. Are there any gaps that you can create new content to answer? Are there terms or language being used that differs from what you use on your website? Are there any sections that can be added to existing articles?

Know Who You’re Talking To

Google Analytics can not only help you understand what you should be saying, but also who you are talking to. You need to understand who your audience is so you can fine-tune your content to meet their needs.

It’s important to keep your reader in mind so each article talks directly to a person. If you generalize your content than you are speaking to no one, and your content will resonate with no one. It’s better to speak to one person than everyone. But, who is that one person?

Under the Audience section you can view demographics and interests. Navigate to Audience > Interests > Affinity Categories to get an idea of the interests and habits of your site visitors.

This data will not only give you a better idea of who you’re talking to, but it can also provide content tie-in ideas. If your audience likes sports you can add some sports analogies. You can create an article related to a popular TV show or movie for entertainment lovers. These categories can add a fun twist to traditional content ideas.

Understand How Your Content Performed

Of course one of the best, and most common, uses of Google Analytics for content marketers is to review the performance of your articles.

Add Annotations To Visualize Impact of New Content

Google Analytics allows you to add notes that appear as icons on the timeline graphs. This makes it easy to get a rough idea if there was a manual action taken immediately before a spike in traffic.

Documenting big site changes can make it easier to understand the full story when looking at your data. Some items you may want to annotate include site outages, new site designs, and product launches. If content marketing is a key strategy for your business, documenting article published dates could help you understand the data later.

When you release a new article click on the down arrow below any graph. Then click create new annotation. There you can add your note. Enter the date you want the note recorded on and a description such as Published Google Analytics for Content Marketing Article.

Having an article published directly before a spike in traffic doesn’t necessarily mean that article was responsible for the increase. You’ll have to dig in to the All Pages report under Behavior to get a better idea of the traffic for a specific page. But, when you see a big spike it’s nice to get an idea about what happened on the site right before so you can get an idea of where to look. It helps paint the picture of some of the factors that could have contributed.

Review Source / Medium to Analyze Distribution Channels

Once you’re reviewing the content article you want to analyze, add in a secondary dimension to get an idea which distribution channels have the biggest impact.

Let’s take a step back. Looking for where to review your content article? Start with the All Pages report under Behavior. You can use the search field above the metric names to narrow the data down to the article(s) you want to analyze.

Now that you have your article data in front of you, add a secondary dimension. To do this, click the Secondary dimension dropdown at the top of the data table. Add the secondary dimension called Source / Medium. (You can use the search field in the dropdown to quickly find the dimension.)

Now, you can view the articles broken down by channel. So, you can compare metrics for google organic traffic to the page versus facebook traffic or paid ads.

Advanced Tip: Create Automated Dashboard to Track Performance Over Time

Monitoring your results on an ongoing basis will make it easier to identify trends. You’ll be able to recognize popular articles and let that guide your future content themes.

You can leverage Google Data Studio to create dashboards. That way you can monitor the metrics that are important for your business.

Data Studio can be as simple or complex as you need. Here is a tutorial on how to create an automated dashboard to track content post-publish. It is an advanced dashboard configuration but the article includes templates to ease the process.

What reports or metrics do you find most helpful for your content marketing efforts? Please share them with us in the comments!

If you want to increase traffic to your website, most marketers will recommend you install Google Analytics. But, how can Google Analytics help my SEO? Google Analytics will give you the data you need to track your performance so you can do more of what works.

Google Analytics allows you to make data-driven decisions. Here are the reports you can leverage in Google Analytics to improve your SEO efforts.

Know What’s Working So You Can Double Down

Report: Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium

Google Analytics can make it easy to see which channels are performing best. The channels could be various social networks, organic search traffic, or paid ads.

It will be easier to grow channels that are already performing well than it will be to try and grow traffic on a channel with sub-optimal performance.

You want to focus on the acquisition channel where your audience is. The current performance of the various channels is a good indicator of where your target demographic likes to spend their time online.

So, before you go all in with organic SEO, make sure that channel is a top performer.

To view the channels that are working best for your website navigate to Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium. This report lists out the various channels people use to find your website.

View the report not only by the top number of users and sessions, but also by the most conversions. You want to not only receive traffic, but make sure those users are high-quality and likely to convert.

Track Demographics to Know Who You’re Talking To

Report: Audience > Demographics > Overview

As we just touched on, you not only want traffic but you want to make sure that traffic is the right demographic. If the visitor isn’t qualified, they will never convert.

In Google Analytics, you can view demographic data. Go to Audience > Demographics > Overview to view the age and gender of your website visitors.

Add a Segment to Determine Who Converts

We want to see not only who visits your website, but who converts. While viewing the demographic overview report add a segment to view only data for people who convert.

At the top you can click Choose segment from list to view the data for a particular segment. Click System > Converters to view a segment of people who have completed a goal or made a transaction.

Determine if Your SEO Efforts are Attracting Qualified Visitors

Report: Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Assisted Conversions

Add a date comparison and leverage the Assisted Conversions report to determine if your SEO efforts are improving or declining.

View data for the last 30 days and then add a comparison range of the previous period.

View your organic traffic growth under the acquisition report and then navigate to Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Assisted Conversions and click on Organic Search.

Look at the Assisted Conversions and Last Click or Direct Conversions. If these numbers are growing more than your search traffic growth than you are attracting qualified visitors. If they are declining than you want to revisit your SEO tactic to refocus your efforts where you can attract your target demographic.

In Summary

With any marketing effort you want to make sure you can track your results to ensure you’re having an impact. SEO is no different.

Figure out your goals, and then decide how you can measure them in Google Analytics.

Keep an eye on these reports to make sure you’re headed in the right direction and be ready to shift your efforts to align with your goals and audience.

What is your favorite SEO report in Google Analytics? Let us know in the comments!

Posting fresh content is a lot of work. So, you want to make sure you get as much value from it as possible. Tracking the traffic can make it easier to determine if a page requires attention or updating.

This process can be streamlined by automating a report. The data still needs to be reviewed but at least getting to that point can be automated.

We’re going to walk through how to create a dashboard to track pageviews for your top five articles. We’ll track the traffic based on the article published date. We’ll review all pageviews and specifically monitor traffic from 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days after publish.

Here’s an example of what the final dashboard will look like:

At the end of this tutorial you’ll have the information you need to duplicate this dashboard for yourself. Hopefully, you’ll also have a better idea of what is possible when you combine Google Analytics with Google Sheets and Data Studio. That way, you can modify this tutorial to work with your business goals.

The Tools Required to Automate the Process

In order to create the automated post-publish content review dashboard you need a few tools.

1. Google Analytics / Google Tag Manager
2. Google Sheets
3. Google Data Studio

Tracking Publish Date with Google Analytics & Tag Manager

First, you need to be tracking your website using Google Analytics.

One of the tricky pieces to this puzzle is the reports will be based off of the article publish date. Since we need to determine data based on the publish date we need to add this information into Google Analytics. To do this we’ll setup a custom dimension.

To setup a custom dimension I recommend using Google Tag Manager. If your Google Analytics tracking is already setup using Tag Manager than it makes perfect sense to use Tag Manager to implement the custom dimension as well. If not, this is a good time to consider moving your Google Analytics install to Tag Manager.

If you don’t want to (or can’t) use Google Tag Manager to implement the custom dimension than you will need a javascript developer to assist. The process we’ll walk through is specific to Tag Manager but a javascript developer can apply the process directly to your website.

Before we go into the step-by-step process I want to give credit to a few helpful websites.

When I started this process I referenced the guide found on UpBuild. It’s a great guide but the first step is to use the class name on the date field. Since my date field didn’t already have a class or ID, I decided to use the meta information.

To add custom javascript to track meta information I found a tutorial on Lynuhs. This showed how to capture author information from a meta tag. I was able to make a few modifications to capture the date and time information instead.

Now, we’re ready to add our custom dimension.

Step 1: Find the tag you want to track.

1. Right click on an article on your website and click view page source.
2. On the source code page, press ctrl+F to search for the word time in the code.
3. If you have a WordPress blog, you should see the following two meta tags with a date.
   <meta property="article:published_time" content="DATE HERE">
<meta property="article:modified_time" content="DATE HERE">
   (If you don’t use WordPress the meta tags may look different than above.)

Step 2: Create a variable in Tag Manager.

1. In Tag Manager navigate to Variables and click New under User-Defined Variables.
2. Click the Variable Configuration box to edit and select Custom JavaScript.
3. To track the most recent update date with WordPress use the following JavaScript:

   function (){
   var metaName = "article:modified_time";
   var metas = document.getElementsByTagName('meta');
   var content = undefined;
   
   for (i = 0; i < metas.length; i++){
   if (metas[i].getAttribute("property") == metaName){
   
   content = metas[i].getAttribute("content");
   }
   }
   return content;
   }
   

   (If you want to track the original published date instead of the updated date than replace modified_time with published_time.)
4. Press Save and name your variable Post Date.

Step 3: Create a Custom Dimension

1. In Google Analytics go to the Admin section (click the gear icon in lower left).
2. Under Property click on Custom Definitions > Custom Dimensions.
3. Click New Custom Dimension.
4. Configure your custom dimension:
   1. Name your dimension “Post Publish Date”.
   2. Keep the scope set to Hit.
   3. Make sure the active checkbox is checked.
5. Click Create.

Once you’re back on the custom dimension summary page take a look at your new dimension. Look at the Index column and make a note of what index number corresponds with your new custom dimension.

Step 4: Add Dimension to Google Analytics Tracking Tag

1. In Tag Manager go to Variables.
2. Select your Google Analytics settings variable under the User-Defined Variables. The name will vary depending on how it was named when first configured.
3. Click in the Variable Configuration section to edit it.
4. Under More Settings > Custom Dimensions enter in the new dimension you created.
   1. Under Index enter the number found in the Index column in Google Analytics.
   2. Under Dimension Value click the icon to the right of the field to select the Post Date variable you created in Step 2.
5. Click Save.

Step 5: Preview and Publish Your Changes

1. In Tag Manager, click Preview.
2. Navigate to an article on your website.
3. In the Preview pane at the bottom click 2 DOM Ready on the left.
4. Then, click Variables at the top.
5. Scroll down until you see the Post Date variable. You should see the article date to the right.
6. If everything looks good with the preview, go back to Tag Manager and click Publish!

Now you have a custom dimension set up that tracks your article publish date. Next, we’ll pull all of our data into Google Sheets. Once we do that we’ll go over how to make it pretty with Google Data Studio.

Pulling Google Analytics Data into Google Sheets

To pull Google Analytics Data into Google Sheets you’ll need the Google Sheets Add-On. This add-on allows you to connect your Google Analytics profile and pull your data directly into a Google Sheets spreadsheet.

First, we’ll discuss how to setup the spreadsheet at a high-level. Then, we’ll provide a link to the template and directions to get started with the template.

Pull Your Article Content to Analyze

The first report you’ll grab from your Analytics data contains a list of your content. I choose to do a timeframe of the last year. So, the report looks at 365 days ago until today.

I pulled a metric of pageviews and the dimensions of page path and our custom dimension. What that means, is the report will list out the URLs (page path) and the publish date (our custom dimension) and display the number of pageviews (the metric).

When you run this report it provides a big list. And when you review it you may notice a few issues. You likely have duplicate URLs. If you have various URL parameters appended to your URLs (such as ?fbclid=abcdefg) to track campaigns you’ll see all of those variations.

Also, you’ll notice we have the date but it’s difficult to read and includes a time.

We have the data, but it needs to be cleaned up.

Create a Worksheet to Clean Up Your Data

Have no fear, we can clean this up. We don’t want to override the data that gets pulled automatically from Google Analytics so we’ll create a new sheet.

We can use REGEXREPLACE to remove any URL parameters so we’re left with the part we care about. Here is an example of the formula:

=REGEXREPLACE(Content!A16,"(.*)\?.*","$1")

This basically says look at all content in the specified cell until you see a question mark. Then only display the first content that was found prior to that question mark. Since URL parameters begin with a question mark this was what we choose to clean up the URLs.

We’ll use a similar method to clean up our dates.

Instead of a question mark, all of the information in the date that we want to remove comes after a T. So we’ll change the question mark in our formula to a T:

=REGEXREPLACE(Content!B16,"(.*)T.*","$1")

We’ll also copy the pageviews to our new sheet so all of the information is together.

Now our data is clean, but we have a lot of duplication. Time to consolidate our data.

Consolidate the Clean Data

To consolidate this data we’ll create another sheet. On this sheet we’ll add a pivot chart. For the rows in the pivot table use the Page and Post Date dimensions from the previous worksheet. For the value, we’ll use the sum of pageviews.

Make sure your Post Date is formatted as YYYY-MM-DD. This will be important for Google Data Studio and ensures that Google Sheets sees it as a date field.

On your pivot table sheet we’ll want to add three columns. We want to calculate the date for 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days after publish. If your Post Date is formatted as a date calculating the other dates is as easy as adding 30, 60, and 90 respectively.

Add Reports for Top Content

Now that we have our list of top content we can add several more reports. Go back to the main Report Configuration tab.

We want to pull several more reports from Google Analytics. For each article you want to track we want to pull a report for 30 day, 60 day, 90 day and all time performance. So, if we’re tracking the top five content pieces we add 20 reports.

For each of these reports we’ll add dynamic information based on our pivot table. That way, as content is updated and changing we don’t have to update our report settings.

The start date will be the article published date. The end date will be either the 30 day, 60 day or 90 day date. Or, for all time data it will be set as today.

We’ll want to pull the pageviews metric for all of the reports. And for dimensions we will want both the URL (page path) and the date. Without the date we’ll just get a total number and we won’t be able to add a graph to visualize the trend in Data Studio.

We will also want to add a filter to these reports. We want to filter the data to only look at the one page we are concerned about. To do this we can add ga:pagePath=@[your content url] in the filter cell. The =@ operator means it needs to contain the following.

Run and Schedule the Report

One you have everything set up you can run the report. To keep the data updated you’ll want to schedule the report to run on a daily or weekly basis. These settings can be found under Add-ons > Google Analytics.

Using the Google Sheets Post-Publish Content Review Template

Step 1: Download the Template and Add-on

You will need the following two items:

• Google Sheets Post-Publish Content Review Template
• Google Analytics Add-on for Google Sheets

Step 2: Configure Report

1. To make edits go to File > Make a Copy.
2. Name the copy and click OK.
3. To get your View ID we’ll create a new report. Go to Add-ons > Google Analytics > Create new report.
4. Name your report anything. Then, make sure you select the Google Analytics view you want to grab data from. You can leave the other fields blank and click Create Report at the bottom.
5. The new report will be added to the last column (column W). Go to it and copy the View ID.
6. Copy the View ID number into every report in the View ID row (columns B-V).
7. Delete the new report you added (column W).

Step 3: Run Reports

1. Before you run the reports, verify the dimension index is correct. Under the dimensions in the first report (cell B7 on the Report Configuration tab) you’ll see we’ve specified dimension1. Change the dimension number to match the index number for your custom dimension in Google Analytics. So, if your custom dimension is in index 3 change ga:dimension1 to ga:dimension3.
2. To run your report go to Add-ons > Google Analytics > Run report.
3. The first time you run it only one report will run successfully (the Content report). This is because the other reports rely on data collected in the first report.
   1. If this is the first time you’ve ran the report click OK on the error message.
   2. Then, navigate to the Data sheet (tab named Data at the bottom).
   3. Wait for the data to populate in the pivot table then navigate back to the main Report Configuration tab.
4. Run the report again by going to Add-ons > Google Analytics > Run reports.
5. All of the reports should have completed successfully. Click OK to close the dialog box.

Step 4: Schedule the Reports

To make the process automated we will schedule these reports to run. That way you don’t have to come back to the spreadsheet and manually run the reports any time you want to review data.

1. To schedule the reports to run go to Add-ons > Google Analytics > Schedule reports.
2. Check the checkbox next to Enable reports to run automatically.
3. Select the timeframe that matches the frequency you need.
4. Click Save.

Visualizing the Google Sheets Data with Google Data Studio

Once you have the data you want to make it easy to look at. Data Studio is the perfect solution. You can integrate your Google Sheets document and with a few clicks make the data beautiful.

You’ll want to create a new dashboard in Data Studio. Once you do that you’ll need to import your spreadsheets.

Import Your Data

You don’t need to add every sheet from your document. Instead, only import sheets with data you want to add to a chart. I consolidated all of the data I needed into one sheet (the sheet named Data) so that is the only one I’ll import.

When you import your data into Data Studio make sure to verify the field type is correct. You want to make sure any date fields are set to Date and not Number or Text.

Add Your Charts

Once your data is imported you can start adding your charts. You’ll see the Add a chart dropdown at the top. Choose the chart you want to use to visualize your data. If you aren’t sure, play around with the different options.

I choose to use a Table chart at the top with the data from my pivot table. Then I combined Scorecards with Time Series charts to display the data from the top content.

Using the Google Data Studio Top Content Performance Template

1. Download the Top Content Performance Template for Data Studio.
2. Click Use Template in the top right.
3. Click the Select a datasource dropdown and scroll down to the bottom and click Create New Data Source.
4. Scroll down to Google Sheets and click Select.
5. Select your Content Summary spreadsheet.
6. Under Worksheet, scroll down and select Data.
7. Keep Use first rows as headers checked.
8. Click the Connect button in the top right.
9. Change the Post Date field to a YYYYMMDD date format.
10. Review field format for each field. Everything other than Post Date should populate properly.
11. Click the Add to report button in the top right.
12. Now you should be back at the template preview screen. Click Use Template again.
13. You can now select your spreadsheet in the Select a datasource dropdown. Select it and click Copy Report.

That’s it! Now you have your dashboard to track 30, 60, 90 day content performance.

A Few Notes

Data Only Pulls Items with the Custom Dimension

If you’ve just set up your custom dimension to track published data your data may not look accurate. This system only pulls content if it finds our custom dimension associated with it. So, you may have to wait and gather data before you see the data you want to review.

Data May Look Incomplete If You Update Often

I update my content all the time because every time I post a new article I add internal links wherever it is relevant and useful. If you update often you may find not very many top content articles have data for 60 and 90 day periods.

For my data, I’m okay with that. If that doesn’t make sense with your goals you may want to change the custom dimension to track the original published date instead of the updated date.

How did this system work for you? Did you make any modifications? Let us know in the comments!

Google Analytics is an amazing tool and can help with content marketing. But, it can be overwhelming in the beginning. We’ll go over seven important Google Analytics metrics that you’ll want to track for your blog.

What is a Metric in Google Analytics?

A metric is a unit of value to describe various elements. The various elements are referred to as dimensions.

Metrics vs Dimensions

Metrics are values. Dimensions are descriptors or categories. In Google Analytics, metrics are displayed in columns in the right hand side. Dimensions are listed in rows on the left hand side.

Important Google Analytics Metrics to Track Content

Any time you’re reviewing Google Analytics data be sure you understand what question you’re trying to answer with data. If you have a clear question in mind you’ll have a better idea of which metrics you should review.

Finding these Metrics in GA4

These metrics were originally put together with Universal Analytics in mind. But GA4 is the future of Google Analytics. If you’re like me, you’re a little lost in GA4 because many of the go-to metrics are missing. Well, the data is there but different. It can get confusing. But once you start to figure it out, it makes a lot of sense.

I’ve updated this list of metrics that was originally intended for Universal Analytics and identified the corresponding GA4 metric to monitor. I thought this could be a good bridge for people who, like me, are a little nervous to start using GA4 as your default Google Analytics profile. At first glance it seems like the majority of these important metrics are missing from GA4, but when you really dig into it you’ll find some great data to answer the same questions.

Question: Is traffic growing?

Metric: Users

Reviewing the users metric will indicate if the traffic is growing. The more users you have the more traffic.

In the Universal Analytics version of Google Analytics this metric is easy to view under Audience > Overview. It is also one of the default metrics included in almost every report in Google Analytics.

In Google Analytics 4 (GA4), you can view this information on the Reports snapshot screen or under Acquisition > Acquisition overview.

Question: Do users like what they see?

Metric: Bounce Rate OR Engagement Rate

You want your bounce rate to be low. If your bounce rate is at 100% that means every single person that visited the website immediately left. Meaning, it wasn’t a good fit for their needs.

In Universal Analytics this can be found under Audience > Overview. In GA4, there isn’t a bounce rate metric, instead GA4 shows the engagement rate. (Engagement rate is new for GA4 and isn’t in Universal Analytics.) Engagement rate is essentially the opposite of bounce rate. Instead of showing how often people left, it shows how often they engaged. Unlike bounce rate, you want engagement rate to be high. You can view engagement rate under Acquisition > User acquisition.

Metric: Pages / Session

You want the pages / session metric to be higher than 1. If it’s higher than that means people are looking at more than just the initial page they landed on.

In Universal Analytics this can be found under Audience > Overview. In GA4, there isn’t a pages / session metric. Instead, take a look at Views per User. This can be found under Engagement > Pages and screens. At the very top of the Views per User column you’ll be able to see the site average.

To encourage readers to view multiple pages remember to include internal links towards the top of your articles.

Metric: Avg. Session Duration

The longer your readers remain on your website the more likely they are a qualified visitor. If they spend more time it shows the content is relevant and useful to their needs.

In Universal Analytics this can be found under Audience > Overview. In GA4, there isn’t an average session duration metric. Instead, take a look at Average engagement time. This can be found under Engagement > Engagement overview.

Metric: New vs. Returning Visitors

Monitor your new vs returning users. Gaining new users is great, but if those users don’t return then you have a problem. Either the new users you are getting are not the correct demographic, or they don’t understand how you can help.

In Universal Analytics this can be found under Audience > Behavior > New vs Returning. In GA4, it’s on the Retention screen.

Question: Where are users coming from?

Report: Channels

Okay, so this is best answered with more than a metric. In Universal Analytics, if we look at the report under Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels we can view the users by acquisition source. In GA4, you can view this data under Acquisition > Traffic acquisition. This helps you understand not only how many users visit your website, but where they came from.

Question: Are they converting?

Metrics: Goal Completions and Goal Conversion Rate

Having traffic and long sessions is great, but if those users aren’t converting they’re doing you no good.

In Universal Analytics, make sure you set your goals in Google Analytics. Then you can view the goal metrics in the Conversions > Goals > Overview report to track the results.

In GA4, the idea of goals has been re-worked. You no longer have to create specific goals. You simply have conversions. And any event can be toggled as a conversion. And since GA4 tracks every single thing as an event, including pageviews, that means anything can be set as a conversion. To view conversion data you’ll navigate to Engagement > Conversions.

Tracking your data in Google Analytics is a great way to understand the value of your website. Don’t let the data overwhelm you. Start with these basic metrics and questions.

What is your go to metric to measure the success of your blog? Please share it in the comments!

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