How to Optimise Content with Analytics Services

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Web analytics services – such as Google Analytics – allow companies to measure, collect and analyse data. Their purpose is to measure business goals and find areas for improvement. These services are useful for writers, editors and other professionals because they allow insights into performance and optimisation of content. This article provides a brief overview of the detailed analyses available.


Analytics services. Designed by macrovector on Freepik

Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

GA4 is the new version of Google Analytics. It replaces Universal Analytics (UA), which was discontinued in 2023. The new version has been rewritten from the ground up, and is entirely event-driven. It allows automatic (and more precise) tracking, along with more flexible analyses. You can install GA4 manually or via Google Tag Manager (GTM).


How Does the Service Work?

The Google tag (GTAG.js) is a small piece of JavaScript code used on every page of your website. It allows tracking of traffic, time spent and user activity. You can choose between iOS app, Android app or web data.


Digital user interface dashboard. Designed by Freepik

Metrics and Dimensions

  • Metrics are quantitative and measure data; they include the number of visitors, web page load time and the user’s postcode/ zip code.
  • Dimensions are qualitative and describe data; they include users’ characteristics (e.g. age, nearest city, landing page).

Google Analytics provides the most meaningful insights by combining metrics with dimensions, providing context to explain what is happening and why.


Terminology

The following terms are used by the service:

  • Source: the origin of website traffic – i.e. the exact domain or platform that referred a user to your page.
  • Channels: rule-based groupings of sources (e.g. organic search, paid search, social).
  • Properties: the data that you want to collect.
  • Data stream: the source of data for a single website or app.
  • Benchmarking: the comparison of your website or app’s performance to that of similar businesses in the same industry.
  • Session: a website visit, or the use of an app within a given timeframe.

 

Reporting

Google Analytics is able to generate reports based on the following criteria:

  • Acquisition: where users come from (e.g. search engines or social media).
  • Engagement: engagement rate, session duration, pages viewed and events (activities, e.g. watching videos, etc.).
  • Monetization [sic]: e-commerce activity (commercial transactions on your website).
  • Retention: new and returning users, engagement over time.
  • Demographics: a user’s age, city, country, interests and language.

Business technology showing data analytics. Designed by Freepik

Call to Action

Like search engine optimisation (SEO), the results from analytics services provide extremely useful insights into performance. Once you’ve measured website traffic and audience behaviour, you can analyse the data and then take appropriate action to retain customers.

You can find out:

  • who is using your website;
  • why;
  • where there from;
  • what they’re interested in; and
  • how long they spend on a page.

By sifting through millions of interactions and performing analyses, you can identify top-performing and underperforming content to improve the user experience. You can then use the data stream to refine your content and strategy.


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