We’re all interested in writing content that grabs our audience.
One great post can push your visibility to a new level, attracting links (sending more traffic and improving your authority in the eyes of search engines), increase your RSS subscribers, attract guest post offers, etc.
But it’s not always clear which of your posts have been the most popular – especially if you haven’t had a smashing success (yet). Comment numbers help somewhat, but they don’t tell much of the story.
Google Analytics can help pinpoint those posts that your readers gravitate towards – and spend the most time reading.
Which posts get viewed the most?
This boils down to pageviews. Every time a visitor loads a page on your website it’s tracked as a pageview in Google Analytics.
Navigating to the “Content” section, then to “Top Content,” in your Google Analytics profile will show you the pages at your site that receive the most pageviews in descending order. You’ll obviously want to look past your home page (which is likely displayed as simply a “/” in your report).
It’s worth noting that not all posts will be “created equal” in terms of where the traffic will come from. You’ll find, once your blog has some search engine visibility, that some posts will bring in more search engine traffic than others – and often through unpredictable keywords. The pageview numbers you’re seeing will be effected by this.
Still, this helps you get an idea of which posts tend to attract the most attention.
What posts do readers spend the most time viewing?
Ever wonder whether visitors are reading your posts or simply scanning the first few lines and leaving?
The “avg. time on page” metric in the Content section of your GA reports is a great way to tell.
Navigate to Content > Top Content and then click the row header for “avg. time on page” to sort in descending order. What you get is a nice list of the posts that people spend the most time reading.
Of course, you’ll want to focus on those posts that have at least a handful of visits – two pageviews with an avg. time on page of five minutes doesn’t tell you much.
Generally speaking, though, this is a great way to tell which posts your visitors actually stick around to read. Sort the other way (ascending order) and you can see the posts that don’t do the best job of grabbing people.
Take a closer look at those posts that people seem to stick to – you’ll start to see patterns of style and format that will clue you in to what does/doesn’t work with your readers.
Go back to the Blogger’s Guide to Google Analytics.
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