Using Google Analytics To Generate Article Ideas

Have you checked your Google Analytics statistics this week? There’s a very good reason why you should. When you are stuck on generating article ideas, using the Google Analytics tool is like using an instant idea generator! In fact, doesn’t it make more sense to build more content based on what visitors to your blog/site have proven that they want to read – rather than just writing whatever you want?

Now that I’ve proved my point, here’s a quick checklist of what you need to do to get going…

1. Check Out The Features
Check out the robust features of Google Analytics. Notice that it is still free to use, and better then most paid site tracking tools. It will show you exactly who has visited your site, how they found you, how long they stayed, and what they read. Fantastic for article generation purposes!

2. Install It Onto Your Blog
Google analytics is very easy to install on any site or blog. If you own a Wordpress blog, then it is even easier when you use the Google Analytics Wordpress Plugin.

3. Check Your Stats
After about a week or two, I would go ahead and check your stats. Take a look at what articles people read and what keywords people used to arrive there.

4. Write Your Articles
From the statistics that you analyzed, now you can make a quick list of new article ideas based on what people like reading on your site. Now remember that these stats could be telling you a few things. First, that people really like the articles with the highest views.

Or based on how they found those articles (Google, Twitter, Direct Hit, etc.), you may find that you are dominating a #1 spot in the search engines based on the keywords for that article and that is why you have so many hits. Which is fine too, because that means that you can claim that spot in the engines and write a lot of content around those keywords.

Make sure to look at not just what articles got the most hits but the “keywords” used to find those articles. Keep writing more articles on variations or “long-tail keyword” variations of those keywords.

Have you found Google Analytics to be really useful in creating content for your site/blog? Share your story with us.