We live in the world driven by search engines, and content we create is no longer just a mean of getting more information. It’s also a mighty tool for generating traffic. That’s why more and more businesses work on a content marketing strategy in order to get more leads and enlarge their existing audience.
In this guide, we’re explaining why working on a website content is that important and describe six best content analytics tools that help with tracking its efficiency.
How Website Content Contributes to Indexing…
Search engines use programs that keep an eye for the whole web – web crawlers (or web spiders). They are robots that scan and index web pages using algorithmic factors set by creators of the search engine.
For example, web indexing is done according to the number of incoming links, frequency of updates, keywords, and other factors. On how often you post new content depends the website indexing in search engines. They indicate the change and rearrange the website position in their databases. So the more often new content appears, the higher ranking your website will get.
But it doesn’t mean we should put all stakes on quantity. Don’t neglect the quality or you risk to be blocked by a search engine for placing non-unique content.
… and Why Google Loves It?
Google’s the most popular search engine, so no wonder most of the net tries to keep up with its standards.
I’ve already mentioned the main preference of search engines – frequent updates. Googlebot’s constantly scanning the web to find new or recently updates pages and add them to Google search.
What’s the best timing for these updates? 2-3 times per week. That’s why more and more companies run business blogs and hire qualified writers to fill them with relevant content, timely.
Blogging for Business and Its Main Benefits
When customers search for products or services on the web, they use keywords – the most frequent words entered. Algorithms behind search engines like Google or Bing monitor these words, and this way content creators can identify them using tools like – Google Ads, Ahrefs, or Keyword Tool.
By adding keywords in an article or posting, you have more chances that people will find it, looking for information related to your products or services. Eventually, the target audience that may become your customers grows.
And, once again, don’t forget about quality – keywords won’t do all the job for you. For now, search engines can distinguish quality content, so building an SEO strategy upon keywords is an unwinnable approach.
Finally, mind that design matters. 38% of visitors stop browsing a website if the content or layout is unattractive. So if you’re making a blog on your own, spend some time on web design process.
How Content Increases a Website’s Authority
Page authority is all about gaining trust among search engines. And it’s where content has the biggest role.
Leading companies have hundreds of thousands pages indexed by Google, Bing or other search engines. Besides, they can measure relevance according to a website’s saturation. So, if you want to increase page authority it’s time to add some vulnerable content.
But remember that tech part doesn’t cover everything. Another thing that influences your website’s authority is customers’ trust. If you’re making an interesting and relevant article and blog posts, you’re on a way of gaining loyal clients.
Besides, the longer you provide high-level content and the more regularly update it, the more visitors start trusting you. But to gain their trust, you should not only post articles but answer questions on websites like Quora or Digg, leave comments on other blogs, etc.
Best Content Analytics Tools
No matter how great and well-organized the content seems to be, you should regularly check the metrics it produces. Website content analysis helps with learning the behavior of your target audience and thus finding an approach to them.
1. Google Analytics
Google Analytics tool is free, and it helps to conduct the content analysis by monitoring the number of click on pages, time users stay on the website, etc. For example, Google Analytics tracks whether users share your content on social networks or click on ads.
Goal Funnel appears to be one of the best features of this tool. It works best for the retail industry allowing to set up a row of URLs visitors go through before making a purchase. Using this data, you can adjust the content analysis procedure to ensure better user experience and stats.
Another must-have feature of Google Analytics is reporting the keywords that brought visitors to your website, and mentions of the browsers they’re using.
2. Bitly
You probably know Bitly as a link shortening tool. But this service offers a lot more than it seems. For instance, it allows not only sharing links but also works great for analyzing their efficiency.
Bitly keeps track of the number of clicks generated by a separate link and shows what time users follow it most often. Besides, it also distributes clicks by countries, so that you can better optimize and target your content.
3. Matomo
In order to use Matomo (formerly Piwik) application, you should install the software and host it on your own server. This tool has features similar to other popular platforms. But what distinguishes it, is no set limits of data storage – along with a mobile platform.
One of its most interesting features is ‘Row Evolution’ that tracks how your metrics change in time. This way, you can see how the traffic changed, driven by a specific keyword and remain aware when your website’s pages lose their efficiency in course of time.
4. Open Web Analytics
Here comes another content analysis tool with no limits on data storage or the number of websites to measure. Open Web Analytics measures unique visitors, page views, user location, and so on.
What’s more, OWA also provides a ‘heat map’ showing you where exactly visitors click on a page. Plus the platform also records mouse movements so that you could see how users navigate your website.
5. Clicky
Clicky’s provided for free only if your website gets under 3,000 views per day. Otherwise, the prices begin at $9.99/per month.
Its functions are similar to Google Analytics ones, but the interface makes the understanding of collected data much easier. Clicky monitors user activities like time and duration of visit, location, actions taken. It also provides the heat maps in a real-time mode. Moreover, they can be developed for each and every visitor when most of the similar tools build these maps based on a certain number of users.
Another advantage of Click is Twitter integration. So if you manage a Twitter page along with a website’s blog, you can monitor both with a single tool.
6. SimilarWeb
Finally, the last by not the least, an application that allows you to spy on competitors and check the solutions they developed. Completely legally! With the help of SimilarWeb tool, you quickly get insights into other website’s traffic, ranking or even a mobile app.
All you need to do to obtain these details is simply enter the website’s URL. Visit duration, pages per visit, bounce rate – all these metrics are present there. And, finally, you can find out what channels your competitors get traffic from, in percentage terms.
As you see, there are lots of various tools that make content monitoring process much easier, faster, and more convenient. The main trick is keeping an eye on content quality, understanding the target audience, and not losing one’s breath.