How to Incorporate Data Analytics into Content Strategy

Successful blogging is all about how one manages and prioritizes their content. Especially during busy times in a blog’s niche, it can be difficult to know which posts are the most timely and what content can wait. However, on a day-to-day basis, bloggers don’t need to simply rely on their judgement to know what the best content to post is, because like every other modern industry, data analytics can be incorporated into content strategy, so that science can assist in selecting and prioritizing blog content. Analyzing social media trends and using website analytic programs are a few ways to let data analytics make the decisions when it comes to refining content strategy.

Social Media and Data Analytics

Social media is a goldmine of popular culture and opinions for marketers and data analysts. The use of hashtags to track trends and website analytics to understand a blog’s audience has streamlined the ability to see what topics are trending all over the world; on which site, and what the main demographic of various trends are. This information is helpful in content marketing by suggesting what kind of products and services are appealing to a variety of audiences, and is helpful to bloggers for the same reason — technology and data analytics can help direct a blog’s content to the trending topics and current interests of their audience. For this reason, a social media presence can be beneficial in strengthening the blogger and audience relationship.

Depending on the amount of content and information contained in a blog, data analytics can also be helpful in analyzing the information already on a blog and can indicate what topics and writing styles are proven to draw attention and a positive reaction from the blog’s audience. This can be useful in organizing blog content by determining how often a blogger will cover a certain popular topic that the audience openly enjoys, as well as indicating to stay away from certain topics that possibly acquire negative feedback. While this can be helpful in composing and planning a content strategy, personal judgement is the most important factor as people are generally attracted to blogs by the creativity and ideas of the blogger; data analytics simply provides context for a blogger to make informed decisions.

Refining Content Strategy

While a blog’s audience typically understands the blogger, it’s also important for a blogger to know who their target audience is in order to produce the best content for them. This is something that usually occurs naturally as a good practice of blogging, however, it’s helpful to use available resources to make refined decisions about content. According to an article by Maryville University, “The process should be extending the reach of the human brain, not replacing it. Data is nothing without competent, imaginative human analysis.” Knowing an audience’s needs, habits and preferences can help with deciding the kind of content that will provide them with useful and thoughtful information that will keep them intrigued in the blog.

Getting comfortable with Google Analytics is a good first step in becoming more familiar with effective content marketing and promotion. Analytics provides and organizes a wealth of information about any blog, with details about the site visitors’ demographics and method of interacting with the blog, such as bounce rate and channel groupings. Being fluent in the breakdown of these analyses can help a blogger understand the relationship their audience has with the blog, as well as what is leading them to their page and what pages they tend to go there to visit. This information can help bloggers craft their content by determining what pages in their blog to place their best content and what topics to potentially stay away from or elaborate on.

Data Driven Content Strategy

Aside from analytics, there are some simple, more basic ways to use data to drive content strategy. Big data analysis is now considered more of a technology than solely a way to look at information, and it can be used as an adaptable resource. It can focus on the content similar blogs are producing, and more technical aspects like keyword research and content performance. This can help bloggers come up with new ideas that are spun off of old content that performed well, browsing habits or content that is trending elsewhere. It’s also important to focus on basic statistics, such as the average length of successful blog posts and the type of media that accrues the most attention. This information can be easily found through apps like google analytics, where algorithms are able to quickly draw this information with little effort required from the blogger.

Statistics also show that steps like, making a blog mobile-friendly will not only result in more page views, it will also increase the blog’s rating with google. Data can assist bloggers in coming to conclusions and prioritizing technology integration for the blog by determining which applications are likely to have the most impact. Being present on social media sites like Facebook also make blogs more accessible and easy to find for the average IoT user. Facebook and analytics can provide a brief overview of an audience and also inform bloggers what their users are searching for in their site, even if they aren’t finding it, which can help provide more content ideas as well.

Final thoughts

Data analytics is playing a bigger role across all industries each year and applying it to blogging can provide the same kind of refined results in accuracy and data. Social media is a huge tool in reaching and communicating with a target audience, whether or not they actually visit the blog, simply because there are so many users on the top social media sites. Data analytics can help bloggers allow data to drive their content strategies based on what their target audience is seeking in a blog. Using data to prioritize content can benefit the blog and make the blogger’s job easier. These techniques assist content marketers and bloggers and provide insight into the minds of blog audiences everywhere.