How to use Google Analytics to create killer content that drives traffic to your blog

Google Analytics is a powerful tool. It’s also one of those things that looks incredibly daunting when you first log in and see all the options — all those graphs and numbers and sections with names like “Engagement rate” and “Event count.” It looks technical as anything, but once you break it down into what you actually need to know, it’s not that bad at all.

Quick note: I originally wrote this post in 2018 for the old Google Analytics (Universal Analytics/GA3). Google retired that version in July 2023, and everyone’s now on GA4. The core idea — use your analytics to find what’s working and build on it — is the same. But the navigation has completely changed, so I’ve rewritten this post for GA4.

The best bit is that the most useful thing you can do in Google Analytics doesn’t require you to understand any of the technical stuff. You just need to find your top-performing posts and ask yourself: can I write more like this?

Finding Your Best-Performing Posts in GA4

Log in to Google Analytics and make sure you’re in the right property (if you have multiple sites, check the dropdown at the top).

In the left-hand menu, go to Reports > Life cycle > Engagement > Pages and screens.

This shows you your top pages — the content people are actually viewing. By default it shows the last 28 days. You can change the date range using the date selector in the top right corner.

The columns you want to pay attention to:

• Views — how many times a page has been seen (equivalent to old pageviews)
• Engaged sessions — sessions where someone actually spent time on the page, rather than immediately bouncing. This is often more useful than raw views because it shows pages people actually read
• Average engagement time — how long people spend on each page. A post with 500 views and 3 minutes average engagement time is performing better than a post with 1,000 views and 10 seconds average engagement time

Sort by each of these in turn to get a different perspective on what’s working.

Finding Where Your Traffic Comes From

Knowing your top posts is useful. Knowing how people found those posts is even better.

Go to Reports > Life cycle > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition. This shows your overall traffic breakdown by channel — organic search, social, direct, email, referral.

If you want to see the traffic sources for a specific post, you can filter the data. Click Add filter at the top of the table, add a filter for “Page path”, and enter the URL slug of the post you’re interested in. It’ll then show you where that specific post’s traffic is coming from.

This is useful because it tells you:

• Which of your posts are doing well in Google search (organic) vs social media
• Whether your email list is sending traffic to certain posts
• Which posts are getting links from other sites (referral)

A post that gets most of its traffic from Google search is one worth updating and expanding, because that traffic tends to be consistent over time. A post that spiked on social and then went quiet is a different kind of win.

Using This to Plan Your Next Posts

Right, so you’ve found your top performers. Now what?

Make a list of your top 10 posts and go through them with these questions:

Can I write a follow-up or companion post? If your “what to plant in June” post is your most-viewed thing every summer, could you write “what to plant in July” or “what to plant in spring” to capture related searches?

Is the information out of date? A post that used to drive traffic but has dropped off might just need updating. Google rewards fresh, accurate content. Going through and updating a post that already ranks for something is often faster and more effective than writing something new from scratch.

What are my readers asking in the comments? Comments sections are gold for content ideas. If three different people have asked the same follow-up question, that’s a post waiting to be written.

What similar searches might bring the same readers? If your Yorkshire Wolds post is popular, what else might those readers search for? North Yorkshire villages, day trips from York, weekend walks in the Dales?

What Date Range Should I Use?

This depends on what you’re trying to understand.

• Last 28 days or last month — good for seeing what’s trending right now
• Last 12 months — good for understanding your overall best performers
• Year on year — useful for spotting seasonal patterns (e.g. your Christmas post always spikes in November)
• All time (set a custom range going back to when you started GA4, or as far back as your data goes) — useful for finding your genuine all-time best performers

I find the last 12 months most useful for content planning, because it captures a full year of seasons and trends without being too skewed by short-term spikes.

Frequently Asked Questions: Using Google Analytics for Blog Content

How do I find my most popular blog posts in GA4?

Go to Reports > Life cycle > Engagement > Pages and screens. This shows your top pages by views. Sort by “Views” for raw traffic or “Engaged sessions” for a better sense of which posts people actually read rather than bounced from immediately. Change the date range using the selector in the top right to see data from different time periods.

What’s the difference between GA3 (Universal Analytics) and GA4?

Google’s old Google Analytics (called Universal Analytics or GA3) was retired in July 2023. GA4 is the current version. The core idea is the same — tracking how people find and use your website — but almost all the navigation and menu names are different. GA4 also uses different metrics: “engaged sessions” instead of “bounce rate”, “event count” instead of “goals”, and so on. If your analytics shows a gap in data around mid-2023, that’s why.

What should I look for in Google Analytics to get more blog traffic?

Start with your top pages and ask: what do they have in common? Are they all in a particular category? Are they detailed how-to posts or personal essays? Do they answer a specific question? Then look at where their traffic comes from — are they ranking in Google, or is the traffic mostly from social? Posts that get organic search traffic are worth building on because that traffic is consistent.

How often should I check Google Analytics for my blog?

Once a week is plenty for most bloggers. A quick look at your top pages and traffic sources gives you a sense of what’s working. The bigger content-planning exercise — going through your top posts and planning follow-ups — is something to do every few months rather than constantly. Obsessing over daily numbers is stressful and not particularly useful; trends over weeks and months tell you more.

Can I use Google Analytics 4 to see what people searched to find my blog?

Not directly — GA4 doesn’t show you the search terms people typed into Google. For that, you need Google Search Console (free to set up, and it links to GA4). Search Console shows you which queries are bringing people to your blog, which pages they’re landing on, and what your average ranking position is for each term. I’d recommend setting both up and using them together.