• Home
  • /
  • Blog
  • /
  • How To Do Content Analysis

How To Do Content Analysis

It’s impossible to execute effective content strategies without content analysis. You may be producing great content, but unless you have the analytics to back it up and prove that it’s achieving the key performance indicators (KPIs) you’ve set for it, then it can’t be called successful. There are three general steps in content analysis: collection, research, and application. Start by collecting data and analyzing it alongside your content and strategies, then apply your findings to existing or future campaigns.

What Is Content Analysis?

Content analysis refers to the process of analyzing data to determine the effectiveness of a brand’s content strategy. It can identify trends, refine campaigns, and pinpoint strategies to help a brand realize its marketing goals. A key person in the content, marketing, or data analytics team is usually assigned this responsibility. 

If you’ve ever wondered, “What does a content strategist do?”, then you can read more about the overall responsibilities of the role in our article linked above.

Why Is Content Analysis Important?

Content analysis allows you to break down your content strategies and identify what’s working or not, which can inform your marketing decisions, helping you create more relevant content for your audiences that accomplishes your brand’s goals and objectives.

Content analysis can also help you maintain best practices in content creation. It can also help you answer questions, such as: “What trends resonate with my audience?”, “On which platforms is my audience active?”, and “How many keywords to use for SEO?”. 

How To Do Content Analysis

Content analysis can be broken down into three general steps:

Data Collection

Data collection involves gathering all sorts of quantitative or qualitative information to examine. This data includes a list of your content and relevant collaterals, analytics from Google Analytics (GA), social media and competitor news, and customer interviews, among others.

Data Analysis

After you’ve gathered all the necessary data, it’s time to analyze them. To do this effectively, you need to have at least a basic understanding of data analytics, especially how to convert quantitative data into qualitative insights. 

Analyzing data can be done in many ways. You can compare current strategies with previously well-performing or unsuccessful ones; you can evaluate specific content to segregate what works and what doesn’t; you can also outsource help to get an external opinion on your performance metrics. The main objective when analyzing data is to develop actionable insights that you can apply moving forward.

Application

Once you’ve thoroughly examined your data, it’s time to execute your learnings into existing or future content strategies and campaigns. This can be as simple as changing post formats or adding emojis to social media captions. But it can also be as complex as re-doing a chunk of your website or pivoting an entire campaign. Whatever you decide to do, be sure to align it with the insights you’ve drawn from your content analysis so that you take a data-driven approach to your content strategies; this helps guarantee better, more consistent results.

Metrics To Measure In A Content Analysis

Doing a content analysis can be overwhelming, given the amount of data that you might encounter. To make it simpler, you must hone in on the data that you want to measure. Here are some key metrics to measure in content analysis:

Traffic

Traffic metrics can show you the quantity and quality of people that receive your content. It is usually a dissection of your content’s reach and includes information like page views or profile visits, time spent on your website, bounce rate, traffic sources, et cetera. 

Engagement

Engagement metrics measure how and why your audience engages (e.g., likes, comments, or shares) with your content. It is essential for brands that want to connect with their customers on a deeper level; engagement metrics are also a great way to stay on the pulse of your target market.

Sales Or Conversions

Sales or conversion metrics are precious for e-commerce brands. These pieces of information can show you how your content is helping you push your customers into buying your products or signing up for your website. Specific services can be improved from having a clear understanding of these metrics as well. 

Conclusion: Don’t Stop Analyzing

Before launching a new campaign or changing current content strategies, it’s helpful to keep an eye on the performance of your content as it stands today. But don’t stop analyzing even after you’ve gotten some insights! Continuously refining your content strategy through analysis is vital to making sure your content is aligned with your brand’s objectives and stays connected with your target market.

Learn more about What Does Google Analytics Track?

Kyle Roof

About the author

Kyle is best known for revealing the “secret” hidden in plain sight: Google’s algorithm is an algorithm. In other words, it all comes down to one thing - Math. Kyle demonstrated this by ranking number one in Google with a page consisting of gibberish text and only a handful of target keywords. Google actually punished him for exposing their algorithm by de-indexing 20 of his test sites and creating a rule in an attempt to de-value his efforts. Kyle has spent the past several years running more than 400 scientific SEO tests to better understand Google's algo. The combined results of those tests became the backbone of the popular SEO tool, PageOptimizer Pro, and they are implemented within his SEO agency on client sites. Kyle also shares his techniques in podcasts, at conferences around the world, and within the platform he co-founded, IMG, a sort of Netflix for SEOs with an active community aspect.