Analytics for Content Curation: What You Need to Know
When it comes to website visitor behavior, and the tracking of this behavior through analytics platforms, content curators have a very different goal than online publishers. If you are an online publisher, you want visitors to stay on your site as long as possible and consume as much of your content as possible. However, if you are a content curator, you want visitors to click away and visit some of the sites you are linking to. This engagement is a measurement of the value of the content you are curating and, hence, as a content curator, it is important to set up analytics to track it.
So, if you are a content curator looking to gather some intelligence on how your visitors are behaving on your site, here is what we recommend:
First, decide what to track. Analytics platforms can be quite costly and it can be difficult to stay afloat in the sea of data that they provide. A crucial step in improving those metrics is deciding exactly what to measure. Some things to consider, for example: How important is it to know what browser users are accessing your site from? And what about geographical data—where are your visitors coming from? Or visitor demographic? As mentioned above, one of the most important behaviors for a content curator to track is user engagement, which usually comes down to how your visitors leave your site (via one of the links you provided or via another method). This is a key measurement of the value your site provides. Once you’ve setup these metrics, you can experiment with different layouts, designs, or even typefaces, to see which combination yields the highest engagement rate. Finally, depending on the intended audience of your curation site, you may want to setup additional tracking parameters, such as whether your visitors browse through galleries, watch videos, etc. It is important to have a good idea of what you’d like to track before deciding on an analytics tool, so that you can match the capabilities of the software to your actual needs.
Then, pick an analytics platform. Once you know what you’d like to track, take a look at some of the available platforms. There are many analytics platforms on the market, but here are three we recommend considering:
(1) Google Analytics is the most obvious choice since it’s both easy to use and free. All you need to do is sign up and follow the instructions to add a tracking code to your site and begin tracking data. You can take a product tour here. Google Analytics is a great, easy to use, service that will provide you with significant insights on your visitors.
(2) Mixpanel might be the better choice if you want to track true user engagement. With Mixpanel, you can see how users engage in real time and compare trends and metrics over time. It is an excellent tool to view and track specific actions of your site visitors. See what content and links they are engaging with most and how often they return. You can even define different groups for which to track visitor behavior by type. For the average tracking needs, this service will cost you around $150 to $350 per month, unless you have reason to opt for their Premium or Business services which cost up to $1,650 per month.
(3) A third option is Adobe Web Analytics (formerly Omniture), a digital marketing suite, and the analytics provider preferred by most large publishers. This service is probably more powerful and comprehensive than the average content curator needs, as it was designed for large businesses, but worth looking into nonetheless. Adobe Web Analytics includes Adobe Site Catalyst (actionable analytics), Adobe Discover (advanced analytics), and Adobe Survey (to measure audience sentiment).
Adobe does not disclose prices on their website, but the above services are significantly more expensive. According to About.com Media, “A hefty price tag is attached to all of the bells and whistles. Quotes are based on your site's traffic and tracking needs and only go up in cost the more your site grows.”
Regardless of the platform you select, tracking, measuring and analyzing visitor behavior will give you important insights to help improve the content you are curating on your site and become a more valuable web destination.
