Google’s New Tools Help Creators Leverage Data-Driven Content

At RebelMouse, we've always embraced the power of "big data," but we also believe the insights it offers should be broken down and made "little" again. This means that data once considered to be high-level analytics for only developers should be repackaged for content creators so they can help to move the needle on revenue and strategy.

This is important in today's digital climate because writers and social curators are in charge of every media company's greatest asset: content. They should be able to unlock the insights that are pivotal to adjusting content and social strategies to deliver repeat engagement and, in turn, conversions.

We're glad the industry has moved to prioritized data-backed content. Recently, Google announced a new insights tool for content creators called Realtime Content Insights (RCI) to help newsrooms and writers shape their content decisions with data on what is and isn't working.

According to the announcement, RCI will show users which articles are most popular with their audiences at present, as well as what topics are trending in other regions. The data is viewable in a full-screen display mode, and the platform is free for all publishers using Google Analytics.

A screenshot of RCI's "Newsroom View," showing top-performing articles, from Google.

Google Trends

The launch of RCI will pair nicely with Google Trends, a real-time search engine that shows the popularity of topics across the world.

Google Trends is a great way to determine what path your content should take, and how to optimize it for the right audience. Here's a look at how it works, comparing the search queries "yoga for mental health" and "yoga for weight loss."

For example, maybe you have a story about yoga that's trending high on your RCI dashboard. To keep the momentum going, you could explore other popular topics about yoga using Google Trends. In the example above, it's clear that "yoga for weight loss" is more popular. So a successful next step for the content team would be to create a dynamic piece of media about practicing yoga for weight loss.

Using data in this kind of thoughtful way will not only result in better-performing content, but you'll be able to track wins more easily by crafting a strategy that is proactive rather than reactive. Instead of publishing and hoping that a piece of content will do well, you can anticipate what's high-performing long before an article is live.

Even More Tools for Data-Driven Content Strategy

In addition to RCI, Google released other tools that will help journalists and content creators make the most of their efforts:

Propensity to Subscribe: This is a signal in Google Ad Manager that leverages machine learning to suggest which readers are likely to convert to subscribers.

GNI Data Lab: This is a pilot program with Google and several news organizations to test new ad strategies, and learn more about how data can help target the right audiences and optimize marketing for relevancy and context. Once completed, they will share best practices with the public.

Data Maturity Benchmark: This is a tool that allows you to compare your data to other news publishers to see how your data capabilities match up with competitors and similar publishers in the digital space.

Optimize Your Content With Powerful Insights

Sites powered by RebelMouse never publish a piece of content without first being supported by the insights that matter. We use another Google product called Data Studio that allows us to pull in many data sources and then filter them so our clients can get immediate insights that are actionable. This data can then be shared with the rest of their teams and understood at a glance, regardless of their experience with web analytics.

Example of a Google Data Studio dashboard for a RebelMouse client.

We also provide in-depth analysis that isn't available natively in Google Analytics, such as moving average reports for page views and users over time. Seeing how your short, medium, and long-term trends are shaping up at a glance is critical to answering the question: "How are we doing?"