Creating Word Clouds in Google Data Studio

A while back Google Data Studio launched Community visualisations. This allows us to create all the charts that we always wished Data Studio would have but they were too busy offering us a free, amazing data visualisation platform.

There are already some great visualisations on offer, such as:

Starburst (which may go again visualisation principles but impresses my boss).

A donut chart showing traffic sources by medium, with "organic," "referral," and "(none)" as the largest segments. A legend on the right categorizes mediums with different colors.

Data from Google Merchandise Store

Funnels

A funnel chart showing drop-offs from product detail views (100%) to transactions (0%). Key steps include adds to cart (9%) and checkouts (6%).

Data from Google Merchandise Store

And improved filtering

A session breakdown by device type. "Mobile" is selected, showing 15,474 sessions. Other options include "desktop" and "tablet."

Though with all this I really wanted a word cloud to show off search terms on site or popular product types. I may have pure analysts say it is better in a bar chart, but for presentations it is nice to mix it up a bit. So I built my own, which you can use.

Step 1: Set up your Data Studio report

Go to https://datastudio.google.com/ and create a new report (https://support.google.com/datastudio/answer/6291026?hl=en) .

Step 2: Add your data source to your report

Select which data source you would like to add and follow the prompts - more instructions here: https://support.google.com/datastudio/answer/6300774?hl=en

When adding the data source make sure that Community Visualisation Access is turned to on:

A settings panel showing data credentials as "Owner," data freshness as "12 hours," and "Community visualizations access: On" highlighted in red. Field editing in reports is also "On."

Step 3: Add the community visualisation

Next to the “Add a chart” button there is a button with lots of different shapes. Click on this and it will give you some examples of community visualizations, we want to + Explore more.

A "Community visualizations" panel in Google Data Studio, showing third-party visual components in beta. Featured charts include Gauge, Sunburst, Radar Chart, and Gantt Chart, with an option to explore more.

Have a look around at the different options on offer, maybe think of a different way you can tell your data story.

To add the word cloud click on Build your own visualization

A "Partner Visualizations" section in Google Data Studio with an option to "Build your own visualization" or validate a community visualization.

Under the Manifest Path enter:

gs://meliorum-visualisations/wordcloud/

Click Submit and you will have the option to add the Simple Word Cloud.

A form in Google Data Studio for testing and adding a community visualization. The manifest path "gs://meliorum-visualisations/wordcloud/" is entered, and the "Simple Word Cloud" visualization by Meliorum is displayed.

Still very much in development mode, so if there is any issues please let me know.

Step 4: Play around

Go nuts creating word clouds. One example is to get the search query that brought people to your site. This word cloud, splits individual words so you can see trends.

A Word Cloud configuration in Google Data Studio. The dimension is "Search Query" (green), and the metric is "Sessions" (blue).

You can adjust the colour under the style tab.

A word cloud visualization with the most prominent words being "google" and "store," along with other related terms like "merch," "apparel," "youtube," "stickers," "mugs," and "backpacks."

Get in touch if you have suggestions on how it can be improved, or ideas for other visualisations. If you want to try and create one yourself there is a great tutorial here: https://codelabs.developers.google.com/codelabs/community-visualization/#0

Help maintain and improve the word cloud

At this point, Google doesn't let me know how many people are using this visualisation. Please comment below if you like it and want to see improvements.

If you use this visualisation and want to see improvements made please feel free to donate what you think is appropriate to its ongoing upkeep. Any donation would be greatly appreciated.

Donate
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