Mar 18, 2011 Staff

Blog Metrics to Track


Blogs are still the heart of social media and content marketing. Blogs supply much of the content that drives social media conversations. Given their importance, blog metrics are needed to assess your success relative to your marketing objectives. From Content Marketing Institute, 21 blog metrics:

Count visits and unique visitors
Where do they come from and where do they go on your site?
Goal: Attract your target audience.

Pageviews
Which pages attract readers? Where do they click? Where do they leave?
Goal: Track areas of reader interest.

Time on site
What is the average time spent on the site? How much time is spent on specific pages?
Goal: Get customers to spend time engaged with your content.

RSS feeds and email lists
Measure sign-ups to see if blog is building an online following.
Goal: Build your audience.

Brand-related metrics
Brand recall, favorability, and intent to purchase, often tracked by surveys.
Goal: Show brand growth.

Product information metrics
Targeted promotion codes used and click-throughs to purchase.
Goal: Increase sales.

Call to action
Use a call-to-action and a unique promotional code to track results.
Goal: Support sales with appropriate content.

Blog-related revenues
Track sales related to blog content.
Goal: Increase revenue generation.

Search rankings
Is blog content improving search rankings?
Goal: Be more findable, reduce SEO costs.

Inbound links
How many sites link into your blog?
Goal: Improve SEO.

Outbound links
How many outbound links do you have?
Goal: Get the attention of experts in your field.

Intra-company links
Do you have links to other relevant areas of your site?
Goal: Support SEO.

Number of social media shares
Count shares as well as platforms used.
Goal: Cost effective reach expansion.

Video or other media downloads or views
Content such as video, audio, presentations and e-books.
Goal: Distribute content to broader audience and enhance your brand.

Post-purchase support
How many people download or read instructions  for using product?
Goals: Reduce returns, encourage repeat purchases.

Number of customer questions answered
Are new questions being submitted? Do their comments need further clarification?
Goal: Reduce customer complaints and customer service expense.

Reader comments and/or votes
Show that you’re responsive to readers by responding to customers’ comments.
Goal: Expand community engagement.

Community engagement
Prospects, customers and the public to share commentary.
Goal: Enhance your content and community engagement.

Media links
How many media companies and bloggers link into your blog as a source of information?
Goal: Get additional executive exposure.

Number of posts
How much information are you generating? Use an editorial calendar.
Goal: Have fresh content on a regular basis.

Blog-related expenses
Track costs for your bloggers, editorial staff, technology support, design and other areas that affect your blog.
Goal: Assess full cost of blog against other communications options.

Not every blog needs to track all of these metrics. Track the ones that are most important to accomplishing your marketing goals.

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Published by Staff March 18, 2011