Measuring your work is something you should do monthly, weekly or even daily. And sometimes it’s getting a little frustrating when you have to stop your work, put down the “guns” and start looking at numbers.
Numbers that will tell you whether you are doing a good job or a terrible job. Numbers that will show you what you should do to have better results.
And these numbers should be analyzed looking through a filter of metrics. Metrics that will help you not only looking at some numbers but also determine where you want to get with your blogging goals.
This is my second post (the first is 8 Different Blogging Goals to Help Grow Your Blog) inspired from a video that Rand Fishkin put out in 3th June 2016 about the SEO for Bloggers “How to Nail the Optimization Process for Your Posts”.
After you will read this article, you will know what metrics should you use to analyze your work but also what tools to use to measure these metrics and how you can do it, starting today.
I will talk about the 5 metrics you should look after you published a blog post:
- Visits
- Engagements
- Links
- Social Media Shares
- Lead Generator
1. Visits
For some bloggers and content marketers, this is the first thing they think about when they want to measure their work. How much visit they got. How much traffic they gained from that blog post.
And I’m not saying that is bad or good. Because your website also needs traffic to get known by others.
The first question when somebody wants to get more traffic on their blog is the same question that many content marketers are asking: “Quality or Quantity?” And the answer is always the same – It Depends.
But you can’t have a good content marketing strategy if you don’t invest in quality and you can’t get good traffic on your website, if you don’t invest in quantity.
So, if you want to see how much traffic your website gets, just install the Google Analytics code and after a few days, look at your report: Audience – Overview. I believe that Google Analytics it’s the most detailed analytics you can use on your website.
There are also tools like SEMRush, Alexa Ranking or Similar Web.
So, visits on your website can be a metrics you should measure when you determine your clear goals for your content marketing work.
2. Engagements (comments)
The other metrics I recommend you to measure is “engagement”.
Here comes the human part of your content marketing. Because here you need to get not only personal but also to try to understand what intents your visitors have when they engage.
But when we talk about engagement, I look at comments. Lately I saw some decrease in the comment section but that doesn’t mean that engagement it’s only on blogs or website.
And it’s kind of funny to write about this on a blog where you rarely see some comments. But I started this blog a few months ago and I’m still struggling with my blogging strategy. It’s hard, but it’s not impossible.
If people are commenting on your blog it means that you are doing a good job because you had their attention. And today, the human attention span is shorter than a goldfish’s one
If people comment to your website you can not only have the opportunity to engage with them, but you can also have a more private talk if they give you their e-mail (when a user comments on a blog, he must fill 3 sections: Name, Email, Comment. I recommend you to make all of them mandatory on your blog. Because in that way you can stay away from spammers).
3. Links
Even if I’m a content marketer and have my personal blog, like this one, I didn’t know the power of backlinks before I had a talk with my colleague. He is the one that measures the conversions, the SEO on our website and everything that is behind the scene on a website. And man, when you talk with somebody like him, you will understand how important SEO is for your website and what you should do to increase better numbers (results).
Links are very important for your website.
How can you get links to your blog posts or website?
There are 2 points I think about right now on how you can get these links that you want to measure for your blog post goals:
- When you created a valuable content?
There was a time when I thought that the best content I can write has to be a long-form content where I just share my thoughts, ideas or other tips and tricks I learned by reading, or experimenting. But then I looked deeper in this strategy and I found out that there are other types of content you can create on your blog:
- Short and very powerful blog posts (think about Seth Godin);
- Videos you insert in blog posts with or without Transcript (Whiteboard Friday on MOZ);
- Long-form content (Neil Patel and QuickSprout);
- Infographics and other Visuals (check out Bannersnack’s infographics or Kissmetrics).
When you do this constantly and you give your community great information and content (think about helping them first) you’ll reap the benefits later.
- When you guest post for others
There are content marketers or bloggers who do constantly guest posting for other online publishers or bloggers. Many of them are doing it to grow their personal brand and many of them are doing it to promote their own work and to back link to their website.
Because Google loves when you have high-quality and natural links to your own website/blog.
Yes, this is another strategy where you can earn many links to your website. It’s not easy and you need to work harder.
I wrote several articles for different websites, here are a few you can check out:
- http://corp.shocase.com/2016/06/we-need-more-marketing-in-content-marketing3/
- http://hotinsocialmedia.com/4-reasons-why-small-businesses-should-use-instagram/
- http://piktochart.com/blog/branding-pillars-infographic/
- http://justcreative.com/2016/02/25/you-are-more-than-a-line-drawer/
Before I go to the next point, I want to let you know that you need to have a proper balance between writing for Google and writing for humans. And sometimes it’s better to write for humans than for Google, because humans react emotionally, but Google reacts robotic.
At the end of the day, the one thatwill buy your brand (even attention or money) will be the human one, not Google!
4. Social Media Shares
If you want to get more social media shares, you need to understand how these platforms algorithms are working and who can get benefits from it.
There are bunch of specialists who say that if you post a few times on Facebook, Linkedin, Google Plus and Twitter the traffic will pour in, you will have a big audience and you can get lot of social media shares.
Let me tell you this my dear friend: the competition is hard and you need to get your hands dirty and experiment everyday to know what is good for your brands and what you need to stop focusing on.
If you want to get more shares on social media you need to look at your followers today and take them into consideration. Who are they? Why they are following you? What type of content they engage more?
Than stay away from being a spammer and share every hour your blog post. You need to create a smart schedule rather than a crowded one. That means that you need a social media strategy when you will publish your content and how you will publish it (Twitter, Facebook, Hashtags, Images, Video).
But more important, every time you go out on social media you need to keep your mind on the next point.
“What value will I provide today?”
But maybe what is valuable for you it’s not valuable for your community. So think first of your audience. Promoting content on social media more than once is a good strategy, but as long as you are doing it to give valuable information for your audience.
If you want to measure your shares and the overall impact of your blog post, I recommend you to try Buzzsumo.
Here you can find how many people shared your content on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest and Google Plus. Also, you will get a Total shares count that will help you see how much value did you get from social media shares.
If you are consistent with your social media strategy, you will see more benefits in your business in many ways (more website traffic, better brand awareness, closer customer retention, bigger impact).
5. Lead Generator
Generating leads for your business with a blog post can be another metrics you can follow while you create content. Think about that: if you create high-value content, promoting it on the right platform, for the right user and at the right time, you will see that many users will start trusting you and engage with your content.
And if somebody will trust you, that means that they will give you what you want!
According to Hubspot and WebDAM’s recent statistics show that B2B companies that blog consistently generate 67% more leads per month that those who do not.
So, if you want to generate leads with your blog posts, you need to make it consistently. Writing just one blog post per month can gain you a few leads, but if you will blog several time per week, you will get more leads.
How you can generate more leads? By answering customers questions.
You can go on Google Adwords Keywords Planner and write your main keyword in the search box. Then click on the “Get ideas” and you will see keywords that will help you write your blog post. You will get commercial and informational keywords. And with commercial keywords you will determine what intent you customers have on the internet.
Maybe you want to generate more e-mail leads, maybe you want to getmore users to try your app or to download your content (ebook, whitepaper, infographic).
But that only depends on your marketing strategy.
Why do you want leads and what do you want to do with them?
Conclusion
Here you go: the 5 blogging metrics you can use to measure your blogging goals and your success with your blog post. It’s easy to write a blog post, but it’s kind of difficult to measure with the right metrics and to see what success did you have with it.
To cut through this content marketing noise, you need to focus more on your target audience’s needs and to understand what intent they have when they are surfing on the internet.
Be there for them. Give them the valuable information they want and be consistent with your content creation and marketing.
Now back to you: did you use any of these metrics to measure your blogging goals?
Featured Image © Artherposter | Dreamstime.com
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