Writing blogs, posting articles and uploading videos are all great ways to showcase your expertise as part of your content plan. But how do you know if it’s been successful after you’ve clicked ‘publish’? Writing content takes time so it’s crucial to know what resonates with your customers to ensure your time is well-spent.
So we’ve come up with some key stats to help your business monitor what’s working well and what’s not in your content marketing to keep your plan on track.
1) Your website is a goldmine of information
If you publish a lot of content on your website, Google Analytics can offer a wealth of statistics to help you understand your content performance. There is lots of information you can measure but the following statistics are key indicators as to how engaging your content is to your readers:
1. Unique page views
This shows you how many times a particular page has been viewed by a new visitor. It sounds simple, but the more page views you receive the better as more people are reading your content and becoming more aware of your business.
2. Time on page/dwell time
This is useful to understand how long people typically spend on an article or blog. For example, if one article has an average time of three minutes and another has a time of 19 seconds, this gives a strong indication that the first article has performed better as the content perhaps resonates more with readers than the second article.
Time spent on a page can really help steer your content plan by refining content topics that will engage your customers more effectively.
3. Bounce rate
This shows a percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing a particular page without taking any other actions. It’s useful to look at this stat alongside the time on page as it can help to identify content that contributes to higher bounce rate figures.
If we relook at the previous example, if the article had an average time on page of 19 seconds and a higher bounce rate, the article headline may need to be revised. It may be that visitors were interested in the article initially but when clicking through, it either wasn’t relevant or wasn’t what they were expecting from the headline, making this stat an effective way to monitor and improve content performance.
2) Keep an eye on how well it’s socialised
Social media is a great way to measure the success of your content as there are a lot of built-in analytical tools available for you to use such as Facebook’s insights section. Much like your website, statistics via social media can be wide and varied however here are some key stats to keep an eye on to give you a steer as to what content is striking a chord with your followers.
1. Reach
Facebook is a great channel to use to identify how many people your content has reached. By tracking posts on a weekly basis, you can see what content has been viewed by more people giving you an idea as to what type of posts are more successful. Plus, try to tie in hashtags or trending topics in your posts as these can help increase the number of people that see them.
2. Shares/retweets/likes
These are all effective ways to measure the success of engagement with your content. Shares, retweets or likes can help towards your reach figure as well; the more people that engage with your content by sharing, the more opportunity your content has to be seen by their own followers.
3. Comments/feedback
What better way to measure success than by sparking a conversation from one of your posts? Comments from your followers are a great way to gain immediate feedback on your content. Remember to use both positive and negative comments to shape your content plan though. It’s just as important to understand topics that stir little conversation or even negative comments as it is to receive positive feedback on a post.
3) Are your email newsletters working hard enough to engage subscribers?
Sending a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly newsletter to your subscribers is a great way to communicate your content to people that are already interested in what your business has to offer. Here are some essential stats that you should be monitoring when sending your email newsletters to help measure the success of your content.
1. Open rate
This refers to the number of people who open your email when it lands in their inbox. A high open rate indicates a strong and effective subject line and the content is interesting enough for subscribers to want to find out more.
2. Click through rate
This is perhaps a stronger measurement of content that resonates with your subscribers as the click through rate refers to the percentage of people who click through to the content in full from a link in the email. A high click rate will help you understand the types of topics that are most popular with your readers.
3. Unsubscribe rate
Keep an eye on this figure as it’s important not to lose subscribers that have chosen to sign up and receive your content in the first place. If you do notice that your unsubscribes are increasing, revisit your content and make sure it’s relevant and interesting to your readers.
Monitoring the success of your content marketing is essential to ensure it stays relevant to your customers. Use the statistics above to help you understand what works well with your audience and what doesn’t. That way, you can continually tailor your content plan so that it’s always performing positively, allowing you to spend time on creating content that will really make a difference to your readers and your business.
If you struggle to make time for creating content though, there are plenty of providers who can help you with this, including our own sponsored content service.
For more information on making the most of your content marketing, you can read the following articles:
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