5 Metrics to Determining the Success of Your Blog

Writing blog content is one of the best marketing strategies to help to boost your sales and revenue, but you probably already know that. The trouble is, many businesses aren’t exactly sure how to measure how well their blog is doing. While what consists of a successful measurement will depend on your end goals, here are five steps to take to determine how successful your blogging efforts really are.

1. Traffic

You want eyes on your content, that’s a given. Getting traffic to your site is definitely the first goal of any content strategy, because from traffic, comes everything else. Use any web analytics program (even Google) to measure your traffic and note if it spikes or if it stays consistent after you publish a post. You may think spikes in traffic are great, but you want that consistent traffic that only comes from a well-planned SEO strategy for your blog. Rand Fishkin calls this the “spike of hope” paired with the “flatline of nope”. Your blog is not successful if you consistently see increased traffic only after a post is published and promoted, but then minimal traffic otherwise.

2. Leads

From all this traffic, leads are your next metric for success. Your traffic should be that of potential leads and not just random Joes who might like your content but aren’t in any position to buy your product or service. Bounce rate is a good way to determine if the audience that is coming to your site is actually a qualified lead. If more than 50% of your traffic is leaving your site after only visiting that one page (your blog post) and not diving in further for more information on your brand and your products, they aren’t leads. Repeat visits from one user is a good way to determine that they are most likely a viable lead in your sales chain, because they are showing continued interest in your content and what you do. You can take this a step further, by adding conversations to the mix and engaging directly with those repeat visitors to your blog.

3. Sales

Money talks, as we all know. If you are getting consistent sales from visitors who first came to your site via your blog, you can easily call this a success. Or can you? That all depends on:

• how many sales you are getting
• if you are getting consistent sales
• if you are getting repeat business from those customers
• if your company is seeing consistent growth
• what your blogging spend is compared to your sales (ROI)

These measurements are relatively easy to track and will give you the big picture to tell you if your blog is successful or if it isn’t.

4. Engagement

Blog success isn’t just relative to how much money you make from it. You will know if you have content that is truly tailored to your brand’s ethos if it gets engagement. This will come from reader comments right on the blog, but also from activity on social media. Social engagement will consist of more comments, but also simple shares and likes. Your definition of successful blog engagement and what metrics you’ll use should come prior to you even starting to blog. This leads us to our next test of blog success… viral content.

5. Viral content

Most of what you see on your Facebook and Twitter feeds is viral content. This is because you are undoubtedly seeing it because many people have shared it and it has now made it to your own feed. There are many varying definitions of what constitutes viral content, but if your content is being shared through a chain of other shares, you can be sure that your blog content is a success. The number of shares that comprise success are up to you and your own marketing goals.
Every blog can be successful, and it’s setting the right goals and achieving them that matter most. Measuring your blog’s success with these five key metrics and continuing to measure it for growth and future success will ensure you are achieving what you want to with your blog.

Guest article written by: Eva Webster is the Managing Director at Article-Writing.co. After many years of making it and breaking it in the freelance world, she now mentors new writers who want to take their careers to the next level.