You might be excited to see your website is getting 1,000 click-throughs in a day, but it doesn’t mean much without any context.
Without full visibility of how your web content is performing, you won’t know how to develop and get the most out of your on-going content strategy. Are those visitors finding you organically, or through paid search? Are they coming from social media or third party article links? How many of them are converting to leads and sales?
You need to know that you’re getting your content in front of the right people and getting them to take the actions you want.
Here are six essential tactics for getting meaningful measurements from your web content.
1. Tabulate from the start
Avoid duplicating ideas and ensure a steady stream of regular content by tabulating your content concepts along with the key messages, proposed publication dates, platforms, and audiences. Not only will this keep you organised and ensure that your content concepts align with your key messages, but when it comes to measuring the success of your web content, this table will give you clear insight into where and how it is working best for you.
2. Keep an eye on your website traffic
An increase in organic website traffic, especially to content-rich areas of your site, is a good sign your content is working – as are increasing numbers of visitors coming from social media and third party sites.
3. Measure website page engagement
If most users are clicking away from a page of web content after a couple of seconds, it means they’re not engaging with the content. Keep an eye on your engagement stats in your website analytics and make a note of what kind of content is getting a good response, to inform your on-going content strategy.
4. Don’t be afraid of Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free website analytics tool. It might look quite complicated to use at first, but once you get the hang of it you’ll be able to find out how your visitors are finding your website content, whether or not they’re engaging, and where they’re from. Your website metrics are the most revealing data you have about your audience. Displaying data such as average visit duration and how they came to your website, it will give you the most granular insight possible, enabling you to work out which content is the most popular and where might be best to share it offsite. You can even set up ‘goals’ to help you calculate the conversion rates and lead generation value. If you can’t face the faff, pay for a more simplified measurement platform to get more granular insight, such as Funnel, or outsource analytics reports from a reputable marketing agency.
5. Go offsite
Make sure you’re monitoring where you share your web content elsewhere online, and the reaction it’s getting; if you’re not getting a positive response on social media it could indicate that your messaging or platform isn’t right. Most social media platforms have basic reporting available for business pages, but you can also keep an eye on numbers of followers and engagement using social media management tools like Hootsuite.
6. Ask the audience
Ask visitors to your various web platforms what kind of content they like to read; one easy way to do this is to do a social media poll, or to send a survey by email if you have a database of regular followers and customers. Ask them where they like to read content, what kind of device they read it on, and the types of content they prefer to consume (e.g. list articles, videos, infograms.) Consider your existing web content in light of this new information.
Read more
How to bring the driest topic to life
How can social media help me to generate new content ideas?
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This article was originally written on 10 February 2015, and was updated on 1st October 2020
