7 Content Marketing Metrics to Effectively Measure Your Content’s Performance

You might be putting out amazing content one after another. And, there’s no shortage of audience-relevant content ideas in your editorial schedule. Also, you also have a well-functioning content process.

However, until you evaluate your content’s performance, you won’t be able to tell how effective it is. It would be like tossing darts into the dark in the hopes that one may land on a customer.

And, that’s where content marketing metrics can be your closest ally!

It helps you to measure the performance of your content to see if your efforts and hardwork is paying off or not.

Let’s explore the content marketing metrics you should track to ensure the success of your content marketing effort.

Understanding Content Marketing Metrics

Monitoring a few Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that demonstrate how well your content is performing is necessary for tracking your content marketing performance.

Without effective content measurement, you can’t tell if your content is achieving your business objectives. Additionally, metrics assist the content team in determining the type of content to produce and why, as well as determining whether or not they were successful.

Moving on, let’s talk about the key content marketing indicators you should start tracking in order to create good content.

Key Content Marketing Metrics to Measure

Content marketing metrics allow you to assess whether your current efforts are having an impact, or whether you need to change your strategy, or revamp it to improve performance.

Have a look at the following content marketing metrics that can help you to increase the effectiveness of your content.

1. Web Traffic

If you have a consistent stream of visitors on your website, you need to understand this traffic better. You’ll be able to make changes as needed and produce better relevant content if you know where your traffic is coming from and what kind of content is getting the most views.

Tool: Google Analytics and Other Analytics Platforms
Steps: Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium and/or Channels

2. Social Shares and Backlinks

Any content asset should aim to benefit readers in some way. The willingness of users to share your content with their own audiences can be inferred from social shares and backlinks.

• Social Shares: Shares on social media can be used to gauge how well your content is received by your intended audience.
   
  Tool: BuzzSumo
  Steps: Search by URL (ex. Specific content asset URL or /blog/), sorted by top-shared content.

• Backlinks: How frequently a piece of material is linked to and cited on other websites and publications serves as a gauge of its value.
   
  Tools: SEMRush, BuzzSumo & Others
  Steps: Search by URL > Backlinks

3. User Behavior

Using behavioral analytics, you may find out more about how many people are visiting and interacting with your website. These elements influence how relevantly Google ranks your page in the SERPs. You can track which pages bring people to the site in the first place and which pages they interact with the most.

Take note of the following metrics:

• Average Time on Page
  The average time a visitor spends on your page reveals if they are reading it carefully or merely scanning it.
• Pages per Session
  This score demonstrates whether your content is compelling and appropriately arranged to encourage a visitor to navigate to another web page.
• Bounce and Exit Rate
  A high bounce rate indicates that something is off with a website and the type of page and the source of the traffic have a significant impact.
• New & Returning Visitors
  The number of new visitors represents the quantity of potential leads, while the percentage of repeat visitors reveals how well-liked your content is by your audience.

Tools: Google Analytics and Other Analytics Platforms
Steps: Behavior > Overview and/or Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages

4. Impressions & CTR

It is important to monitor impressions and click-through-rate to determine whether the terms your content is ranking for actually result in organic search impressions and clicks. It indicates whether your content is performing well (with high impressions and CTR) or it needs changes (low impressions, low CTR, or a combination of the two).

Tool: Google Search Console
Steps: Performance > Search Results > Queries

5. Keyword Rankings

You should verify that your content ranks for the targeted keywords after optimizing it. Although there are many variables that affect how well keywords work, a few of them include Website Authority, Keyword Difficulty, and Website Security. Monitoring your keyword rankings and making improvements would produce fantastic results.

Tools: SEMrush, Google Search Console
Steps: (SEMrush) Search by URL & (GSC) Performance > Search Results > Queries

6. Email Opt-In Rates

It’s critical to monitor click-through rates to see whether readers are visiting your website after reading your content. If they don’t buy right away, are they still providing you a chance to get their information and stay in touch with them later? Readers will be willing to share their contact information with you, and interested in hearing more of what you have to say, if your content marketing is effective and doing its job.

Tool: Google Search Console
Steps: Search Console Dashboard > Search Analytics > Clicks, Impressions and CTR

7. Lead Generation

The amount of leads that content marketers generate needs to be monitored. To secure resources, it’s crucial for many marketers to show how content advances lead acquisition and/or nurturing goals.

Tool: Google Analytics
Steps: Conversions > Goals > Overview

Concluding Thoughts

The most effective content marketing strategies are those that go beyond the transactional aspect to the relationship between a business and a customer and acknowledge that you can inform, engage, and entertain with content marketing. It goes without saying that if you can persuade them, you can convert them, and you have the chance to genuinely mean something to the individuals who mean the most to you.

Want to Learn More About Gauging the Effectiveness of Your Content? Talk to Us!