Content marketing can enable you to connect with your audience, reach out to a new one, and guide leads down the sales funnel. And, this is only scratching the surface. A good content marketing strategy can help you achieve much more than that. However, a number of marketers end up clutching at straws and whiling away their resources without any concrete results. This can be tackled by a thorough evaluation of your content’s performance. Tracking the right KPIs (key performance indicators) is the way to do that.
What follows are five of the most commonly-tracked content marketing KPIs:
1. Site traffic
Monitoring and understanding your site traffic is essential. It can help you understand where your traffic comes from and which pieces of content are performing best. You can also take this one step further by looking at the average time each visitor spends on your website. The goal is to not lose your readers too quickly.
2. Engagement rate
Tracking your engagement rate can help you understand how your audience feels about your content and it’s one of the key content marketing KPIs. It will tell you if readers are really consuming your content or simply scrolling by. A high number of shares and comments is a sign that your audience is resonating with your content. Plus, the more shares your content receives, the larger your audience base will grow.
3. Inboundlinks
Another important KPI to track is your inbound links. Keep close tabs on how many people are linking back to your content. In addition, you should also monitor the quality of these links. When high-quality and relevant sources link back to you, Google will consider your website as credible.
4. Click-through rate
All your content should have a call-to-action that prompts users to undertake a particular action. This could range from getting them to visit a particular webpage, download gated content, and sign up for a free trial. Monitoring your click-through rate will tell you if your CTAs are actually working. It will help you understand how many people are clicking on the link.
5. Conversion rate
Eventually, what matters is whether your content is able to attract paying customers. Tracking your conversion rate is definitely the most relevant marketing KPI to measure because it will tell you if your content strategy is worth it. It will also help you identify those pieces of content that are best at driving conversions. To get the best results from your content marketing efforts, you also need to ensure that yous select the right platforms.
Don’t know where to start? Check out the infographic below.