10 CRUCIAL Content Marketing Metrics: Don’t Ignore These!
About 94% of marketers in 39 countries are budgeting for content marketing. This shows just how content marketing remains a popular business strategy. However, a lot goes on in this type of marketing and there are some key metrics marketers should be tracking to ensure their content marketing strategy is successful. In this article, we go over ten of the most essential content marketing metrics that you need to keep an eye on.
Organic Traffic
Organic traffic is all website visitors who have found your content through search engines. It’s essential to see how many of your organic visits are converting into leads, customers, etc. Some marketers will focus on increasing their paid advertising budget by reducing the cost per click (CPC) for more people to discover their content organically.
✅ Expert Tip
Your website analytics should track your overall organic traffic and the keywords that are sending them there. If you use a CRM or marketing automation provider, they can pull out these reports for you as well.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Click-through rate (CTR) is simply the percentage of website visitors who click on any given link. If you’ve got hundreds or thousands of people visiting your content, it’s essential to know what percentage clicks through to another page. Even if they aren’t customers yet, you need to ensure that your visitors are getting interested enough to take the next step.
✅ Expert Tip
Optimizing your headline and content to make use of keywords is an effective way to boost CTR. Including a direct and compelling call-to-action in your content also helps improve CTR.
Lead Generation
As one of the primary goals of any content marketing strategy, generating leads is what your business needs to achieve its ultimate goals. Are you successfully converting site visitors into potential customers? If not, try looking at the content you’re offering and how visitors are interacting with it.
✅ Expert Tip
Your website analytics should be able to track landing page views, lead form submissions, and conversions on your website. Also, if you have a CRM or marketing automation provider, they can follow this data for you so that you don’t end up trying to keep track of multiple different sources.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate is defined as when a visitor arrives on your site and doesn’t take action. For example, they don’t click another link within your site or go to another domain. When it comes to website traffic, bounce rate isn’t always the end of the world.
However, if you have a low organic CTR for your content, that could help cause a high bounce rate. Conversely, if you have lots of people visiting your content and not clicking through to the next step (like filling out a form), then that can also mean that your bounce rate is too high.
✅ Expert Tip
Track this data by individual post or page and overall site traffic, and then try to find correlations with your most successful content.
Social media is a great way to get the word out about your brand and generate awareness, whether it’s through organic sharing or paid social ads. If you’re generating lots of traffic on one particular post, but aren’t getting many shares, then that could mean that there’s a problem.
✅ Expert Tip
Tracking this data is straightforward with most website analytics platforms, but social media management tools can also track it as well
Backlinks
Backlinks are incoming links from other websites that send visitors to your content. While these aren’t always necessary, they can be powerful signals of authority and often contribute to how search engines rank your site.
✅ Expert Tip
Many website analytics platforms have a way to track backlink sources. Make sure you know which one(s) are performing best, so you can focus your efforts there.
Email Subscribers
Building an email list is another powerful way to stay in front of potential customers, whether by sending monthly newsletters or promoting special offers. Tracking these signups will help you understand how well your content generates interest from readers.
✅ Expert Tip
If you have a CRM or marketing automation provider, they should be able to track this data for you, but if not, then your website analytics can help you track the number of email signups from each page.
Time on Page
If your audience spends more time on one page than another, it could be because they find the content more appealing. Remember that this doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s more practical but can also mean that your content isn’t straightforward or is overly sales-oriented.
✅ Expert Tip
You can track this by using a timer when publishing content or web analytics to track the different time lengths. One effective way to improve time on page is to vary your content by mixing in relevant photos, charts, and infographics.
Social Engagement
If your audience is sharing and commenting on your content, they’re likely enjoying what you have to say and may be more interested in taking the next step with you. Also, watch out for content that is going viral. You don’t want to miss out on a chance to participate in the conversation!
✅ Expert Tip
If you have a social media management tool, it can show you data about how many people are engaging with your content on different social networks.
SERP Ranking
As you probably know, SEO is a great way to boost your website traffic and get more visitors from specific keywords. It’s essential to track these metrics to make sure your content is working to increase your rankings.
✅ Expert Tip
Google Analytics lets you see how many people are searching specific keywords, what pages they’re visiting once they find your site, and how long they spend on the page.
Never Ignore These Metrics
Content marketing is all about creating quality content for your audience. By tracking the ten essential metrics we’ve listed in this article, you’ll be able to gauge how well your content is performing and make necessary adjustments to ensure that you’re reaching your desired results.
The results of the changes you make to your content marketing strategies usually take time and managing relevant data can be overwhelming. Fortunately, there are groups that are dedicated to helping businesses keep track of their digital marketing campaigns.
RSM Marketing offers one of the fastest and easiest ways to start achieving marketing-driven growth in your business. If you’re interested in jumpstarting your company’s digital marketing campaigns, contact us today and we’ll help discuss your options.
