How to Measure the Success of Your Content

Jun 30, 2022 · 6 min read

Whether you're a small business or a large enterprise, your content marketing strategy is only as good as the metrics you use to measure its success. In this blog post, we'll take a look at some of the most important metrics to track when it comes to your content marketing strategy. By understanding and tracking these metrics, you'll be able to fine-tune your strategy and ensure that your content is having the maximum impact.

What is content marketing?

Let's start with understanding what content marketing is. The main aim of content marketing is to create and distribute valuable, relevant, and consistent material in order to attract and keep a clearly-defined target audience, eventually leading to profitable customer action.

You can use different types of content to achieve different marketing objectives. For example, you might use blog posts to drive awareness and educate your audience, while using ebooks and white papers to generate leads or customers.

Why measure the success of your content?

So why bother measuring the success of your content marketing strategy? After all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? Well, the fact is that even the most successful content marketing strategies can be improved. By understanding which content is performing well and why, you can make small tweaks that can have a big impact on your results.

In addition, it's important to keep an eye on your content marketing metrics so you can spot any potential problems early on. For example, if you suddenly see a drop in traffic to your blog, it could be an indication that your content isn't resonating with your audience anymore.

How to measure the success of your content

Creating content is only half the battle. The real challenge comes in measuring the success of your content. Did it reach your target audience? Was it engaging? Did it achieve your goals? In order to be successful at content marketing, it's important to understand what metrics you should be tracking.

Understanding what the purpose of your marketing strategy is will help you determine the right metrics to track. Some things to keep in mind include:

• Brand awareness: Are people talking about your company? How often are they mentioning you on social media?
• Lead generation: How many leads did your content generate? Of those leads, how many converted into customers or clients?
• Engagement: How often are people interacting with your content? How long are they spending on each piece of content?
• Retention: Did your content result in customers or clients sticking around?
• Sales: Did your content marketing efforts lead to an increase in sales?

These are just a few of the most important metrics to track. The key is to focus on the ones that are most relevant to your business and your goals. By doing so, you'll be able to better measure the success of your content marketing strategy.

KPIs for measuring your content marketing goals

As a marketer, it's important to set goals and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) early on in order to measure the success of your marketing campaigns. But with so many different KPIs out there, how do you know which ones are the most important to track?

Here are a few of the most important KPIs for measuring your content marketing goals:

1. Engagement rate

Engagement rate is a measure of how often users interact with your content. This metric can be used to gauge how interesting and relevant your content is to your audience. There are a number of different ways to calculate engagement rate, but one of the most common is by dividing the number of interactions (likes, shares, comments) by the number of impressions (the number of times your content was seen).

For example, if your blog post was seen 100 times and received 10 likes, 5 shares, and 2 comments, your engagement rate would be 17%.

Engagement rate is a good metric to track if you want to see how your content is performing with your audience. However, it's important to keep in mind that engagement rate will vary depending on the type of content you're creating (e.g., a blog post will have a different engagement rate than a video).

Focussing on improving your engagement rate is a good way to ensure that your audience is finding your content valuable and interesting.

2. Traffic sources

Another metric that can be used to measure the success of your content is the number of traffic sources it generates. Traffic sources are the places where your audience is coming from when they view your content.

There are a number of different traffic sources, but some of the most common include:

• Social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)
• Search engines (e.g., Google, Bing)
• Referrals (e.g., from another website or blog)

Generating traffic from a variety of sources is important because it helps to ensure that your content is reaching a wide audience. It also helps to diversify your traffic, which can protect your website from any sudden changes in the algorithm of a particular traffic source (such as Google).

3. Shares and mentions

The number of shares and mentions that your content generates is another good metric to track. Shares and mentions are a form of social proof, which means they act as a signal to others that your content is worth reading or watching.

The more shares and mentions your content has, the more likely it is to be seen by a new audience. And, as mentioned before, the more traffic you can generate, the better!

To track the number of shares and mentions your content generates, you can use a tool like BuzzSumo. Just enter the URL of your article or video, and BuzzSumo will show you how many times it’s been shared across social media platforms and linked to from other websites.

You can also use Google Analytics to track how many people are arriving at your website from each social media platform. Just go to Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium with UA or Acquisition > Traffic acquisition with GA4, and you’ll be able to see where your traffic is coming from.

4. Comments

If people are taking the time to leave comments on your blog posts or videos, that’s a good sign that they’re engaged with your content. After all, leaving a comment takes more effort than simply scrolling past a piece of content.

Of course, not all comments will be positive. But even negative feedback can be valuable, as it can give you an insight into what your audience doesn’t like and how you can improve your content.

To encourage people to leave comments, you can:

• Respond to all comments, even if they’re negative. This shows that you’re listening to your audience and value their feedback.
• Ask questions at the end of your blog posts or videos. This will encourage people to leave a comment with their thoughts and opinions.
• Make it easy for people to leave comments by using a platform like Disqus, which makes commenting quick and easy.

5. SEO rankings

If your goal is to increase website traffic, then track your SEO rankings. Your SEO ranking is determined by a number of factors, including the quality and quantity of your content, how often you publish new content, and how much traffic your site gets.

One way to improve your SEO ranking is to publish high-quality, keyword-rich content on a regular basis. This will not only help you attract more traffic, but it will also signal to search engines that your site is active and relevant.

Another way to improve your SEO ranking is to get more traffic to your site. This can be done by promoting your content through social media, guest blogging, and paid advertising.

Finally, you can also improve your SEO ranking by making sure that your site is easy to use and navigate. This includes having a well-designed layout, using descriptive titles and anchor text, and providing relevant internal links.

What are the benefits of measuring the success of your content?

Measuring the success of your content can be a great way to improve your strategy and better understand your audience. When you measure the success of your content, you can get a better idea of what is working and what isn't. This allows you to adjust your strategy accordingly. Additionally, understanding your audience's reaction to your content can help you create better, more targeted content in the future.

Creating goals and tracking conversions is an important part of any content strategy. By doing this, you can better understand your audience and what type of content they respond to. This will allow you to adjust your strategy as needed and create more targeted, successful content.