Content marketing is a weird science. A Facebook post promoting an event could do way better than an email, but a month later, a similar message could do much better via email. Or, a highly researched blog with a form below it could generate more conversions than a LinkedIn ad, but when targeting a different audience, the ad could do a much better job.
If you’re lucky, your content does well enough that you have decent engagement in the places you’re sharing it. But let’s be honest: most of us aren’t lucky people, and there’s always room for improvement and new ideas.
So how can you tell what content works and what doesn’t? Here are some content marketing metrics that can provide clues and even suggestions for how to refine blogs, emails, social media posts, and websites.
Blog
Considering 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine, blog content is a pretty important part of improving SEO. It’s important to find what works, what opportunities there might be with page rankings, and how you can stand out. When it comes to blog metrics, these can determine how to improve blog performance.
Page Views
The top metric to look at for blog engagement is page views. A blog with low page views is not going to bring in the traffic you need to generate leads. The reason why blogs with tons of page views do well is because the message and the keywords in the blog resonate with them.
It’s worth taking the time to look at your top blogs and see if there are any shared themes, especially since top-ranking pages also rank in the top 10 for nearly 1,000 similar keywords. Chances are, it will help you determine what works, what doesn’t, and what content you need more or less of in the future.
Average Time on Page
Unless your blog is super short, it shouldn’t take 30 seconds to read. In fact, the average page time for blogs is about three to five minutes. Average page time helps businesses gauge if a blog post is compelling enough to read and take action, so a quick skim isn’t ideal.
At the same time, you also don’t want the longest blog post ever to exist. There has to be a balance.
A good blog should have several characteristics:
- Helpful information
- Sources from reputable organizations and experts
- Visual appeal (infographics, photos, videos, etc.)
- Optimal layout (mix of media and copy)
- 5th-grade reading level
- Under five minutes to read
- Call to action (CTA)
Does every blog need all of these characteristics? Not always, but following these guidelines will help you create content that keeps customers on your page and website longer.
I don’t know why, but it seems easier to see why content isn’t working on emails than any other digital channel, namely because of these two metrics.
Open Rate
Nine times out of ten, your open rate says more about the subject line than the email itself because you can’t see much of the email yet. While I have seen some emails include photo previews, for the most part, a low open rate tells you that your subject line (and even preview text) copy needs work.
The first thing I would check no matter what is if there are any spam words. You can do a quick Google search to find these, but these lists from ZoomInfo and HubSpot are helpful. After that, condensing it is a must. I like to catch attention with the subject line and then add a tiny bit more detail in the preview text. Short and to the point is the best way to go. This also goes for the email itself, which I’ll get into with the next metric.
But what if your email checks has all these parameters? Look at how often you’re sending emails and who they’re being sent to. If you take anything from this section, please avoid buying email lists at all costs. They can hurt your email stats, your email credibility and send you to spam.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
The first hurdle with emails is getting someone to open it, and the next one is to get that person to click on the call to action. Achieving a high click-through rate (CTR) is just as tricky as getting a high open rate, but it’s because the email itself needs help and not so much the subject line.
In my experience, the biggest mistake I see is making an email too text heavy and trying to cram as much information as possible in it. This is an easy mistake to fall into, but the saying “less is more” couldn’t be more true in this scenario. Emails should only include the most vital details so that if people are interested, they will click on the web link to learn more. For events, that means the date, time, location, RSVP date, and a blurb about the event with a CTA button or link. If it’s about something like an e-book, case study, or whitepaper, a quick blurb that hooks them into learning more and the link to it is all you need. By doing this, you’re also improving the stats on your landing pages by decreasing the bounce rate and increasing the average time on page rate.
Visuals are also important, so if you think the issue is the design, I’d do an A/B test with two or three options. You can do the same for copy too, but only if you just do copy. Stick to testing one aspect of your email at a time.
If you think your CTR seems low, know that it absolutely varies by industry. Find benchmarks like these to see if you’re measuring up. And with time and consistency, you will see an improvement in how well your content performs via email.
Social Media
Social media channels have tons of different metrics because they operate differently. But the two that stand out the most across platforms are comments and shares, and they can illustrate a powerful story about your content.
Comments
It can be difficult to get followers to comment on a post unless it’s for a contest or divisive issue, but if you can’t get people talking, that’s a problem. Comments drive reach and the more people that see your post, the better engagement it has.
To encourage more positive comments, pose a question on a timely topic. For instance, if you’re a park, you could have a poll of which movie to play on a big screen for a movie series. Or you could post a trivia question. Say you’re a bank trying to encourage customers to get ROTH IRA. Many don’t know that anyone can open one, so asking what age someone can open one can open up a conversation on the topic that could pique their interest.
On the flip side, you don’t want to encourage negative comments and instead, monitor and hide them. This can increase conversions by up to 34%.
These types of posts make a seemingly typical post fun and interesting.
Shares
Sharing is one of the easiest things a person can do to help a social media post get more reach, but there’s more to it than that. While the quantity of shares is important, the quality can make or break engagement. Many people may not comment on the shared post if it’s just an automatic share. Much of the time, it’s a non-conversation starter, so if you want to spread awareness and engagement, it’s better to encourage shares with captions.
A shared post with a caption gives the post more context and adds a personalized element and engagement experience an organization can’t replicate. For instance, say an employee is celebrating a retirement and you post it on social. An employee could automatically share it without any personalization, or they could talk about the retiree’s impact on their professional journey and how they will miss them. It’s easy to tell which post will get more traction.
Other than encouraging employees to share content and include a caption, create posts that give the customer a reason to not only share it but personalize it.
Website
The internet is massive and there’s only so much content people can consume. If you’re looking to attract people to your website, the content has to be good enough to stay because patience is in short supply. Here are some stats that can help.
Bounce Rate
The bounce rate is how quickly someone gets off a website, and a high one is not something any business wants. For some web pages, it makes sense, but generally, you don’t want that kind of response.
If you’re noticing high bounce rates on some pages, make some changes. The page could be loading too slowly, a photo could take up too much space before anyone sees anything, or it’s so copy-heavy that people glance over it and leave. It’s especially important to look at more than the desktop view since most of us are looking at our phones. Mobile optimization could make or break it. The more visually appealing a page is to look at, no matter how they’re viewing it, the more likely someone will stay on a page longer.
And by addressing these issues, you can improve other metrics on your pages, helping all of your content.
Top Pages
The top pages on your website can provide a strong indicator of what content works and what doesn’t. Obviously, the home page will be one of the top pages, but take a look at what else catches people’s attention. It could be a whitepaper, a blog, a career page, or a mixture of these. Or, it could even be a particular topic that is common among the top pages.
Patterns like this will give you a solid understanding of what content customers are looking for and what you might need more of. These patterns can also tell you what pages people aren’t seeking so that you can either make improvements on those pages or nix them altogether.
The Best Content Metric
By far the best metric for determining if your content is doing well or not is conversion rate. If your business isn’t convincing customers to join email newsletters, sign up for events, fill out contact forms, or purchase goods and services, your content is not speaking to them.
Take the time to look at the content that isn’t converting and determine what needs to be changed. It could be the product offering itself, the copy, the imagery, the audience being targeted, the platform you’re using to target the audience, a combination of some of these things, and more.
This is why A/B tests for email, landing pages, social, or Google ads can be especially helpful. They can narrow down the root cause of what’s working or not so that you can determine what works and what doesn’t.
Engagement is a constant battle for content marketers, which is why metrics like these can help businesses make informed decisions on how to shift their content strategy. But if you’re looking for a bit of extra help creating content or figuring out what kind of content you should have, I can help.
Contact me today to see how I can help with your content marketing strategy.
AFJ Digital 