In a Content Marketing strategy, it’s essential to track some metrics to measure the efforts’ effectiveness. After all, continuous monitoring is key to success in delivering quality content.
Some important bases are SEO, writing standards, and an understanding of what the audience expects. When they are met, it’s possible to achieve good results.
In this lifecycle, from planning to content distribution, campaign monitoring is essential. The results shown attest to the success of the actions and allow occasional adjustments.
To make a qualified measurement, it’s necessary to know the most important metrics. Some of them translate the impact of the strategies and should be tracked frequently.
For this post, we have selected the 14 most crucial Content Marketing metrics to follow in 2023. Keep on reading and learn more about all these metrics!
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1. Unique pageviews
In a content strategy, it is essential to know how many visits a page receives. This measurement helps to understand the level of traffic and the interest in the content.
Unique pageviews determine how many times each user has viewed a page. It’s a precise number that excludes repetition, helping to make the measurement more accurate.
After all, the same user can view a page several times during a visit. In general, this number doesn’t translate how many times someone has visited a page.
Unique pageviews numbers are obtained by comparing a person’s views on the same page and in the same session.
Thus, regardless of whether the user has refreshed the page several times, you can be sure that it is a single access.
2. Average time on page
One of Google’s ranking criteria is the time spent on the page. Therefore, it’s essential to measure the average time on page.
This metric is essential to understand if your content generates real interest. The longer the average time on page, the higher the acceptance and engagement.
It would help if you investigated pages with low performance in this metric. Reasons may include unattractive content, unsatisfactory UX design, and slow page loading.
You have to compare pages to understand the cause of low results. So check what successful pages bring in comparison to poor performance ones.
Some of the reasons for a low average time on page are:
- poor legibility;
- lack of scannability;
- too long texts;
- poor UX;
- weak content;
- subjects that don’t generate interest.
3. Pages/sessions
Users can behave in two ways when going to your blog to consume content: they may access the page of interest and leave or access that page and browse other content.
Pages/sessions metrics indicate the number of pages that a user visited each time he was on your website.
The higher this number, the greater the interest the site generates in each visitor. On the opposite, low numbers may show that the website, in general, doesn’t have so much content capable of engaging.
Pages/sessions are one of the most important Content Marketing metrics because it helps to measure the quality of the strategy in general.
If there are good numbers of pages/sessions, it’s a sign that all the content published can generate interest.
4. Likes and shares
Engagement is essential in content strategies, so it’s always important to measure it. Likes and shares are a vital metric for this category.
The numbers are measured according to the total volume of likes and shares in publications on social media channels. The higher these numbers, the greater the chance of engagement.
A good engagement in social media makes it possible to reach more people because likes and shares make posts more visible to a larger audience.
Besides the reach achieved, this metric also measures users’ interest in the content. After all, likes and shares are actions aimed at promoting and showing appreciation for something posted.
5. Comments
Another important metric of engagement, comments measures the overall number of this type of interaction in posts. They can be on social media or in the blog.
A comment represents an important interaction since it requires some effort. Usually, the user who comments liked the content and found it useful.
It’s always important to track the number of comments, as well as shares and likes. However, be aware of one point: take time to analyze what’s being commented.
Engagement is only useful if this interaction is positive. Comments with criticism or demonstrating unhappiness need to be a wake-up call to the marketing team.
6. Traffic sources
Users can arrive at your website through several sources. When you know the ones that generate the most traffic, you can invest more in them and optimize the results.
That’s why this is also one of the most important Content Marketing metrics.
It’s essential to disseminate the content in different channels, such as social media, email marketing, and positioning it to be found in Google’s organic search. Naturally, some of them will be more engaging than others, generating different traffic.
The metrics we are talking about will help identify which of these channels have the best results when generating traffic. This way, you can focus on efforts and investments on those that have the highest potential.
7. Organic traffic
Organic traffic shows the number of users who arrive at your content through search engines. Of course, most of them will have Google as their source.
For any strategy, investing in organic traffic is essential because of the high reach potential, and it’s free. Therefore, it’s possible to achieve great results with accurate optimization.
For this, mastering SEO is essential. It involves producing quality content, written with the most appropriate techniques, to attract Google traffic.
8. Click-through rate (CTR)
CTR is the metric that indicates the rate of clicks on a link compared to the views it had. As one of the main Content Marketing metrics, these numbers are essential in organic traffic.
A good CTR can indicate that a piece of content generates interest in the user when it’s shown in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).
This engagement can be fostered by several factors, such as:
- an eye-catching title;
- a title that uses strong keywords;
- the use of meta description;
- the use of an excerpt.
You can access this metric on your Google Search Console dashboard. It shows the CTR of each page, pointing to data such as impressions and clicks.
9. Number of leads
Content can generate leads; that’s part of the strategy and one of the main intentions. Therefore, it’s essential to measure the volume of generated potential customers.
The number of leads points out how many users have shared data when consuming content. It’s possible to obtain leads from:
- CTAs;
- landing pages;
- contact forms;
- subscriptions to newsletters;
- subscriptions for mailings;
- budget requests.
A good number of leads indicates that the strategy has a high capacity to engage.
Quality content is capable of triggering the sharing of this data, regardless of whether the consumer intends to convert later.
The number of leads should be seen only as an indication of interest and potential sales. Conversions will depend on the continuity of good content delivery in the final stages of the marketing funnel.
10. Bounce rate
The bounce rate indicates how many users have left a page without having visited any other on the website. This metric is essential to measure the quality of what is offered on blogs.
High rates, of course, can mean a still unconvincing strategy. On the other hand, this doesn’t mean that the content is bad, but that it may not be attractive.
At the same time, high bounce rates can be normal if the page is new. For example, when you publish a new post, a recurrent user accesses, reads, and exits, just because they have already read all the other content.
Behind every metric, it’s necessary to have an analytical and interpretative view. With bounce rate is no different.
11. Conversion rate
Another essential Content Marketing metric, conversion rate measures the percentage of users who have accessed the content and performed an action.
Regardless of what was proposed in the post, the conversion is the main objective of a strategy. There are several types of conversions, and the main ones are:
- leaving a comment in a post;
- subscribing to a newsletter;
- subscribing to a form;
- downloading content.
The action depends on the type of content and, especially, the stage of the funnel. At the top, comments can be a conversion, while at the end, requesting contact information is more common.
To calculate the conversion rate, divide the number of conversions by the number of visitors.
12. Follow growth and subscribers
How many times have you heard that engagement rates matter more than the followers’ numbers?
It might be true, but there’s a need to balance things out. The higher the number of followers, the greater the expectations towards engagement deliveries.
However, it might be more interesting to look at followers’ growth over time. Is your content reaching everyone it could? Are you capable of making it fresh and relevant to be shareable enough to attract new people?
13. SERP ranking
How close to the top is your company on Google searches? Is your business on the first page at all?
SERP is an acronym for Search Engine Results Page, the maximum goal of any SEO strategies.
The first five positions are the more disputed ones, and that is why you need to keep an eye on the ranking — after all, it is where you want to place your brand as well.
To do so, it is mandatory to follow best SEO practices, such as identifying keywords, developing a link building strategy, creating friendly URLs, and acquiring as many backlinks as possible.
14. Backlinks
Backlinks are vital to generating authority to content and especially traffic.
These links can be found internally, on other posts on your blog, and externally, on other websites’ pages that discuss the same subject.
These metrics indicate, in a simple way, how many backlinks you have. In analytics tools, you can also view their origins, which is essential.
The more qualified the page where the link comes from, the better for the content ranking.
Content Marketing metrics are always under the care of marketers. Monitoring these results helps measure your strategy quality and, if necessary, make adjustments to optimize the performance.
How about improving your Content Marketing strategy? Check out the 6 best creative examples for 2020!
