This is the final and last post in my blog series: How to blog. When I work with companies and develop their social media strategy we often reach a very critical level when people start to realize how much work it takes to execute great content and then engage with the audience. Because they thought from the beginning that blogging was an easy way to market.
There is no one size fits all
The question on peoples mind is always; what is the ROI of blogging and how will we measure it? How do we know if the invested time is worth it? Even though it’s a great question, you still need to take action and build your own framework how you should measure the ROI of your blog. Because there’s no one size who fits all out there. The metrics that you use to measure the ROI of your blog depend on what your primary objectives are with your blog. Remember the first question is what objective are your blog addressing?
Metrics of Awareness:
Unique visits: How many different people are coming to the blog?
Visits from search: How many people are coming to your blog from search engines?
Inbound links: How many inbound links or track-backs. How many other blogs or websites are linking to your blog?
Percentage of new visits: How many new visitors do you have?
Metrics for Sales
Referrals to your corporate site or sales-oriented pages: If you have an external product blog and linking to your company product or information pages. You can keep track of the traffic from your blog and what they are doing.
Downloads of key content: You could keep track of the metrics how many people are downloading your ebooks, white-papers, free webinars etc. Measure how many of your first time customers have downloaded or watched your free stuff. Top of mind here for me is Hubspot. All their growth is tied to content marketing efforts. They provide high value with little or no marketing messages. I love what they are doing.
Metrics for community:
This is when you’re trying to build super hardcore fans by using your blog as a community.
Repeat visits: How many of your visitors have been visiting your blog before?
Subscriptions: How many people subscribe to your blog through RSS or email? I’m using Feedburner for my blog. BTW feel free to subscribe to mattiasgronborg.com by Email I would love to have that relationship with you.
Comments: How many people are leaving comments on your blog. Remember this is not a final destination, now the real work begin and a great opportunity for you to engage with this person emerge.
Sharing: I’m using AddThis as my sharing tool for my blog. Probably one of the best sharing tools out there and they mail me statistic how my posts are doing during a specific time frame. Total shares (shares). Total traffic back from shares (clicks). Percentage increase of traffic due to shares and click (viral lift).
What should we track to comprehend our ROI?
Pick three metrics that make sense for your goal, track it seriously and keep the same metrics for at least 90 days. You can’t change every month. So let’s answer the final question: We will comprehend the ROI by tracking? I use Google analytics to keep track of the metrics. The AddThis tool is also giving me sharing metrics. You can connect AddThis with Google analytics if you want.
Maintain relationships that matter
Work hard and have a persistent long term vision for you blog. You can’t buy your audience you need to earn their attention. Here we have a big shift and a great opportunity for brands, companies and people. Remember; a blog is just a tool, the key is how you use it to build and maintain relationships that matter. What are your take on this?
My series how to blog is inspired by Jay Baer (@jaybaer). I learned so much about blogging from him when I attended Blogging Success Summit 2011. I really want to give credit to Jay for his great work. Right now I’m also reading his book The Now Revolution and I will give you a book review soon. Sit tight! Thanks for everything Jay!
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About Mattias Gronborg
[...] The question on peoples mind is always; what is the ROI of blogging and how will we measure it? How do we know if the invested time is worth it? Even though it’s a great question, you still need to take action and build your own framework how you should measure the ROI of your blog. Continue reading… [...]