“I’m not getting over 200 likes on posts like I used to, why is my content flunking?”
If this sounds like you, then this blog is definitely for you. Read on to retrain your brain – and ego – to be focused on the RIGHT elements of your content strategy.
It’s important to remember that different goals rely on different approaches, meaning success actually comes in many shapes and forms. For instance, if you want to sell something, then driving your customers to the right pages is what matters. Similarly, if you’re looking to monetise via online ads, then visitor numbers should probably be a top priority.
We all have a tendency to get bogged down in vanity metrics, it’s human nature to want to be admired. Likes and comments are great but are they actually useful if they’re not contributing to more website click-throughs?
Creating content is stressful enough without adding a false sense of failure because your posts aren’t going viral. That’s why we’d like to point you in the direction of what you should be focusing your energies into and measuring to leverage the best results.
These points may not be applicable to all businesses so take what’s relevant to yours and start implementing them to drive the most valuable outcomes.
Web Traffic Sources
Web traffic sources are all about simply finding where the party’s at. Where is your audience coming from and where do they hang out? Is it on socials? Email? A specific web browser? (we’re looking at you Google) – This is where you need to market your content.
This metric measures not only which sources are driving visitors to your website but also provides a comparison of these sources. The three primary traffic sources are direct, referral and search. This is of course rudimentary because people could come to you through banner ads or paid search.
Each traffic source can be further segmented and analysed to provide deeper information about your web traffic. Here’s a brief dictionary to further your knowledge:
Social shares and Backlinks
58% of marketers say brand awareness is their goal for social media. If you’re using the concept ‘brand awareness’ as a loop-hole to make your metrics airy-fairy, think again because shares and backlinks measure this!
Put simply, shares are really important because of the way people discover content these days. Research is continually demonstrating that user behaviour is skewed to mobile, even for older demographics and more and more people are using social platforms for discovery rather than through a search engine. So social is still important for content discovery. Having high shares conveys that your content is relevant and resonating with your target audience. However, social shares aren’t really enough in their own right and need to have a synergy with backlinks.
Backlinks, also known as inbound links or external links, refer to links on one website that points traffic to another website. Search engines perceive backlinks as indicators of quality content as it’s ‘backed’ -pardon the pun – by other websites. Pages with more backlinks tend to rank higher on search engine results pages.
For all these reasons, backlinks are a paramount component of SEO. Earning authoritative backlinks is probably the best trigger you can send Google to consider for its content ranking.
Referring Domains
Referring domains are essentially websites from which the target website or web page has one or more backlinks. For instance, if a webpage has a backlink from The Age. , then it has one referring domain. If it has a link from The Age and The Daily Telegraph, then it has two referring domains. If a website has multiple backlinks but from only one source, then it still has one referring domain.
So why is this important?
Your website authority affects your ranking. You want lots of high-quality domains linking to your content. And the less sites they link to the better because you know, quality over quantity!
Conversion Rate
Your conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your website that complete a desired goal (a conversion) out of a total number of visitors. Typically, a high conversion rate is indicative of successful marketing.
So, is your content making people take action?
Conversion rates vary widely both between industries and individual business models so it’s important to ascertain what YOUR business considers a good conversion rate.
Further, the relationship between content and sales isn’t always obvious and isn’t always linear either. So, in a sense, cover all your bases – focus on acquiring other soft conversions like newsletter subscriptions, waiting lists or pre-sale sign-ups.
Time On Page
One of the biggest indications of your content resonating – especially in this era of bite-sized media – is if people are investing screen-time and actively consuming your content. Analysing this data will allow you to pinpoint your most engaging content, providing direction for future content format, length and subject.
CTR vs. Bounce Rate
Click-though-rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who click on your website title on the search engine page, compared to the impressions. Essentially, CTR is assessing which content draws people in.
Conversely, when someone visits a page on your site and exits without clicking anything – they’ve bounced.
In a perfect world, you’d aim for really high CTR and a preferably non-existent bounce rate. So for most businesses, the goal is to minimise your bounce rate. For instance, a Bounce Rate of 80% means that 80% of the people visiting your site are not looking at any other pages – this isn’t great.
Using a combination of both CTR and Bounce Rate analysis is essential for content quality.
So, there you have it guys. A whole other list of things to occupy your mind other than likes and reel views – yay!
Let’s have a chat to explore how Wise Up Marketing can help you grow your business
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