When it comes to tracking the effectiveness of your content marketing, there are numerous metrics you should consider. Some of the most common ones range from the number of pageviews, bounce rates and average time spent on a page, to audience demographics and traffic.
But which will your boss or client want to hear about in order to evaluate how successful your current marketing strategies are? Use this post as a guide for the metrics you should be particularly focused on the next time you’re looking at your website’s analytics.
1. Website pageviews
Defined: About as straightforward as it sounds, pageviews are the number of times a particular page of a website has been viewed. One page view is equivalent to one visitor viewing a page.
What does it tell us? Pageviews can be tracked over any period of time using custom WordPress development, but it’s a website metric you should check at least monthly, especially if you’re frequently updating a site. This metric will show you which pages are most viewed on your website. Frequently, a site’s home page will be at or near the top of the list with various blogs, contact page and services pages following behind.
2. Website traffic
Defined: Website traffic measures the sources that send people to your website. There are main three types of traffic you should be tracking.
- Direct traffic measures the amount of people who typed your website into their browser.
- Organic search refers to people who use a search engine to find your website.
- Referral traffic is the number of visitors who have been directed to a webpage on your site from an outside source, whether it’s social media or a link on another site.
What does it tell us? All three types of traffic will show if your marketing campaigns—whether they are set up through social media channels, Google Ad words, paid search, etc.—are giving you the results you hoped for. By understanding how your website receives its, you can plan even better promotional campaigns.
3. Audience demographics
Defined: This data tells you about the type of people who are most frequently visiting your site, including their age, location and gender.
What does it tell us? Learning about a website’s audience demographics will tell you if you’ve been successful in reaching your target audience. It also will help you refine the website’s user experience to best serve the top demographics and develop content geared toward the people consistently visiting.
4. Bounce rates
Defined: Bounce rates measure the percent of people who visited a website and left after viewing only one page.
What does it tell us? A website’s bounce rate tells a lot about how visitors are using the site. High bounce rates are signs that your website isn’t retaining visitors, possibly because they can’t find the product, services or content they’re searching for. This could be a result of poor keyword usage (which sends the wrong type of people to your site) or confusing content (visitors don’t understand or don’t know what to do after reading a page). Fix a high bounce rate by making sure your keywords relate to the page’s content and that the page’s content is clear and gives visitors direction.
5. Average time on page
Defined: This metric is as simple as it seems—the average time on page will show you the average amount of time visitors spend reading any one page on a website. This time is measured from when the page begins to load until it is closed by the viewer.
What does it tell us? The average time on pages is important for marketers to track as it explains whether visitors to your website are spending intentional time reading your content or are just clicking through. A shorter amount of time on one page could mean the content is too long, difficult to read or simply not engaging enough. An unusually long amount of time spent on a page could account for viewer’s slow internet connection or multiple open tabs the viewer is not engaging with.
What do your website’s metrics have to say? If they’re pointing in the direction of needing a new strategy, get in touch! We’re experts at planning and implementing marketing plans and strategies that bring your business success.
