By Alan Graner
There’s only one way to determine how successful your blog is: Set specific goals and use metrics to measure whether you reach (or exceed) those goals.
According to “The Ultimate Guide to Corporate Blogging” by OpenView Labs, there are four broad categories of blog metrics that measure performance.
The importance of each metric category changes as your blog matures.
- Beginning: all you have are audience traffic metrics.
- Growth: Audience traffic metrics become more important.
- Maturity: Audience conversion metrics become paramount.
The 4 metric categories
1. Blogging activity metrics
Blogging activity numbers:
- Number of bloggers meeting your blogging goal
- Number of blog postings created each period
- Number of firm-wide keywords used in each blog
2. Audience traffic metrics
Level of attention your blog generates and where traffic comes from:
- Number of visitors visiting your blog each week
- Number of visitors subscribing to your RSS feeds
- Number of visitors from marketing channels such as search engines, social network sites, email, etc.
3. Audience engagement metrics
Level of audience engagement:
- Average number of page views per visitor
- Time spent reading your blogs
- Number of comments received, both good and bad
4. Audience conversion metrics
Blog conversion levels:
- Number of visitors who click through to other sections of your website
- Number of visitors who ultimately become sales leads, prospects and customers
- The amount of feedback you get from your target audience
Get the complete story
Metrics are just one factor in successful B2B blogging. For the complete story, download the free eBook, “The Ultimate Guide to Corporate Blogging” at http://offers.openviewpartners.com/ultimate-corporate-blogging-guide.
(Disclosure: Daly-Swartz Public Relations has no connections with OpenView Venture Partners.)
How do you determine your blog’s success?
Image: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license via Wikimedia Commons
Alan Graner is Chief Creative Officer at Daly-Swartz Public Relations, an Orange County, CA business public relations and marketing content firm. For content that makes you stand out from the crowd, email Jeffrey Swartz at jeffreyswartz@dsprel.com. Or visit www.dsprel.com.
