Blogging Analytics

Improving Blogging with Marketing Analytics

Individual post views = how many views each blog post receives

Blog traffic & referral sources = how much traffic you’re generating to your blog and where that traffic is coming from

Call-to-action performance = blog traffic & referral sources

Call-to-action performance = how effective your blog’s individual calls-to-action (CTAs) are at converting blog visitors into leads

Blog leads = leads generated that can be attributed to your blog

Visitor-to-lead conversion rate = the rate at which your blog is converting visitors into leads

Individual Post Views

The performance of your blog hinges on your content – so use your blog’s marketing analytics to improve your content creation efforts! Start by exporting your blog posts, grouping articles by topic, and analyzing the views for each individual blog post.

Are there certain topics that perform better than others? Topics that receive more post views should receive more emphasis in your content creation. Do certain posts receive more inbound links than others?

Finally, sort your spreadsheet based on number of post views—do you notice any trends in the post title structure in posts that receive the most views? For example, perhaps posts that start with the phrase “How to” dominate the top views. This is an indication that a certain title structure or blog post structure is more attractive to your readers, and you should create more content following that format or title structure.

Traffic and Referral Sources Analyzing where the traffic to your blog comes from is the easiest way to improve blog content promotion and distribution for more traffic.

After all, if you know where people are finding your blog (and where they aren’t), you know where to focus your efforts. If very little traffic to your blog comes from organic search, for example, you know you need to spend more time optimizing your blog content and getting inbound links. You may also find there are sites you hadn’t thought of that refer traffic to your blog. Have you drilled down to what social media sites drive traffic? You may assume your biggest traffic drives is Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, but perhaps it’s actually Pinterest – a site you haven’t put much effort into. Knowing this, however, you can focus more effort promoting content on Pinterest to increase blog traffic.

Closed-loop marketing directs your attention to the most powerful conversion events and channels. By looking at the sources and offers that traditionally brought in new customers for your organization, you will be able to identify the behavior you need to engage in to qualify leads and push them down the sales funnel.

For instance, by looking at HubSpot’s Sources we are able to compare the efficiency of different channels in respect to customer acquisition. In the screenshot below we are comparing the number of sales from social media marketing to the number of sales from email marketing. It becomes clear that email marketing has a higher lead-to-customer rate than social media. This insight can then help us take action: nurture the social media leads with targeted email messages.

Call-to-Action Performance

The performance of your blog’s lead generation is directly impacted by your call-to-action performance. To improve your blog’s call-to-action performance, analyze the CTA click-through rate. If you have a low click-through rate, there are three places you can make improvements:

• Make a More Compelling Offer
  If what you offer not is not enticing enough to get clicks, then don’t expect to collect many landing page conversions.
• Create an Offer that Better Aligns with Your Blog Post
  If your offer isn’t relevant to the topic of the blog, it probably isn’t enticing to the reader.
• Split Test the CTA Copy & Design
  The copy may be confusing, too indirect, or not clearly conveying the value of the offer. Alternately, the design of your CTA may blend into the page too much. If the CTA doesn’t visually stand out, visitors may simply be glossing over the button.

Blog Leads

Now that your blog’s calls-to-action are optimized, see how many leads you generate from your blog every month compared to your other lead generation channels. Knowing how much of a direct role your blog plays in lead generation will help you prioritize marketing efforts.

Visitor-to-Lead Conversion Rate

You’ll want to analyze more than just number of new leads from your blog, though. Drill down into your blog’s visit-to-lead conversion rate to see how effective you are at converting blog traffic into leads. Do you have low traffic, but a high conversion rate? Then you know you should put more effort into generating traffic to your blog. Increase your content publishing frequency, target keywords that generate quality traffic (otherwise your conversion rate might slip!), and amp up your social promotion efforts.

Leads into Customers

Finally, use your closed-loop analytics to analyze how effectively your blog leads convert into customers. Just as the number of leads generated helps you prioritize your marketing channels, the rate at which blog leads turn into customers should help you prioritize, too.

For example, if your blog generates leads that convert into customers at a higher rate than, say, social media does, it’s more efficient to put more time into creating blog content, and use social media to promote your blog content.