The 5 Metrics To Measure Your Content By

Measuring how successful your content is is just as important as writing it in the first place. If you don’t measure it, using meaningful metrics, you might as well not bother. By applying metrics, you can find out what works, what doesn’t, and what can be done next time to improve your content to make it more relevant, more engaging, and more successful.

Choosing which metrics to focus on can be tricky, but it’s important you find the right ones, otherwise, you’ll be making decisions based on irrelevant information. So, to help you, we’ve jotted down five of the most important metrics to measure your content by. There are hundreds more but these five are the ideal starting point.

Sales

The most obvious one, and arguably the most important. If your content is sales-orientated and doesn’t lead to an increase in sales, then it’s kind of a dud. Sure, brand awareness is important but the goal of any kind of content is to grow revenue and boost sales, in the long term at least. Be sure to track conversions and leads thoroughly, and work hard to ascertain how that sale occurred (i.e. was it because they found your nice shiny blog? Or was it through another channel such as PPC).

Engagement

Pageviews, as well explain, are good, but engagement is the next step. Engagement is the equivalent of someone coming into your shop instead of just looking at it through the window. High engagement means that people are reading your content, they are ‘engaging with it’, if you like. This means it’s well written and informative. Both of which are necessary to create great content that drives sales.

SERP Rankings

If you’re not on page one, you’re not on Google, it’s as simple as that. SERP rankings (Search Engine Results Page rankings) are a great metric to determine what Google thinks of your content. These rankings require patience but if you have relevant content that is filled with keywords, ontology, and other things that Google likes, there is a good chance that you’ll be ranking in the top 10 for a given key term.

Pageviews

Pageviews are your bread and butter. The more pageviews the better. Sure it’s not particularly nuanced or delicate but generally, the more views, the better. Getting people to click on a website is so difficult nowadays, especially when you consider the advent of featured snippets and 3-Packs. All this makes pageviews an incredibly important metric. If page views are low, consider the metadata that you’re writing and the title tags you have. These two things are like your shop window and will entice people to click more.

Content shared on social media

It’s not groundbreaking to say that social media metrics are important. But, more than likes and comments, shares are arguably the most important social media metric. Why? Because they are a clear indicator of people’s intent. If they like your content and share it, it means that they have read it, found it useful, and think a friend or their followers will find it appealing and useful to them. Shares are super important and should be used for every relevant piece of content made.