There’s (almost) nothing worse than a content strategy that doesn’t go anywhere. Research, planning, writing, meta information, images, formatting, posting…all for a couple of visitors a year? That doesn’t sound like something anyone should spend time doing. Whether you write for yourself or you hire an agency or freelance writer to create content, how do you know the content is serving its purpose? Do people get leads where the potential client says, “so I was reading your blog about X and decided I’d give you a call.”
Or could they?
When it comes to answering the question “Is My Content Working?” you’re going to have to look to Google Analytics or similar analytics software to get answers. One of the quickest ways you can see if pages are driving traffic to your website is by going to your Analytics account for that website. If you don’t want to spend time digging through the Analytics data, request a report from Google. A good sample size of your content situation should evaluate content that has been on the site for at least six months, but preferably twelve months.
Let’s look at the Market My Market website as an example:
(Creating Vine for Business blog gets a lot of views – is that still a thing?)
When you go to “Landing Pages” you can see all the individual pages on the site that drive traffic. If you are running paid campaigns to any of your pages, the data will reflect that traffic as well unless you filter that data out from the results.
The links we have highlighted in the image above are blogs rather than web pages as the topics are specific and seek to answer questions or provide a tutorial. The rest are keyword-dense landing pages.
Using Data to Determine Whether your Content is Engaging Visitors
So, are any of these pages working? That all depends on your expectations of a working page. The short answer is yes; the pages are receiving traffic. The next point to consider is whether the user has navigated to other pages on the website. If so, the page is leading visitors to explore your site further which is behavior you want to see. Users who spend more time on your site are more likely to act, whether by sending an email or calling your company. You may deduce that a visitor has navigated to other pages by looking at the duration of their visit. It is reasonable to assume a visitor has looked at multiple pages when their average session is about 1:30 (a minute and thirty seconds) or higher.
Identifying Pages that Aren’t Working
If you want to go to the tail end of the report to see conclusively what is not working, go to the bottom of the “Landing Pages” page in Google Analytics and and locate the “Show Rows” feature to the bottom right of the page. Set it to the maximum number of rows possible. That way, you can easily identify the landing pages with few visitations without clicking through multiple pages in Google Analytics.
| /interview-blue-chip-pool-service-client-success-story/ | 1 |
| /is-google-translate-sufficient-for-foreign-content/ | 1 |
| /knowing-audience-beyond-seo/ | 1 |
| /lawyers-that-show-up-on-maps-outside-of-their-main-category/ | 1 |
| /marketing-conferences-worth/ | 1 |
| /my-website-was-taken-down-now-what/ | 1 |
| /our-seo-process-in-depth/ | 1 |
| /parting-ways-examining-post-relationship-sabotage/ | 1 |
| /parting-ways-exploring-notion-seo-company-harmed-website/ | 1 |
| /parting-ways-know-seo-just-isnt-working/ | 1 |
| /pick-reliable-host-for-website/ | 1 |
| /seo-facade-knowing-bs-stops/ | 1 |
| /seo-like-fiverr/ | 1 |
| /sochiproblems-popular-official-sochi2014-handle-twitter/ | 1 |
| /teenagers-leaving-facebook/ | 1 |
| /the-seo-facade-knowledge/ | 1 |
| /the-seo-facade-knowledge/sleazy-salesman-pointing/ | 1 |
| /things-to-consider-do-they-focus-heavily-on-getting-you-traffic/ | 1 |
| /things-to-consider-does-the-site-sell-you-or-inform-you/ | 1 |
| /three-ways-you-can-get-marketing-interns-for-your-business/ | 1 |
| /time-received-professional-site-audit/ | 1 |
| /tinder-really-help-create-spark/ | 1 |
| /tips-get-reviews-customers-business-online/ | 1 |
| /why-your-website-will-never-be-complete/ | 1 |
| /yahoo-integrates-yelp-reviews-search/ | 1 |
Even for us, it looks like several of our blogs haven’t picked up that much momentum. Keep in mind that articles that get ZERO visitors won’t show up on your analytics report at all. It might be worth keeping tabs on that via a search/find function.
Are these blogs done, and did we just waste a bunch of time writing them? Some may no longer be relevant because the topics are simply outdated. For example, we know teenagers have been leaving Facebook for years now, so this topic is no longer newsworthy. Also, a Tinder article likely isn’t relevant, in addition to older news about Yahoo. But what about everything else? Is there a way to give all these a second shot at search engine fandom?
In our next article, we’ll discuss what you can do to eject new life into older content in a thorough and useful re-optimization process.
It may take a while to figure out the best way to boost your content, but it’s worth evaluating the results at regular intervals. At Market My Market, we strive to produce high-quality content as part of an in-depth digital marketing strategy. We also specialize in PPC, SEM, web development and social media marketing. Upgrade your digital presence by calling (800) 954-9441 for a free consultation with a digital marketing guru.