Content created for content's sake is empty and meaningless. A blog post or a press release (no matter how well-written) remains nothing but words woven together on a page or document unless there are clear business goals to measure its performance and success.
The word "measure" can be an uncomfortable subject for some. After all, data from the Content Marketing Institute show that 57% of marketers do not measure the ROI of content marketing. Shocking, isn't it?
It's time to reverse that statistic and make sure that every marketing effort, content included, has clear and attainable success factors and goals. Experts providing SEO services in Utah outline three crucial factors that gauge the success of content marketing campaigns:
SEO Rankings
One primary reason businesses engage in content marketing is because of SEO. Google, after all, serves as a considerable measure of success and effectiveness of the content you put out. The search giant adopts (and regularly improves upon) stringent quality standards for content, and making it to the top spot or the first page means you are doing something right.
Do note, however, that the thing you are supposed to measure here is not the traffic but rather the rankings and how your content affected your own site's placement in the Google search result pages or SERPs.
Engagement
Have you ever wondered why clickbait articles worked so well? The reason is that these types of content were written to elicit an emotional response. The objective of such pieces is to make the users click the article (hence the name clickbait) and, hopefully, react or share the said article. Now, writing clickbait articles is not the goal here, but it is a clear display of the role engagement plays in content marketing success.
When your audience reacts well and talks about your content, those conversations count as engagement and create a buzz. Ultimately, this buzz leads to an increase in the leads and the traffic you receive from the content.
This is the second success factor in content marketing, and you can measure this by checking how engaged or responsive your audience has become because of your content. Even if a piece does not do much for your SEO rankings, if it can generate buzz and engagement, it still has achieved some success.
Sales
The third and most obvious success factor is, of course, sales. Content possesses the power of convincing people to pay for a product or a service. Data shows that about 80% of consumers do some research online before making a purchase. Content can be the very thing that leads to that purchase.
It is essential to look at the sales that have resulted from the conversations and engagement brought about by content. Take a hard look at the numbers and see if there's growth in any area. If there is, it means you are doing great content-wise.
With these success factors to look at, it becomes easier to learn what you're doing right, where you can improve, and how you can beat the competition.
