This Digital Olympus presentation was done based on some feedback and updates to my previous SEO Camp presentation on Measuring Content Marketing.
- How to better measure content marketing
- Who am I? I’ve been doing SEO for over 10 years and I’m currently the Director of Strategy at BlueGlass, a London-based digital marketing agency with a focus on SEO and Content Marketing. We also have BlueGlass offices in Zurich and Tallinn.
- The Drum 2016 Content Marketing Agency of the Year 5 x Search Awards winner
- 1. Measuring links acquired (Majestic) 2. Measuring shares (BuzzSumo) 3. Measuring estimated reach (CoverageBook) 4. Measuring referral traffic (Google Analytics) 5. Measuring organic traffic (Google Analytics) 6. Measuring uplift in impressions or average rank (GSC) 7. Measuring number of search terms driving traffic to page (GSC) 8. Keyword ranking uplift (SEOmonitor) 9. Automated measuring (SEOmonitor) How can you measure content marketing? There is always a way to measure impacts if you plan ahead…
- Bad ways to measureWhat are some horrible ways you can measure content marketing?
- ▪ Based on number of links opens it up to manipulation ▪ Targets may limit the opportunity to build more links ▪ Measuring links without considering TF/CF ends in tears ▪ Articles created without a reason should cause concern ▪ Set expectations of what you want at the end Focus on the right aspects
- Measurement is keyWhy do I need to better measure what we’ve done?
- ▪ Should be possible to calculate a ROI on all content ▪ Marketers will be held more accountable on spend ▪ You have to fight against PPC for budget ▪ You want to learn what impacts the business metrics ▪ How else can you learn from your mistakes? Why is it important to measure?
- Measuring linksDid you generate more links? Were they quality links?
- Try to improve TF over CF
- Measuring changesDid you acquire links or social shares?
- Any content being shared?
- Links acquired by content
- Estimated reachHow many eyeballs might have seen your off-site content?
- Top level content insights
- Referral trafficDid you drive clicks from your off-site content back to your site?
- Don’t try and track via UTM tags
- Filter out the bots in Analytics
- Can track via Google Analytics
- Organic trafficDid your onsite or target content acquire more organic traffic?
- Onpage content can lift traffic
- Any SERP changes?Did Google Search Console show you a positive uplift?
- Clicks and impressions uplift?
- Did average rank change?
- Number of keywordsDid the number of non-brand search terms driving traffic increase?
- How many terms driving clicks?
- Improved rankingsDid the rank of the target terms increase?
- Track the focus terms
- Automated insightsDid the content performance report highlight any impacts?
- Performance of content
- ForecastingWhat might be the impact of content marketing?
- a ▪ How established are the competitors? ▪ What is the SEO difficulty score on target terms? ▪ Average links per piece of existing content? ▪ Average number of links competitors are building? ▪ Referral traffic to content pieces? ▪ Organic traffic to current pieces? Forecast potential impacts
- How much content?Work backwards from your goals to estimate resources needed
- ■ How much additional organic traffic is needed? ■ How many terms are being targeted? ■ How much referral traffic is needed? ■ How many quality links are you behind? ■ How much content do you currently have? ■ How does the content fit in with the purchase cycle Honestly how much do you need?
- Tracking successContent marketing should have a goal or KPI that is influential
- ▪ SEOmonitor can help (try it here) ▪ Dashboards in Majestic can help track competitors ▪ CoverageBook can track reach of content ▪ YoY comparison to avoid factoring in seasonal trends ▪ Compare target pages against a control group How to report you results
- Thank You!
