4 Ways to Measure the Success of a Blog

If you’re writing a blog just because you think you need to, you’re missing the point of a blog. A blog can drive tons of traffic to your website and get you more conversions! But you need to know how to measure the success of a blog to make sure it’s doing its job.

I think people get hung up on this part of blogging. They get frustrated because they don’t see the impact their blog is having on their business, but they don’t even know what to look at. So, let’s dive into some ways to measure the success of a blog.

1. Traffic to Your Website

The main goal of a blog is to drive more traffic to your website to improve your overall SEO rankings. The more traffic your blog earns, the more search engines see your content as valuable. Search engines serve people – they want to provide the best search results to their users. If yours is viewed as the best based on how much traffic you receive and how long people stay on the page, the more often Google will show it as a search result. And the more traffic you’ll start to receive from that blog.

So, I just mentioned how long people stay on the page. That’s actually really important for your SEO. Google does NOT want people to land on your page and leave after a few seconds. That means your content wasn’t what that person was searching for. And as we know, Google wants to give users the most relevant search results possible. If a lot of people are bouncing off your page, Google will start to show your content less and less because people clearly don’t find it valuable.

That’s why it’s also important to pick relevant keywords for your blogs.

2. Keyword Ranking

Each blog should have ONE keyword it’s trying to rank for, also known as your focus or main keyword. You can have multiple keywords within the content that your blog might also rank for. But the one focus keyword is the one you optimize within your blog content. The focus keyword should be in your:

• Title
• Metadata
• Subheadings
• Content

By putting your keyword in these places, you’re signaling to Google that this is what your content is about. You want to appear in search results for that term. When you’re trying to measure the success of a blog, look at how you rank for that keyword. Your ranking should go up over time if people and Google deem your content worthy of that keyword.

When you first choose that keyword to target in a blog, you might be ranked #98. That means you’re the 98th search result for that term. That’s pretty far down on Google, so it’s unlikely you’ll get much traffic from it.

But let’s say you write an amazing blog, and it’s optimized for that term. Over time, your ranking should go up. In six months, maybe you’ll be ranked #20. You’re moving up the search list, which means you have a better chance of getting search traffic from it.

Remember, blogs are a long-term SEO strategy. You won’t move up the search rankings overnight, but continue to check the keyword rankings for your blog content.

If you don’t see much movement for that keyword after six or so months, you may need to update the blog with a new keyword to target.

3. Audience Feedback

I love hearing positive feedback from my blogs. It gives my ego a little boost, and I’ll take as much of that as I can get! 

All blogs need to have the perfect balance of being written for search engines and your audience. A blog written with the intent to rank on Google might not be the best topic for your audience. You need to have balance. It is people you’re writing for, after all!

You want your audience to find your content valuable. Blogs are an amazing way to show off your expertise. If someone is thinking about inquiring, they might peruse your blog content. Having articles that speak to their needs, wants, and pain points will impress your audience and give them the confidence to reach out. You know your stuff!

Listen to your audience to see how they respond to your blogs. I recommend promoting your blogs on social media and to your email list – see if you get positive feedback on those platforms!

4. Conversions

The biggest way to measure the success of a blog is by how many conversions it gets. That is the goal, right? To reach more of your audience and have people inquire.

Your blog should have strong calls-to-action (CTA) throughout it, with a final CTA to inquire about your services. You can use your analytics tools to see how much traffic the page got vs. how many people clicked on the button to inquire and actually completed the contact form.

You could also embed a contact form on your blog posts to skip a step. This is even easier to track – how many people landed on the page and completed the form?

If your conversions are low, it could mean a few things.

The wrong people are landing on your page.

You may not be reaching your target audience. Even if your traffic is decent, you want people to convert. You could be reaching people who are looking for information or DIY instead of a service.

Your CTAs aren’t good enough.

The CTAs within your blog should be relevant to the content. Don’t throw CTAs in there for the sake of doing so. It should make sense with what the person is reading.

I recommend linking throughout the blog to other relevant content (blogs, podcasts, social posts, freebies, etc.) Think of it as taking the reader on a journey. What might they want to learn more about after reading this article? Or what might not make sense as they read the article and will want to educate themselves on it?

P.S. You can actually get a ton of new blog topic inspiration from your current content. What would be relevant for your audience to learn more about?

Then focus on one main CTA. You can put it in the middle and/or end of the blog. It will probably be to book a call with you, but it doesn’t have to be! If it doesn’t make sense for the topic of the blog, don’t add it. Your main CTA could also be signing up for a freebie or your email list. The only thing to make sure of is that you have a form so you can track those conversions.

The content isn’t relevant to your services.

If you’re a web designer writing about travel, I’m sorry, but you’re doing something wrong. A blog about your recent trip to Italy with a CTA to book a discovery call for your web design services is so confusing to your audience and Google.

The caveat to this is that you can write about industry-adjacent topics. For example, I’m a blog writer, but I might write about why you need a blog before starting on Pinterest (actually, that’s really good. I’m gonna save that one for later). I don’t offer Pinterest services, but it’s still relevant to my target audience because I’m tying in blogs.

Another example is a web designer writing about website copy. Even if they don’t offer copywriting services, it ties in nicely with their services. If someone’s getting a new website, they will need new website copy.

Blogs have so much potential to be a huge marketing source for you. You have to be strategic about your content and optimization to target your audience. Then, measure the success of a blog to see if it’s doing its job for your business.

If you need help researching, writing, and measuring the success of your blog strategy, I’m your gal. I’m ready to help put your blog on the map. Book a call, and let’s chat!