Popcorn Metrics
So, you’re running your inbound marketing, great. But how do you know what’s working?
Use these 7 Key Metrics to measure and learn what works, what content gets the best results, the most valuable links, the most new user signups - and start showing your boss the impact you’re making!
This guide shows you 7 essential Inbound Marketing metrics to track and measure your results.
Metrics for Overall Impact: Start Tracking these Metrics to learn what’s working.
1. Number of Referring Domains with “DoFollow”
The more referring domains, the more traffic to your site, period. If the referrals are “DoFollow” they will also count with Google for your SEO and improve your search rankings.
There are lots of tools to help track this, such as ahrefs.com, moz.com, monitor backlinks.com
2. Number of Inbound Links
The more pages with links, the more chances for potential customers to find and visit your site, period.
Even No Follow links help, and according to Nicole Kohler, “Links build awareness” http://moz.com/blog/the-hidden-power-of-nofollow-links
3. Search engine rankings for pages
Check your search engine rankings for your published blog pages. Do this weekly and see how you are improving.
You can use http://moz.com/tools/rank-tracker.
4. Search engine rankings for keywords
Check your search engine rankings for your target keywords. Do this weekly and see how you are improving.
You can use http://moz.com/tools/rank-tracker.
5. Number of Leads generated (blog)
Your content is intended to capture emails so you can nurture and build trust potential customers with future content.
Measure how well you are succeeding at capturing emails on your blog.
6. Number of Direct Signups (click through to your product)
As you build trust, potential customers are going to start taking an interest and trialing your product. This means clicking through from your Blog to your actual product landing page. These are people saying to you “I’m very interested!”
Measure how well you are succeeding at getting people to click through from your content to your product landing pages.
7. Number of Social Shares
Social sharing extends your reach and helps people find your content.
According to Neil Patel “Social is the new SEO because social networks themselves function as powerful and widely-used search engines in their own right.” http://www.quicksprout.com/2014/04/11/why-social-is-the-new-seo/
Measure Each Blog Post
As well as measuring this for your inbound overall, you should track results for every blog post. This will help you understand which content resonates and gets the best result.
You can start very simply by creating a spreadsheet with the following columns, and updating it every week:
Publish Date & Time
Author
Title
Number of Referring Domains - with DoFollow Inbound Links
Number of Inbound Links
Page Ranking
Keyword Ranking
Number of Leads
Number of Signups
Number of Social Shares
NEXT: Start capturing data on your Inbound CTAs...
Now that you know what to measure, its time to get to work!
You’re going to want to know what Calls to Action (CTAs) on your inbound people are clicking on. For example, which Email Box Captures are getting most clicks, which Social Share locations work best (the sidebar, or in the article footer), and which CTA Downloads (the one mid-article, or the one on the footer)? Which menu items get interest? Are people clicking on your Free Trial or Live Demo menu button? How’s that hello bar doing?
For consultation and advice on creating a marketing analytics stack and conversion strategy for your own business, schedule at least a 15-minute meeting with me via YoucanBookMe.
Was this post helpful? How do you measure your Inbound Marketing efforts? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.