What are the best ways to prove that your content is effective?
We’ve outlined some Search Engine Optimization (SEO) metrics that are definitely worth incorporating into your reporting.
First and foremost, Return on Investment (ROI) is often a bit more complicated to prove in terms of SEO compared to other advertising avenues, like Google Ads or Social Media Ads. This is typically a key reason why business owners aren’t as eager to invest in SEO as they are in other marketing channels.
A click on an organic search result is not attributed always to a keyword like in paid search, where you can compare the conversions to your initial investment to decide if it was worth it. In addition, there are often easier metrics to define success in other marketing channels, such as open rates for emails, subscribers for a podcast, and social engagements for social media advertising campaigns.
A variety of challenges can arise when it comes to measuring the return on investment (ROI) for SEO efforts. For instance, it can be challenging enough to prioritize technical issues with your development team and relay the issues and progress updates in layman terms with clients.
However, there is another element for digital marketing campaigns that is even harder to measure the ROI from – content. Measuring the ROI from your content marketing can be even more challenging.
There are ways around this challenge, though, in order to show the ROI from your content strategies. Based on the amount of money, time, or resources spent on your content, you can calculate the ROI of your marketing strategy.
In this article, we’ll share the best metrics you can use to prove the efficacy of SEO for your organization and measure content marketing ROI.
What Are the Best Metrics to Measure Content Marketing ROI?
As marketers, the following are the most basic metrics we use to report on the performance of the content we publish for organic marketing efforts:
- Organic Conversions
o This includes the process of reviewing increases in rankings on average overall – especially in regard to growth for targeted keywords to be placed in the top organic positions on Page 1 of Google or another search engine.
- Search Volume Increases
o This is especially significant for those keywords that are already ranking on Page 1 for targeted organic terms.
- Organic Traffic and Clicks Increases
o This includes looking at the number of New Users, Sessions on the websites, Duration on the website, Pages per Session, and more.
Keep in mind that KPIs and goals for different content types can vary based on audience, intent, and media type.
In terms of demonstrating how SEO helps content marketing efforts as well as measuring the ROI from organic channels, these metrics tend to be the most useful.
How to Report on Each SEO Metric to Measure Content ROI
- Expand in Organic Conversions
Your team can easily see how well the content performs by using this simple, yet very effective, method.
It’s important to note that there may be differences in conversions depending on the type of content. These numbers, however, help you get a better understanding of how your content is engaging users and if it’s motivating them to take your desired action.
You may wish to measure conversions based on the number of newsletter subscribers, total downloads of PDFs, or number of contacts made.
- Page 1 Keyword Growth
Performing well on each page takes time, so setting realistic goals is essential for SEO. Prior to optimizing or writing content, it is important to conduct comprehensive keyword research.
To prove our content marketing ROI, it is essential to demonstrate Page 1 keyword growth, as this shows how much more visible pages are in SERPs than it was previously. You can communicate the importance of investing more of your team’s time and resources into SEO by displaying keyword growth on Page 1.
Another key metric to consider is the overall growth in search volume or the website’s ranking for selected keywords as a whole. Those in charge of organizing content can quickly assess how discoverable your content is by using the growth in search volume, especially on Page 1.
- Increase in Organic Traffic and Clicks
Another key metric to include in reporting on content marketing efforts is how much website traffic or clicks the content produced.
This is a great time to benchmark how much organic traffic or clicks a specific piece of content was bringing in or the percentage of traffic it represents to the overall site before optimizations were made to the page. The number of website visitors or clicks generated by content marketing efforts is another important metric to track. It is ideal at this point to determine the organic traffic or clicks this content had been bringing in, or the share of site traffic generated by this page before optimizations were made to it.
In addition, organic conversion data might not always be available to prove the content is working for the site. Users may absorb content on a website and then come back weeks or months later to convert, making it harder to link that conversion directly to SEO efforts.
If you show an increase in traffic, or clicks, you can still demonstrate to the organization that the content has been viewed by a significant number of users, which will hopefully result in more conversions.
To Wrap It Up
Because the success of your content is measured using many different metrics, it can be difficult to calculate ROI for content marketing from the average person.
You can better show results to executives and management within an organization through the use of the metrics listed above, in addition to how SEO makes your website, brand, products, and services more visible.
Additionally, you should implement reporting to monitor the impact of the content that you create in order to identify when certain content isn’t performing well, so you can adjust and re-optimize it as needed based on top-performing content.
An experienced full-service digital marketing agency can assist in not only creating a successful content marketing strategy, but an agency can also pull comprehensive and informative reporting to show what is working and what is not working. What are the best ways to prove that your content is effective?
We’ve outlined some Search Engine Optimization (SEO) metrics that are definitely worth incorporating into your reporting.
First and foremost, Return on Investment (ROI) is often a bit more complicated to prove in terms of SEO compared to other advertising avenues, like Google Ads or Social Media Ads. This is typically a key reason why business owners aren’t as eager to invest in SEO as they are in other marketing channels.
A click on an organic search result is not attributed always to a keyword like in paid search, where you can compare the conversions to your initial investment to decide if it was worth it. In addition, there are often easier metrics to define success in other marketing channels, such as open rates for emails, subscribers for a podcast, and social engagements for social media advertising campaigns.
A variety of challenges can arise when it comes to measuring the return on investment (ROI) for SEO efforts. For instance, it can be challenging enough to prioritize technical issues with your development team and relay the issues and progress updates in layman terms with clients.
However, there is another element for digital marketing campaigns that is even harder to measure the ROI from – content. Measuring the ROI from your content marketing can be even more challenging.
There are ways around this challenge, though, in order to show the ROI from your content strategies. Based on the amount of money, time, or resources spent on your content, you can calculate the ROI of your marketing strategy.
In this article, we’ll share the best metrics you can use to prove the efficacy of SEO for your organization and measure content marketing ROI.
What Are the Best Metrics to Measure Content Marketing ROI?
As marketers, the following are the most basic metrics we use to report on the performance of the content we publish for organic marketing efforts:
- Organic Conversions
o This includes the process of reviewing increases in rankings on average overall – especially in regard to growth for targeted keywords to be placed in the top organic positions on Page 1 of Google or another search engine.
- Search Volume Increases
o This is especially significant for those keywords that are already ranking on Page 1 for targeted organic terms.
- Organic Traffic and Clicks Increases
o This includes looking at the number of New Users, Sessions on the websites, Duration on the website, Pages per Session, and more.
Keep in mind that KPIs and goals for different content types can vary based on audience, intent, and media type.
In terms of demonstrating how SEO helps content marketing efforts as well as measuring the ROI from organic channels, these metrics tend to be the most useful.
How to Report on Each SEO Metric to Measure Content ROI
- Expand in Organic Conversions
Your team can easily see how well the content performs by using this simple, yet very effective, method.
It’s important to note that there may be differences in conversions depending on the type of content. These numbers, however, help you get a better understanding of how your content is engaging users and if it’s motivating them to take your desired action.
You may wish to measure conversions based on the number of newsletter subscribers, total downloads of PDFs, or number of contacts made.
- Page 1 Keyword Growth
Performing well on each page takes time, so setting realistic goals is essential for SEO. Prior to optimizing or writing content, it is important to conduct comprehensive keyword research.
To prove our content marketing ROI, it is essential to demonstrate Page 1 keyword growth, as this shows how much more visible pages are in SERPs than it was previously. You can communicate the importance of investing more of your team’s time and resources into SEO by displaying keyword growth on Page 1.
Another key metric to consider is the overall growth in search volume or the website’s ranking for selected keywords as a whole. Those in charge of organizing content can quickly assess how discoverable your content is by using the growth in search volume, especially on Page 1.
- Increase in Organic Traffic and Clicks
Another key metric to include in reporting on content marketing efforts is how much website traffic or clicks the content produced.
This is a great time to benchmark how much organic traffic or clicks a specific piece of content was bringing in or the percentage of traffic it represents to the overall site before optimizations were made to the page. The number of website visitors or clicks generated by content marketing efforts is another important metric to track. It is ideal at this point to determine the organic traffic or clicks this content had been bringing in, or the share of site traffic generated by this page before optimizations were made to it.
In addition, organic conversion data might not always be available to prove the content is working for the site. Users may absorb content on a website and then come back weeks or months later to convert, making it harder to link that conversion directly to SEO efforts.
If you show an increase in traffic, or clicks, you can still demonstrate to the organization that the content has been viewed by a significant number of users, which will hopefully result in more conversions.
To Wrap It Up
Because the success of your content is measured using many different metrics, it can be difficult to calculate ROI for content marketing from the average person.
You can better show results to executives and management within an organization through the use of the metrics listed above, in addition to how SEO makes your website, brand, products, and services more visible.
Additionally, you should implement reporting to monitor the impact of the content that you create in order to identify when certain content isn’t performing well, so you can adjust and re-optimize it as needed based on top-performing content.
An experienced full-service digital marketing agency can assist in not only creating a successful content marketing strategy, but an agency can also pull comprehensive and informative reporting to show what is working and what is not working.
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