This is a question that many website managers have been asking for years. Google has said recently that while more pages can give you more opportunities to rank for keywords and get links you should not assume that more pages equals better performance in the S.E.R.Ps.
So what does this mean to the content marketer?
First, Google wants you producing and publishing content because it gives you opportunities to get links and rank for keywords. This is not new information, but it bears repeating.
Second, if you believe you can fill your site with content just so you have more pages than your competitors, Google is telling you in their own way that it really doesn’t matter.
Third, you need to publish content that is relevant to the audience you are seeking. If your audience is small-business owners who run companies with 5to 25 employees, you need to produce content that helps them grow their business, lower costs, or become more efficient. That audience most likely doesn’t care that this is take your pet to work week.
Fourth, make sure you are sharing your content socially and make it easy for your audience to share the content they are reading on your site. If you are answering questions and providing value with your content people will want to share it, so make it easy for them to do so.
Fifth, if content is starting to overwhelm your team day-to-day find a content creation company that is willing to invest in your brand, your industry and your story. This will help you build an efficient process and also allow you more time to strategize and learn more about the content your audience really wants to read.
What metrics should you look at to sell content marketing internally?
As many marketers start to gravitate towards content marketing they are struggling with selling the idea to the C-Level. This mainly happens when you start asking for additional money or reallocating your budget. Old habits die hard so you need to provide a business case that shows how content is really “moving the needle” for your business.
Sales
If you have access in your analytics to how your inbound marketing is directly filling your funnel then this is the most relevant piece of information. But this is not always a direct correlation. Look to the numbers of users who are signing up for your emails, downloading your e-book or contacting your sales team. You have data that supports how these activities fill your sales funnel and convert to sales. Simply show how generating 50 newsletter signups or 25 leads from your e-book are fueling your sales team.
Social shares
This is also easy to measure. You may need to work with your social team to easily gather this data or work with a content marketing agency to help you create easy-to-use reports. If your C-level is big on the idea that “we need to be on tweet” then this will resonate.
Links
This information is available in your analytics and easy to find with a MOZ plugin as well. Links are still important and show that your content is so valuable that your clients or others in your industry are linking to it. You can also use this data in conjunction with your overall domain authority score.
Traffic
I know this is a loaded term: what is traffic without conversion and engagement. But showing increases in traffic and tying that to your overall conversation rate for a given product, group of products or how you convert your incoming traffic can paint a picture of how inbound traffic is affecting the bottom line.
Engagement/time on site
If you are building trust and credibility with your audience, this is very important to report. The more time someone spends with you the more they trust what you say. Also, if you are trying to get dollars to move to your content marketing strategy from traditional media this can be a great piece of data. Show how your content is generating views or eyeballs on your site and how long they are staying there and then compare that to other forms of marketing. If you can show your team that content marketing is not only driving more visitors, but that they are also staying with you longer, the value of that visitor is extremely high.
