A blog is a channel to drive sales on your website; it is a tool you can use to showcase your expertise in your niche.
A blog is a tool that drives income-generating ideas.
So how can you tell that it is running in a streamlined manner?
There are certain analytics that tell you just how well your blog is performing and give you insights as to what you should do to improve it.
Blogging Statistics: What are they?
This is a term referring to the process of analyzing data that measures factors such as blog post traffic, conversions, engagement, and a lot more.
When you use data to measure the performance of a blog, you can easily pinpoint areas where performance is lacking and understand why.
Why do these metrics matter?
In the same way that you would measure performance data in a corporate setting to determine company performance, blog analytics are important in measuring the success of a blog.
If you want to bring in investors into a blogging venture that you had, it will not be enough to say, “believe me we are doing well”.
You have to back your comment with hard data which shows the blog is doing well, otherwise the potential investor will walk away.
The Blog Statistics that you should NEVER ignore
It’s time to look at the individual data types that you should keep an eye on so you can start making improvements to your blog or website and bring in more traffic.
#1 Organic Search Impressions
When a reader views your blog or website on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), then that view is called an Impression.
When your blog posts or website page rank high on the SERPs, you get more visibility, and hence your Impressions increase.
The higher the impressions, the higher your traffic is.
If your impressions are low, then it indicates that your rankings may be poor, so you need to do some SEO on your blog.
#2: Organic Clicks
Organic Search Impressions indicate the number of views you get on the SERPs while Organic Clicks indicate the number of clicks that you get.
It is not enough to just be seen on the SERPs; users should also find your content compelling enough to make them click on the link that leads them to your blog.
The higher the Organic Clicks, the higher the number of visitors who click through the SERPs to your blog; this means a higher traffic volume.
If your Organic Clicks are low, then this means your impressions are low too; the answer once again is to do SEO on your site so you rank higher on the SERPs.
Similarly, low Organic Clicks could be a result of using keywords that target a low-volume query.
However, if you have a high number of impressions and your ranking is good, but your clicks are low, then this means you have to change the title that appears on the search engines as well as the Meta description of the page in question.
#3: Organic Click-Through Rate – (CTR)
It can be quite challenging so compare your Organic Clicks to the Impressions. This is why you need to check on your Organic CTR. This is the percentage number of impressions that are converted into a click.
The higher this percentage is, then the higher the number of impressions that led to a click. If you have a blog post with a low keyword volume post that ranks quite well, it can get you a lot of impressions and earn a high CTR.
On the other hand, you can rank very low on high-volume keywords and still earn a lot of traffic with a low CTR.
#4: Number of Blog Visits and Page Views
A visit refers to the number of times a user sees your website or blog. Page views measure the number of times pages are seen by a user.
One visit can lead to a high number of page views since the user may go through several pages on your website or blog in a single visit.
With page views and site visits, you can be able to know:
- If your blog traffic is increasing or decreasing
- If your users are going through a high number of pages when they visit your blog, or whether they read one page and then move on to another site.
- If your average views are high or low per post.
#5: Specific Post Performance
This is determined by the number of views that an individual or specific blog post gets. This helps you tell which blog posts are performing well and which ones are not.
This blog analytic can also give you an indication of the topics that are doing well on your blog.
For example, you may find that people are spending more time reading about Search Engine Optimization, as opposed to business development. This indicates that you should create more blog posts about SEO.
This way, you will not spend time creating blog posts that very few people will read.
The individual post views can also show you other patterns about what is working on your blog or not.
For example, you may find that blog posts with a numbered title (10 ways) or How-To title are performing better.
You may also find that a certain blog structure is encouraging people to spend more time on the page.
All these insights will help you understand how people want to view your posts, which topics matter to them, and what titles you should use when you want them to visit the page from the SERPs.
#6: Sources of Referral Traffic
This is a metric that shows you where the most traffic comes from. This enables you to know where you should be putting more energy into.
For example, you might find that our main traffic source is from Facebook and not Google. This means you have to put more effort into the posts you make on Facebook.
On the other hand, you should not ignore the value of traffic from Google, so you should do SEO on your blog.
With this information, you can see where your blog is deficient, with respect to traffic sources.
The best way to go about such a scenario is to make effective use of keywords to maximize visibility on the search engines and also allocate resources to increase the referrals you are getting from social media platforms and other blogs.
If you are promoting your products and services to your audience, tracking where your best referral traffic is coming from will give you an indication of where you should be placing your ads.
If there is a blog that gives you more traffic as opposed to social media, then it would be better to write a great blog post for the bog, than to place an ad on social media.
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#7: Inbound links
These are the links that you get back to your blog or website from other sites. These links indicate just how authoritative your blog posts are and help improve your ranking on the search engines.
An inbound link shows that the creator of the blog post thought that your content was worth mentioning to his or her readers.
This is a vote of confidence in the authority of the content that you write.
Inbound links are favored by search engines and contribute highly to the number of visitors that you get.
Taking a look at the number of inbound links related to certain topics, you can identify the topics that other bloggers think are truly amazing on your blog. You can use these to post special content on social media, create an eBook that people will buy, etc.
#8: Time Spent on a Page
The time spent on a page is also called “Time on Page”. It shows how long a user spends time reading content on that particular page.
This analytic shows how relevant and engaging the content on the page is. If the content is relevant and engaging, they will spend more time reading it.
With this metric, you can look at the pages where people spend less time and see what you can do to ensure that they read the content rather than skim and bounce off.
Note: Time on Page varies based on other factors such as the length of your blog posts. A short post of 300 words takes less time to read than a long post of 3,000 words.
Similar, a page with great structure will be easy to skim through if a user is looking for a section of information that you have on the page.
It does not mean that the content is poor, but the user was able to find the answer faster. This leads to a great user experience which is highly favored by search engines.
#9: The Bounce Rate
This is an indicator of how fast people tend to bounce off your blog.
If the user just reads through one page and then leaves the blog, then the bounce rate will be high.
If they stay longer and go through other posts that you have, then the rate will be low.
However, the bounce rate should be considered with a pinch of salt.
Sometimes, you can have a blog post with a CTA at the end which directs people to another page where they can take the desired action, for example, make a purchase.
Although this example may be viewed as a high bounce rate indicator, your objective was to get that sale, which is a great thing.
However, if people are bouncing off your blog to another site, then you need to do something about the content you create.
You can reduce the bounce rate by adding high-performing content to the sidebar of your blog.
Letting people see the last 5 recent posts on your homepage will reduce bounce rates as they catch up on what you have been writing about recently.
#10: Comments and Social Shares
This is analytic shows you how likable your content is. If people think that they can share your content on social media, then they believe your content to be credible and engaging.
Comments and Social shares will show you where you need to put more effort into creating engaging content that people want to talk about with you or their friends.
Ensure that your social sharing buttons are clearly visible. This makes it easier for people to share your posts, which could in turn lead to a higher traffic volume.
#11: Number of Subscribers
The number of people who subscribe to your RSS and email list shows the number of people who form your individual community.
These are the people who want to read more content from your blog and are your “True Believers”. They can help you extend your reach through sharing on their own networks, earning you more traffic.
Showing the number of subscribers on the sidebar of your blog will also show first-time visitors just how popular your blog is and may encourage them to subscribe too.
#12: The CTA Click-Through Rate
Getting people to read or view your post and share it on social media should not be the end goal of your blog posts. You want the post to have a measurable impact, by getting people to click on your CTA.
The CTA, or Call to Action, encourages people to take a particular action, such as make a purchase, or subscribe to your email list.
The higher the CTA click-through rate, the more impact your blog posts are having on your readers when it comes to getting them to perform the desired action.
This means that the content of the post has convinced the reader to make a purchase or subscribe to your email list.
A low CTA click-through rate could mean:
- Your content is not effective enough and needs to be rewritten.
- You have wrongly placed your CTA link or button.
- The design of the CTA is not compelling enough.
#13: Lead Count
This shows you the number of leads that you are getting from your blog posts.
To increase this number, do the following:
- Publish blog posts that have a well-defined CTA.
- You have the best-performing CTAs prominently displayed on your home page.
- Ensure that you have anchor text leading to top-performing landing pages in your blog posts.
The lead count will show you how effective your content is. Use this metric to fine-tune your blog content and make it more effective.
Takeaway
Although there are many other blog analytics that you have to bear in mind when measuring the performance of your website, these are the ones that you should never ignore.
Following these metrics will enable you to see how well your blog is performing when it comes to generating traffic and encouraging readers to take a particular action based on your CTA.
This may seem like over-kill to you, but if you are serious about monetizing your blog, then you have to keep an eye on how your blog is performing using these blog analytics.
