What to look for in blog posts
Above all, you should want users to devour them. Offer them answers to frequently asked questions, tell them stories, and gradually introduce them to your team. Work with different formats; for example, interviews tend to be more dynamic and are more interesting for readers. Don’t be afraid to get personal. Readers may identify with your team’s hobbies; perhaps they collect postcards too, or support the same football team.
We’ve already discussed how to set goals properly here. Remember that goals must be SMART:
What you can expect from the articles:
- Readership
- Conversion
- Brand promotion
- Building trust
All these aspects can be measured with varying degrees of accuracy. Conversions are, of course, much easier to measure. In Google Analytics, you can easily track where a user came from and whether they sent an email or an enquiry. Brand articles, which aim to build a relationship with users, are more challenging. A sense of trust is difficult to quantify.
One measure could be whether users make repeat purchases from you or show interest in complementary products and services. However, for a property development company building luxury flats, such measurement is impossible. Most users are likely to make a purchase only once.
You should therefore closely monitor what people are saying about you on social media. Try the Mention app, which monitors both social media and your brand. You can also try Google Alerts. Google Alerts do not offer such advanced tracking, but they are free.
How to measure brand-related articles
By no means do all articles need to fulfil precisely measurable goals such as submitted enquiries or the purchase of a product. The purpose of these articles is to inspire a sense of trust. Measure the level of interest a user has shown in the article.
What can be measured for brand articles:
- Time spent on the page, i.e. whether the user actually managed to read the article in full.
- Scrolling: If a user is reading, they must necessarily scroll down the page.
Scrolling can be measured by Monkey Tracker or Google Analytics. -
Whether the user copied any text
: If the user copies an email address or phone number, for example, they are likely to get in touch. You can track this metric using code from Copycamp. - Number of shares or ‘likes’ on social media
You can use the tracking code from Copycamp or the Mention app. If you use WordPress, there are a number of social media plugins that automatically calculate engagement. - Clicks to the next page
Measure this using the Monkey Tracker tool. It will help you understand what interests users and focus more on such topics.
The topic of how best to evaluate copy was also discussed at the Copycamp copywriting conference. Copywriters usually rely more on words than numbers, which is why the organisers have prepared a tracking code that handles all the necessary metrics. Download the code here. Your developer can implement the code if you don’t feel confident doing it yourself.
DOWNLOAD THE TRACKING CODE FOR FREE
11 tips for achieving higher goals
- Choose interesting topics based on keyword analysis.
- Have an editorial plan. Remember that quality is more important than quantity.
- Ensure correct formatting to make the text easy to scan.
- Set reasonable goals and track your progress.
- Share your articles on social media, and send the best ones out in a newsletter. Let people know you’ve written something.
- Always fill in meta tags (title and description) carefully so that search engines can read the article too.
- Always fill in the alt meta tag for images so that search engines can see them.
- Allow users to comment on and share articles.
- Keep track of your goals and user interest, and constantly update your editorial plan accordingly.
- Don’t be afraid to reach out to influencers and offer them your articles.
- Don’t forget to link your articles – link to your previous content, refer to interesting studies, or even your competitors’ insights. Make sure the links are useful to users.