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Most business owners would agree: they don’t maintain a blog just for the heck of it.

While it’s true that keeping a blog can be a fun, easy, and frequently free way to interact with clients or customers, blog writing and posting is yet another task on an ever-growing to-do list. If it isn’t worthwhile compared with other essential duties, why keep up with it? 

This is why it is so beneficial for businesses to be able to measure the success of their blog. If it’s not performing to the extent that it should—working to improve a company’s bottom line and draw in new customers—it’s time to look at your overall strategy. 

So how can business owners know that their blog content is working to promote their brand? It’s an important question and one that is worth addressing.

What is Proof of Performance, and How Is It Measured?

A study conducted by HubSpot Marketing shows that businesses with blogs have markedly better marketing results than those without one. On average, they get 55% more website visitors, 97% more inbound links, and 434% more indexed pages. 

Of course, these encouraging statistics demonstrate strong proof of performance for the blogs that were analyzed. Proof of performance comes from evidence that a business’s content is attracting interest, clicks, and—subsequently—purchases. In short: it’s working as intended.

Proof of performance is most commonly measured through software, websites that track metrics, or disparate markers that can be tracked manually. A few of these include:

  • Google Analytics (free, insightful, and easy to use);
  • HubSpot (via closed-loop marketing);
  • Total number of visits;
  • Page views per visit (customers navigating to products, services, etc. from blogs);
  • New subscribers or email sign-ups;
  • Social media sharing.

Why Blog Performance Matters Beyond Money

Another reason why a business’s blog performance matters? Popular blogs point to the business’s ability to reach people on a personal level.

At its core, successful marketing—whether blogs, ads, or other mediums—targets a customer’s pain points, and gets to the heart of what they need by way of a clever solution (enter the product or service). If a company’s blogs consistently address customer needs, then customers feel understood and trust more readily in the business’s authority and ability to solve their problems.

Strategic blogs focus not only on promotion, publicity, and sales but prioritize the business’s target customer—the customer most likely to purchase products or services. A customer who makes those purchases sends a message that they believe the company can make their life a bit easier in some way, proving the company’s value.

Ultimately, while blogs are an easy way to connect with consumers and drive sales, they are also time-consuming. If your blog content is not driving traffic, generating leads, or improving brand awareness, then it’s probably time to look at your overall content strategy. 

Businesses that track their blog’s success are in a better position to either continue creating great content or make adjustments that align with overall content goals.

To learn more about tracking blog analytics, feel free to reach out. This is what we do.