http://www.searchenginejournal.com/8-content-marketing-kpis-cant-afford-neglect/66845/

“Gone are the days when the Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) were limited to  just measuring the number of “hits” on a website. Web analytics and the Key  Performance Indicators have evolved over the years, and digital marketing has  become more accessible with tools like the Google Analytics, Omniture, and other  CMS systems.  The very general Key Performance Indicators for content  marketing include visitors’ engagement and the conversion rates, which form the  foundation of the KPI monitoring.

However, as content marketing is gradually emerging as the leader in digital  marketing, primarily in SEO and B2B marketing, the way many marketers measure  efficiency and the impact of the content seems to be ancient. For instance,  consider e-books which are a prevalent  lead generation strategy. Many marketers make the mistake of failing to  measure anything more than the number of downloads. Is there another way to  measure how effective this content has been? Here is a comprehensive guide to  those unavoidable Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) that should be measured for  any content marketing initiatives.

KPI’s To Measure Your Reach

1. Unique visitors: These are the standard measurements of how  many visitors have viewed your content within a defined time frame – typically  30 days. This KPI is a good platform to compare the different forms of your  content and their trends over the time. Keep in mind that all unique visits are  not the same. For instance, a unique visit to an e-book could be more valuable  for lead generation compared to a unique visit to a blog — especially if more  time spent was recorded with the content for that particular visit.

2.  Geo-targets: Where your content is being  read is also an important KPI to understand where to allocate more resources and  budget, based on where your audience is consuming the content. Page-level  details of geographic information of this type is provided by Google Analytics,  which in turn gives the content marketers an idea to optimize the  content for the particular geographical location.

3. Mobile readership: In addition to knowing how many unique  visits your content is getting, it is also important to know how the content is  being read. As more people are using mobile devices, is your content being  consumed more on mobile devices or desktops? As you develop new content, make  sure you optimize it for all devices.

4. Bounce rate/time spent: One of the most critical KPI’s to  determine the engagement of the content, is checking  out the bounce rate. Delivering what the visitor wants will build your  conversion rates. A high bounce rate means that the user was not satisfied with  what you have to offer.  Also look at how much time the viewer stayed on  your site. 20,000 unique views does you no good if the average time spent is  just 15 seconds for a 50 page e-book. A low bounce rate and high spent time are  good indicators of high quality content.

5. Click patterns & Heat Maps: Want to know which part of  your content is being read the most? You can create heat maps to see which  section is getting the most views. There are some great tools out there to help  you measure click patterns and heat maps including Crazy  Egg and Lucky Orange. In addition,  Google Analytics can help you track the click patterns on the content with its  in-page analytics. This information helps you know what your audience finds  relevant, which will help you optimize the content and design of your  website.

6. Page views: Another basic KPI that is mostly overlooked. This gives  us the correlation between the Unique Visitor and the Page Views KPI’s. A high  page views/multiple UV’s shows visitors are engaged and often it means that they  are coming back to your content on a regular basis. It also gives us a count of  how many pages were read before the visitors dropped off.

7. Comments: A two way conversation is inevitable in today’s  age of social media. Never block or restrict comments. Users are the best judges  of your product or service, so if they engage with you and give you their  suggestions, you should consider it a success. But, be ready for some negative  discussions as well. Negative comments can prove to be a great feedback as they  give better insight into the behavior of your prospects.

8. Social sharing: Making your content easily shareable is a very  important metric for content marketing initiatives. Sharing helps gain a bigger  audience for your digital content .The reach of your content could expand at a  fantastic rate! Adopt this trend by putting in widgets for sharing throughout  your content.

Measuring KPIs is the start, middle, and end of every content marketing  process. The sooner you start looking at them, the quicker you will reach your  goals. A marketer’s job is not just limited to lead generation, it is up to you  to check the performance of content assets to maximize the bottom line of any  business: clients and revenue.

Read more at http://www.searchenginejournal.com/8-content-marketing-kpis-cant-afford-neglect/66845/#CDMudhm5ah8bDOCf.99”

Stephen