The Top 4 Content Marketing Metrics You Need to Know

How in tune are you with Google Analytics? If you aren’t using the super tool for your marketing strategies, you’re making a grave mistake. Google Analytics is perfect for content marketers to gain a lot of valuable insight about their customers and how they interact with their business’s site. And to maximize its benefits, you want to be sure you're tracking the proper content marketing metrics.

One thing you might notice after spending even just a few minutes in GA is that it sure is a wealth of information – and that can be a bit overwhelming at times. Some of the data might be obvious to you, but other metrics might go in one ear and out the other. To be clear, you probably won't need to monitorall of the content marketing metrics in Analytics. Some will be more important than others.You don’t have to keep track of every piece of data you find on Google Analytics, but there’s a science to picking out which metrics are actually useful. This can be a pain when you’re trying out a content marketing strategy – what metric data will actually show you how successful your strategies are? Let's discuss.

The 4 Content Marketing Metrics You Need to Be Tracking

The Average Session Duration Time

To find this metric in Google Analytics, go to the “All Website Data” on your main dashboard .This information is truly basic if you want to test the success of almost any content marketing strategy. When you know how long users are staying on your site, you can start to understand if your strategy is successful. This metric data tells you, on average, how long a site viewer is spending on your webpage.When you have subpar content, users don’t stay on your website for very long. They’ll thumb through what you have to offer and leave quickly if they don’t like what there is to see. When you offer quality content, they’ll stay longer because they’re drawn in. Quality content also means they’re likely to come back regularly and spend the same time each time they visit your site.If you find that this number is low, there’s not a really easy or immediate fix for this problem. Just remember that the more compelling and relevant your content is, the more likely this number is to go up.

Bounce Rate Statistics

To find this metric in Google Analytics, go to the “All Website Data” on your main dashboard .Your website’s “bounce rate” refers to the percentage of viewers that enter your website and leave after just one page view. If you’re having trouble remembering the terminology, think back to that now out-of-date turn of phrase you used when you wanted to leave a place with your friends. “Come on, guys, let’s bounce.” This is exactly what your viewers are saying to themselves for whatever reason when they’re visiting your website. A high website bounce rate means that many people are using your website like a revolving door – coming in and going right back out again. This is another aspect of your metrics data that is highly effected by site quality – and this can mean the quality of your content or your site overall. Likely causes for a high bounce rate are low-quality content and a website design that isn't intuitive or user-friendly.

New and Returning Users

To find this metric in Google Analytics, go to your “All Website Data” dashboard, click Audience, and click Overview. Look for the pie chart to the right.If you’re going to try out a content marketing strategy, you’re going to have to know how many people are actually paying attention to it in order to measure success. This is why this is one of the most important content marketing metrics to track in Google Analytics.You do this by seeing your traffic – not just in plain statistics, but by finding out how many new and returning users are actually accessing your page. New users are people who are visiting you for the first time, and returning users are repeat customers, coming back for more.Your goal is to make all viewers eventually become repeat viewers via quality content, but you also want to steadily bring in new views to your site. Try to get an even 50/50 split between new and returning users. You can grow both numbers by promoting and consistent content posting. 

Organic Search Sessions

To find this metric in Google Analytics, go to your dashboard and look for the “Acquisition” tab.Organic Search Sessions is just a fancy way of saying “people finding you through a search engine without advertising.” Your Google Analytics can tell you how people are finding you, whether it’s through a promoted link, a PPC method, or they just happened upon you via Google.It’s good to have a lot of organic search session results. This means you’re ranking well in Google's search algorithm system. In order to successfully increase this number, you’ll have to have your website optimized and produce quality content that people can find and be drawn in by. Remember that they may have happened upon your site via a search result, but something you did compelled them enough to click on that link. You can't know if what you're doing is working unless you track and monitor your results. That's what these content marketing metrics are for. Measure the results of the actions you're taking, and you'll know if you're on the right track.