7 content marketing KPIs small businesses should keep an eye on
A quick Google search for content marketing KPIs brings up a ton of advice about the metrics you should track, ranging from website conversion to PR and brand awareness. The one thing that all of this advice has in common: it’s not for small business owners.
When you’re just trying to get a grasp on your content marketing KPIs and decide what to focus on, it’s important to get a little more focused. Otherwise, paying so much attention to the metrics that don’t matter to you can become a huge time suck (and an overwhelming one).
As a small business owner myself, these are seven content marketing KPIs that I pay the most attention to and advise my clients to.
Organic traffic
A lot of people like to call website traffic a vanity metric, but it’s important to figure out if your website is working for you, and ultimately, the best place to start is with your traffic. Specifically, looking at your organic traffic can tell you if you’re getting website visitors through SEO or your other organic channels.
To look at your organic traffic, the easiest way is through your Google Analytics account (if you don’t have one, it’s free!).
There’s a ton you can do with Google Analytics, and it can get complicated quickly, but looking at your basic traffic metrics is super easy to do. Inside your account, navigate to Reports > Traffic acquisition.
From there, you’ll see the breakdown of your traffic by channel, including Organic Social and Organic Search.
At a baseline, your traffic KPIs can show you how your website and social content are working for you. If you’re not seeing the traffic you want, it’s time to set some goals. Consider establishing a new KPI goal that’s 10-15% higher than the traffic you’re currently seeing, and brainstorm the changes you’ll need to make to get there.
By looking at your organic traffic, you can also see if your content on a specific channel is moving more people to your website. If so, lean in! If your blog content is generating more organic traffic than your social channel, it’s a good sign to focus more on your SEO content and continue leveraging that traffic.
2. New leads
Traffic without action means a lot of lost opportunities. Sure, it’s good for brand awareness, but if you’re not converting at all then something’s up. A great content strategy includes lead generation, so you can capture the people on your website if they aren’t ready to convert immediately.
“There are a ton of different lead generation strategies that you might be using, such as free opt-ins, a newsletter, online courses, and more.
The best way to easily track your new leads is through the form builder or email system that you use to allow people to sign up for these resources. ”
As you’re looking at your lead generation numbers, keep these tips in mind:
Pay attention to growth over time
Keep an eye on new leads, not total subscribers
Filter out spam to keep your numbers clean (it happens too often, unfortunately)
3. Top keywords by traffic
In general, the SEO advice you see out there tells you to track your keyword rankings. While those are still beneficial KPIs, I recommend that small business owners look more closely at their top keywords by traffic.
There are so many variables that go into ranking for a keyword, and a lot of time you can be ranking #1 for a keyword that’s bringing you zero traffic–because no one searches for it!
The KPI I actually like to look at is the number of keywords bringing in your website traffic. That’s because a variety of keywords means that you’re reaching your audience in different ways, and you have a more healthy SEO strategy. If you’re only pulling in traffic from a few keywords, it could put you at a higher risk of losing that traffic if someone else comes along and begins to outrank you.
To look at your number of top keywords, head to your Google Search Console account (also free!), and navigate to Performance.
On that first page, you can sort by clicks and see which keywords are bringing traffic to your website.
4. Share of branded vs. informational traffic
One great KPI that I don’t see a lot of businesses focus on is your share of branded vs. informational traffic. This KPI tells you how your clients are finding your website–either through word of mouth, your brand awareness activities, or SEO.
To evaluate your share of branded vs. informational traffic, you’ll need SEO software like ahrefs. Though these software can be costly, they sometimes have starter plans for small business owners. On ahrefs in particular, you can plug in your website, view the Organic Keywords report, and evaluate the keywords that are marked Branded or Informational.
A high amount of branded keywords generating your traffic means that most people are hearing about your business first before searching for you online, while more informational keywords might mean they’re landing on your blog posts or landing pages.
In general, it’s best to have a healthy mix of both, so aiming for a 50/50 KPI goal is a good place to start.
5. Email open and click-through rates
Your email marketing is a big part of content marketing–it’s how you can turn leads into clients, maintain long-term clients, and build your brand. Your emails also give you a direct view of what types of content your audience wants to read.
To keep an eye on your email engagement, track your email open rates and your click-through rates. Your email open rates help you understand if people find your email content valuable in the first place, while your CTR points you to the types of content people are engaging with.
6. Conversion rates
As I mentioned before, you want your audience to take action from your content marketing efforts, and the ultimate action is conversion.
The two KPIs I recommend tracking are your booking or purchase conversion from your website, as well as your conversion rate from email marketing.
On your website, your landing pages will likely be generating higher conversion rates. By identifying these pages, you can potentially market them further through your social channels, or even leverage paid ads to make your content marketing go further.
Your email marketing conversion can tell you if your leads are successfully making the journey from potential client to customer. If you’re seeing low conversion rates, it might mean you need to expand your email nurture, improve your CTAs, or re-think how you’re offering value.
7. Content output
I focus a lot on quality content over quantity, so paying attention to content output might seem counterintuitive. But, tracking how much content you’re creating and the types of content is key to understanding how your work matches up to other KPIs.
To set KPIs for your content output, you can track the number of content pieces you’re creating each month. I also recommend tracking the types of content more specifically, so the number of blog posts, case studies, or opt-ins, for example.
“To set KPIs for your content output, you can track the number of content pieces you’re creating each month.
I also recommend tracking the types of content more specifically, so the number of blog posts, case studies, or opt-ins, for example. ”
With this information, you can hold yourself accountable. Especially as a small business owner, it’s so easy to keep pushing things off. You might notice you aren’t hitting your output goal month over month, which is a sign you need to reprioritize or delegate your content creation.
Tracking content output can also make it easier to understand what efforts make the biggest impact on your business. For example, perhaps improving your number of free resources in one month leads to an increase in new leads.
How to measure your content marketing KPIs
Though I hope this post gives you everything you need to find and track your KPIs, I also know the number one metric that businesses never have enough of: time!
The best low-cost method of tracking your content marketing KPIs is to set up a spreadsheet that you can use consistently to drop in your numbers and watch their changes over time. However, the manual work makes this so easy to forget about.
Instead, consider investing in my content marketing solutions for small business owners. I can audit your website content and set up a content marketing tracker to make it easier for you, or even work with you on a monthly basis to manage and track your content marketing KPIs for you.
I’d love to chat with you!
