I recently completed developing and recording 2 modules for a business blogging program with the DMA. One of the most interesting portions (in my opinion) of the material addressed measuring blog success. There’s no one right answer because the purpose for business blogs can vary from branding to sales.
Since bloggers often read other blogs, I’m counting on Online Marketing Blog readers to take this quick poll to identify what the most common goals for business blogging are. There should be enough options to address whatever purpose you have for your blog. You can pick up to 3 choices.
Pick your top 3 measures of success for business blogging
- Engagement: comments, links (12%, 65 Votes)
- Improved brand recognition (11%, 56 Votes)
- Build thought leadership (11%, 55 Votes)
- Search engine rankings (11%, 55 Votes)
- Better communicate with customers (10%, 53 Votes)
- Traffic to the blog (9%, 49 Votes)
- Coverage by media and other blogs (6%, 32 Votes)
- Sales leads (5%, 28 Votes)
- Traffic to the corporate web site (5%, 28 Votes)
- Industry Recognition (4%, 23 Votes)
- Sell products (4%, 22 Votes)
- Improved customer satisfaction (4%, 20 Votes)
- Page views (3%, 16 Votes)
- Time on Site (2%, 10 Votes)
- Ad revenue on the blog (2%, 9 Votes)
Total Voters: 179
Loading ...A bit of Online Marketing Blog trivia: This is our 51st poll!
According to me the important factors are improved customer satisfaction, coverage by media and other blogs and finally search engine rankings. This might vary for each individual but success is calculated with respect to ROI and higher search engine rankings can get your higher ROI. Build a strong reputation start online marketing using this strategies.
I suppose we could have offered an “all of the above” option, but that makes it hard to come up with an ordered ranking. 🙂
Certainly, biz blog success measurement is unique to the purpose of the blog.
I’m kinda surprised at where ‘Industry Recognition’ landed. While it goes hand in hand with being a thought leader, I assumed it would be much higher in the rankings.
Hey Trontastic, we have a long way to go before knowing what the outcome is with the poll. After we get a few hundred more responses, there will be a better sample and clearer picture.
I, too, will look forward to a a couple hundred results. However, I would expect “Time on Site” to be a more popular metric for engagement and success. But if people are commenting and linking, they are spending time on the site!
Building up your online image and professional standing is becoming an absolute essential for casting your career path.
So, How influential are the people working for your company?
That seems to be a more key indicator of company and strength of brand. Help your people build their reputation and they will in turn build yours (company to employees or professional to professional).
# Engagement: comments, links (41%, 39 Votes)
# Build thought leadership (37%, 35 Votes)
# Better communicate with customers (29%, 27 Votes)
Thanks Matt. Hopefully we get get the total number of votes up and see what the larger consensus is.
Lee, thanks for the poll, I have posted it far and wide, this could really be a useful metric!
Ross
Are the crowd sourcing potentials of social media still limited to only the top bloggers? I think this is a great value….but I think your traffic numbers have to be in the 5k range per month + (maybe more) to achieve a true cross section.
I agree with Matt McGowan above:
# Engagement: comments, links (41%, 39 Votes)
# Build thought leadership (37%, 35 Votes)
# Better communicate with customers (29%, 27 Votes)
According to me the following in order would be the parameters for measuring success of business blogging
Engagement: comments, links
Build thought leadership
Better communicate with customers
Great Poll, my 3 options were in the top 5 results. A blog is agreat multipurpose tool, I used mostly to improve search rankings, improve brand recognition and better communicate with my customers.
Thanks, great article!
Thanks for the great post I retweeted it today. Since my blog is fairly new, I’ve found that the best results so far have been consistent posting of value content, building my page rank and creating a relationship with my customers. It’s an interesting game…..
I am surprised my some of the results from the poll. I would have thought that time on site would be have been a bit nearer the top because if people are spending time on your blog then it shows that there is information on there which they find of interest.