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For many brands creating blog content for prospects and customers can be a huge task, sometimes it can be hard to understand how all of that content is performing over time. Which blog posts are doing especially well in terms of engagement and conversions? What blog posts have seen a recent spike in traffic?
One way to answer those types of questions is by using Content Performance, a new WP Engine plugin. In a nutshell, what Content Performance does is take all the raw data from Google Analytics and repurpose it all in a way that’s optimized for understanding the performance of your WordPress blog. There are three important ways that Content Performance can boost your blog content:
#1: Understand where your traffic is coming from
With Content Performance, you can select the “Traffic Sources” checkbox to view the origin of the traffic to each post on your site. This feature sorts traffic into four categories: Organic, Referral, Direct, and Other. At a glance, then, you can see the split between organic and paid traffic, as well as which websites are linking to your blog content and sending visitors your way. This type of granular knowledge can help you plan upcoming partnerships, recruit new media partners for upcoming events or fine-tune any advertising campaigns.
#2: Optimize your content metrics
The name of the game today is optimization, and that’s one important way that Content Performance can help. It helps to turn raw data into data that makes sense for your business.
Your content marketing team probably has a set of KPI’s (key performance indicators), and Content Performance is one great way to improve each and every KPI. For example, you can see at a glance which blog posts have the lowest bounce rates, or which authors have had the highest-performing content over a specific time period. You could also see which tags are performing well.
#3: Adjust your content calendar on a periodic basis
Finally, you can use Content Performance to see what type of content is trending over time, and use that to adjust your content calendar or editorial focus. For example, if certain types of content simply aren’t gaining the type of traction needed, it might be time to adjust the content calendar to reflect what readers really want. Periodically, it may be necessary to do a content re-fresh.
To see which content is most popular at any time, all you have to do is select “Posts” or “Pages” in the top navigation, then “Unique Page Views” from the dropdown menu. This is a good way to see which content is receiving the most traffic from unique visitors to your site. Let’s face it – in today’s social media-dominated world, popularity matters and the best way to measure this popularity is with “unique page views.”
The best part about this data is that it’s presented in a form that should be instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever scrolled through pages and pages of Google Analytics data. With Content Performance, it’s now possible to better promote and create WordPress content in a more intuitive way. That’s an important next step in creating a popular, successful blog.
