If you’re running a blog, you probably don’t do it for your health. Blogging can be a profitable business model by itself or as a marketing tool for a larger organization. And if you know what kind of effect you’re creating, you’ll be able to refine your content to create more engagement and boost your sales.
But without the right metrics, you’ll have no idea whether you’re hitting your targets – or even what your targets should be. So what metrics do you need to ensure you track? Put these three at the top of your priority list and you’ll easily be able to keep an eye on your blog’s return on investment.
Monthly Cost Of Running Your Blog: How Much Are You Investing?
Before you can calculate returns, you need to calculate your investment. This includes not only the web hosting and design fees you pay for your blog (amortized monthly, of course), but also the associated person-hours of work required to run the blog and the opportunity cost of operating the blog instead of doing something else that could be more profitable. By having a solid understanding of what it really costs to run your blog, you’ll be able to maximize your investment – maybe by outsourcing it out to a contractor if it’s too much of a responsibility, for instance.
Average Monthly Revenue: How Much Money Does Your Blog Make?
When calculating your ROI, you’ll want to factor in all forms of revenue that come from your blog. This includes the average monthly value of client leads that come from your blog, as well as any sponsored posts you’ve sold to other companies, product and service deals that you advertised exclusively on your blog, and any digital products (like e-books and courses) you sell through your blog.
Detailed Bounce Rate: Where Can You Create Better Engagement?
The last metric you’ll need to measure is your bounce rate – and you’ll want to measure it in as much detail as possible. Your bounce rate shows you the pages on your blog where people lose interest and click away. Ideally, you should combine this information with a heat map analysis to help you figure out exactly what your users are doing when they visit your blog.
When you have a solid understanding of what users are doing on your blog and where they click away, you’ll be able to pinpoint the exact areas where people lose interest. And making changes to those spots can help you to improve visitor retention and calculate what your ROI could be with a bit of tweaking.
Finding your blog’s ROI may seem difficult, but it’s very worthwhile. When you understand how your blog makes money, you’ll have an easier time leveraging it to create a profit. And with the right metrics in place, you’ll be able to boost engagement the smart way.