Are your blogging efforts resulting in many words or in many business leads?
You have a beautiful blog. It's full of content that gives you a thrill, and you're sure that your readers are enjoying it as well. Is all of that content sending customers your way? If you're struggling to justify the time you put into your blog, these tools will help you see if your current posts are bringing in business leads and may help you refine your approach in the future.
Looking for the Pull
A good blog is like gravity. Most of the time, your readers don't think about the way it works. This can be an excellent inbound marketing tool. Instead of pushing out advertising that asks your customers to buy, you're drawing them in. Your blog posts help your readers stick around your web site, because you've become a wise authority.
How can you tell if this inbound marketing approach is working? Simple: if you're getting new leads from your blog posts, you have the ability to turn those leads into customers.
What is a business lead? In the world of the web, a lead is someone who's expressed interest in your business. They have enough interest to place themselves on your email list or get your free eBook. You and this person are connected, and it's your job to nudge them further through the marketing funnel, turning leads into customers.
Tools like HubSpot help your analyze your blog's ability to convert readers into leads.
Tools to Analyze Your Blog Posts
To analyze your blog posts, you need tools that will tell you who clicked where in your post. Who signed up as a result of the post?
To create this analysis, you need marketing software. You'll need to create an attribution report. Depending on the software or online tool you use, this report can tell you where your leads came from, what they looked at on your site, and what they have searched for on your site. It may also give you demographic data on your business leads, such as the topics that interest them and their social media interests.
If you use WordPress, you can see your post views by country, your top posts and pages, and your most popular topics. You can also see what posts give you the most clicks. If you're like to learn more about your leads, you can upgrade to a paid version of WordPress Leads.
HubSpot is also another excellent tool for analyzing your business leads. It provides context so that you understand where your leads are coming from and what they're interested in when they're on your site. HubSpot tracks your leads from their initial contact with your site to their latest transaction, creating individual profiles on your leads. You can also run reports on all of your articles or on specific articles, so that you can highlight the articles that yield the most leads and the articles that do not yield a lot of leads. These analytics can help you target future blog posts.
What Happens After the Analysis?
While it's important to have data, it's even more important to use that data to improve your site's performance. Once you have information about where your leads are coming from, where do you go from there? Look at the top and bottom blog post performers. Determine whether there are any trends.
What format or length works well for your readers? If all of your popular blog posts are short or list-based, you know that your readers prefer that sort of post. The media that you use may also be what speaks to your readers. Are the most successful posts using video or strong graphics?
How have you phrased your call to action, and where have you placed it? If your posts convert readers into leads when the call to action is in the middle of the post, you know that's what works for your readers.
Do the top performing blog posts address a specific topic? If the content is similar, you know that content really speaks to your readers and converts them into leads. Alternatively, you may find that it's not the specific content that converts the most readers, but it's your approach to the blog. If you see that all of your blog posts for beginners in your field are doing well, you know that is a target market for future posts.
If you're trying to get a deeper understanding of how your posts are working for your business, connect with Digital Inbound today. Our web analysis tools will help you build a blog that not only features outstanding content but draws in leads to your business.