All Entries Tagged With: "Blog Marketing"

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How You Measure Blog ROI?

Is it possible to measure your blog’s ROI? Can you tell with specificity just how much money your blog is making you? Let’s examine.

If you include tracking codes in every link on your blog and you can track the movement of everyone who visits your website from your blog – where they go, which links they click, what images and graphics they view, which calls to action they respond to – then you might be able to accurately measure the ROI of your company blog. But a lot of that isn’t possible, is it?

I know of no analytics package that can track a single visitor from your blog to your website and every move that he or she makes all the way down to the sale. That would be the perfect way to measure ROI, wouldn’t it?

But since we can’t do that, can we get a realistic picture of the ROI of your blog marketing efforts? I think we can ballpark it, but it requires a little mental gymnastics.

First, you have to see how much traffic your blog is actually getting. That’s easy. Any analytics tool will tell you that. But the sources of your traffic is just as important. Are you getting visitors from PPC ads, search engines, social media sources, etc.? All of that matters.

Next, how many conversions does your blog actually have? If your blog isn’t set up for conversions, that’s OK. Not all blogs are set up to convert. Many blogs are lead generators and are meant to drive traffic to other landing pages. That’s OK. But if that is the case then you need to measure how much of your traffic from the blog is being sent to those landing pages. If you are driving traffic to several landing pages then you should segment your traffic analytics so that you know how much traffic is going to each landing page.

From there, you can measure how many conversions each landing page is getting. But you also need to factor in traffic from other sources. If the blog is the only driver of traffic to your landing pages then it’s easy. But if you have traffic coming from other sources then you need to know how much. Look at your conversion numbers and break them down into a percentage of your traffic stats by source. Example:

Landing Page A
       SE1        SE2       Social Media Site       Blog
       1,000     1,000         1,000               1,000

If these represent one month’s worth of traffic numbers from each source and you’ve seen 400 conversions for that month it equates to 10% traffic to conversion ratio. Divide this by the number of sources (4) and you’ve got 100 conversions per source, or 10%. But what if the numbers are uneven, like this:

Landing Page A
       SE1       SE2     Social Media Site         Blog
       1,500     500           750                 1,250

There are still 4,000 visitors to your landing page, but it’s not an even breakdown of 25% per traffic source. You need to figure the percentage of each conversion source. SE1 = 37.5%, SE2 = 12.5%, SMS = 6.25%, and blog = 31.25%. So you just figure out what your conversions are and plug in the percentage of your traffic figures to get the corresponding percentage of conversions.

There are problems with this approach, however. It doesn’t take into consideration the number of people who read your blog, go away and come back a month later, read it again then visit your website, go away, revisit the website and convert after that. In other words, there is no perfect way to track the user behavior of every visitor. And realistically, very few of your conversions will be from visitors on their first visit to your website or blog. In fact, most of your conversions will be on subsequent visits to either your website or blog or both. That makes the challenge of measuring ROI a whole lot more complicated.

In short, there’s no perfect way to measure the ROI of your blog. The benefits are more intangible than tangible. If a blog increasing your presence within your niche, both search engine presence and social proof, then it is doing what it is supposed to be doing. Would you rather have a visitor to your website who made a purchase based on top-of-mind awareness a year after discovering your blog or would you rather have a first-time visitor who makes an impulsive decision to buy then never returns? If you answered the former then that would be a wise choice since that visitor is likely to return and buy something else if satisfied.

So, to answer the question, you can measure the ROI of your blog but you can’t measure it perfectly. It is best to realize the intangible benefits and play them for all they are worth.

Does Having More Than One Blog Water Down Your Branding Efforts?

Should you have more than one blog? Would that water down your branding?

That’s an important and a worthy question. One asked by a commenter at Search Engine Optimization Journal.

In my view, it depends. Having more than one website could dilute your brand if you do it the wrong way. On the other hand, it could strengthen your brand if done the right way. And a third view is to use the additional websites in a multiple branding effort. Let’s discuss each of those options briefly:

Brand Dilution With Multiple Blog Sites

If you have a relatively small brand or serve a small niche then multiple blogs could serve to dilute your brand. You want to speak to your market with one voice. Having two or more blog sites that compete against each other could pose a certain public relations problem for you if your customers and potential customers discover this, which they will surely do if you keep it up for two long.

But what if you are a bigger company and serving a large niche with a lot of competitors? In that case, multiple blog sites could actually be a benefit. We’ll discuss that more in a minute.

Brand Strength With Multiple Blog Sites

Branding doesn’t have to take place only at the company level. It can also take place at the product level. If you have more than one product line, each with its own branding personality, then multiple blogs could be to your benefit. You’d want a separate blog for each brand in addition to a blog for the parent brand. Why would you want to do this?

Suppose your brands serve different segments of your market. A fashion merchandiser may have a clothing line for teen girls, a separate line for middle-aged women, and then a totally different line for men ages 18-40. Those are three drastically different markets with completely different needs. One blog to serve them all might actually be more diluting than multiple blogs for a small company in a small niche. It could be more effective to split up your marketing efforts to address the needs of each of your market segments.

Multiple Branding With Multiple Blog Sites

This is really kind of related to the above section for multiple brands under the same parent brand. I want to discuss it as a separate issue, however, because your company may actually be a little more diverse than the fashion company mentioned above. What if you are a holding company with interests in fashion, restaurant management, and sports? Obviously, those are completely different markets. Each company within those areas of interest would be best served with their own blog sites. Your holding company may have a blog of its own, but you most definitely want a separate blog for each of your companies within different industries. After all, each company deserves its own brand marketing.

Blogging As Brand Management

Whether you are a small company with a single brand, a mid-sized company with different market segments under the same brand, or a large company with multiple brand identities, a blog can be an excellent way to communicate your brands’ messages to the market place. You want your blog to serve as a marketing vehicle for each brand and for your company. You’ve got to figure out the best way to make that happen. Sometimes, one blog is not enough.

Do You Keyword Target Your Blog THIS WAY?

Keyword targeting is one of the best ways to market through a blog, but most companies aren’t using every available asset to their advantage. The best way to drive targeted traffic to the most important pages on your website is to write well-optimized on-page content with one single keyword in mind for every page on your website then write optimized blog posts around the same keyword and use that keyword as anchor text for links from your blog to your website. Simple, but so few business bloggers are doing it.

Whether your blog is an onsite blog or an offsite blog, this is the best way to target traffic to your pages. Look at it this way:

• A searcher types in a search phrase (will they find you?)
• That search phrase brings up your blog post about that topic
• In your blog post you use the same search phrase as a link, which points to a specific page on your website that is optimized for the same phrase
• The searcher reads your blog post, likes what you have to say, and decides to visit your website to get more information; so she clicks the link
• Your well-optimized web page fills the searcher’s need for information so she signs up for your newsletter; now you have her in your sales funnel. Don’t lose her!

You have to understand the natural link following patterns of your users. If you understand online human behavior then you can write your content to get the response you desire, but it starts with keyword targeting.