How to Measure ROI for Your Written Content
Sarah
Starting a business blog can be quite an endeavor — especially if you try to handle the writing on your own — and often, you may not immediately see the increase in traffic you’re hoping for. But instead of giving up because you’re not seeing quick results, it’s important to look at actionable data to determine whether your efforts have had any effect. Here’s how to measure the ROI for your written content so you can tell whether you’re hitting the mark or need to outsource business writing services.
The Importance of Content for Your Business
Articles, blogs, landing pages, and social media are great ways to increase brand awareness, customer loyalty, and sales. After all, the more information you publish about your business, the more likely clients are to find it and come to you when they need your products or services.
But creating content is a long-term marketing strategy. It won’t deliver results overnight. It takes more than one blog to bring in a significant influx of new customers. It takes time for search engines to index and rank your content, and you’ll usually start at the bottom of search results until your site gains more trust.
However, when you regularly create content, you’ll begin to see the results of your effort. The trick is consistency, which can be hard to maintain if you’ve got your hands full running your business operations.
Furthermore, consider your yearly income. Then, do some math and determine how much money you make in an hour. If you spend an hour making that content and it doesn’t bring in more than that amount, you’ve effectively lost out on potential income.
To maximize your ROI and spend more time building your business, the first step is to consider outsourcing the task to a professional business writing company. Business writers can ensure you have regular content for your blog, which builds your search engine rankings over time and leads to more revenue in the future.
Whichever route you decide to go, here are some actionable tips for measuring your ROI.
Tips for Measuring ROI for Your Written Content
So how do you know whether your content strategy is delivering results or you’re simply contributing to the vast sea of online content? Here are a few factors to consider:
1. Track Your Keywords
Every blog, article, and landing page you publish should implement a few strategic keywords. Those keywords should be highly relevant to your organization’s offerings, even if the content you publish isn’t a direct sales pitch.
For instance, if you provide orthodontic services in Tampa, you’ll want your content to discuss topics related to braces, aligners, and correcting common orthodontic problems. Furthermore, you should include location-based keywords in your content, which will help you rank in local search results.
You can track your keywords and how many people visit your website after searching those terms through a dedicated platform like Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a free service that can provide metrics about your website’s performance, including keyword tracking.
2. Monitor Your Ranking in Search Engines
One of the easiest ways to tell whether your content is gaining traction is through search engine rankings. If you’re consistent with your content strategy, your ranking should increase over time.
As your rankings increase, you’ll naturally see more traffic to your website. People are more likely to click on websites that appear on the first page of search results, so you should aim for that position.
To determine where your pages are currently ranking, open a private window in your web browser — this ensures that results will be unbiased. Next, enter your top keywords and look through the results to see where your site appears. You’ll have some work to do if it isn’t on the first page, but this work will be well worth it.
3. Consider Your Domain Authority
Your website’s domain authority is one of the key factors that search engines use when determining how to rank your content. If you have a low domain score, your website will have difficulty ranking for important keywords, no matter how good your content is.
There are a variety of free tools available that can indicate what your current domain ranking is. Use them, and regularly monitor your authority. You should see it improve over time, especially if you publish regularly and use proper SEO best practices.
Metrics for Measuring ROI for Your Written Content
Once you understand the factors contributing to your website’s rankings on search engines, you’ll want to set up a few key metrics to monitor your content’s ROI. After all, creating content isn’t worth the effort if it’s not increasing brand awareness or bringing customers to your business.
To calculate your ROI, subtract the amount you spent to create your content from the sales generated to get your profit. Then, divide that number by your costs for content development, and multiply that number by 100.
For instance, let’s say you spent $1,500 on content creation. That content resulted in $4,000 in sales over the past year. According to the calculation, your ROI is 167%.
Aside from measuring actual sales, you can use other KPIs to track your content’s performance. A few to incorporate into your analysis include the following:
- Page views
- Length of time spent on your pages
- Engagement with your website
- Bounce rate
- Leads generated from content
In most cases, you can determine and track KPIs with Google Analytics. You can also create customized KPIs tailored to your business.
Collaborate with Small Business Writing Services to See Better Results from Your Content Strategy
While taking the reins of content creation may work in the early days of your organization, it’s a fast way to burn out and spread yourself too thin as you take on more customers. On the other hand, a professional business writer can ensure you have a stream of high-quality, publish-ready content that continually brings in more business.At Write Collective, we offer content marketing packages purpose-built for small business owners. Our business writing services will improve the ROI of your content strategy, ensuring you continue to attract fresh leads and generate sales. Choose a package today to get started!