This is the sixth and final blog post in our series on “How To Measure Blog Success.”
Do you have a question about blogging that we should answer? Send us a Tweet or shoot us a note and we’ll answer it as best we can.
When customers sign up with Verblio (formerly BlogMutt), they want content, sure. But what they really want is value. Content marketing still has the word “marketing” in it. And all marketing should have a discernible ROI to determine whether it’s a worthwhile investment. Here’s how to measure your blog’s ROI.
How to Measure Blog ROI
Start by answering this question: “Why are you blogging?”
This should be the first question to ask yourself when you start thinking about your blog’s ROI. What was it that initially made you want to get into blogging in the first place? Was it simply for the love of the game? Or was it to generate greater awareness through organic search?
But all the organic search traffic in the world isn’t worth anything if no one’s buying. Which makes the ROI metric a nuanced one.
We’re going to assume that you want your blog to do two things. Increase your organic rank and create sales opportunities.
Start with a baseline of current organic traffic to your site (before blogging)
Use Google Analytics to get a baseline of your organic traffic.
- Click “Acquisition”
- Click “All Traffic”
- Click “Channels”
- Select the hyperlink for “Organic search”
Calculate your conversion %
We wrote a blog post about tracking conversions earlier in this series.
Based on your current organic site traffic, what percentage of visitors actually convert?
If you have conversion tracking in Google Analytics, you can measure the conversion percentage of each channel: social, referral, organic, etc.
If you do not have conversion tracking in place, you can take a larger aggregate number of site traffic (although the math won’t be as precise).
For example, if your site traffic for a month breaks out as:
Referral – 500 sessions
Direct – 1,000 sessions
Organic – 750 sessions
Social – 250 sessions
2,500 total sessions.
100 sales.
Now, if you don’t have conversion tracking in place, you won’t be able to determine what percentage of each channel converted. But, you can make some general assumptions:
If you have 2,500 site sessions a month and 100 sales you have a conversion percentage of 4%. Or a conversion ratio of 25:1 (for every 25 visitors, you get one sale).
Once you start blogging, measure the difference in site traffic
Based on a 4% conversion percentage, any increase in traffic through blogging should have a complementary impact on sales (assuming the conversion % holds).
If you start blogging and can track the increase in your organic site visitors, you should be able to determine a rough estimation of blogging’s ROI.
Before blogging:
Referral – 500 sessions
Direct – 1,000 sessions
Organic – 750 sessions
Social – 250 sessions
2,500 total sessions.
100 sales.
After blogging (assuming a conservative increase of 5% in overall site traffic as blogging can contribute to increases in referral, direct, and social and a 4% conversion percentage based on historical data):
Referral – 525 sessions
Direct – 1,050 sessions
Organic – 788 sessions
Social – 263 sessions
2,626 total sessions.
105 sales.
Determining ROI
Depending on the revenue of each sale, you can determine the ROI of your blogging investment (assuming all things being equal).
Let’s assume your product sells for $25. And after you start blogging, you see an additional five sales a month, you can determine your blogging’s ROI.
If you’re using Verrblio for $89/month, you’ve seen an additional five sales with blogging (again, all things being equal), and can determine a positive ROI of 140% ($125/$89 = 140%)
This is a very basic calculation of blogging ROI, but an important step in seeing your blog’s value.
If you’re not measuring any of this, it’s very difficult to ascertain your blog’s value. This is a good place to start.
Caveats to Note
Blogging cannot solve a poor conversion funnel. If you start blogging but your site does a poor job of converting, that’s not the blog’s fault. There’s something wrong with the conversion of your site.
Blogging in and of itself cannot create a spike in traffic without ample promotion and SEO. We recommend adhering to basic blogging SEO techniques when publishing your posts. We also recommend sharing your posts across social channels and finding link-building opportunities with strategic partners, publishers or customers.
Be patient. Traffic doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a concerted effort to see an increase in your traffic. We recommend at least 3-6 months before determining whether blogging is a sound investment for your business.
Want advice on ways to improve your blog’s ROI?
