What are the best practices for measuring content performance on news websites?

1 Content goals

Before you start measuring anything, you need to define your content goals. What are you trying to achieve with your content? How does it align with your overall business objectives and audience needs? Your content goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, your content goal could be to increase organic traffic by 20% in six months, or to generate 100 leads per month from your newsletter.

2 Content metrics

Once you have your content goals, you need to choose the appropriate metrics to track them. Content metrics are the quantitative indicators that show how your content is performing in relation to your goals. There are many types of content metrics, but they can be grouped into four categories: consumption, engagement, retention, and conversion. Consumption metrics measure how many people view, read, or listen to your content, such as page views, sessions, or downloads. Engagement metrics measure how people interact with your content, such as likes, comments, shares, or time on page. Retention metrics measure how loyal your audience is to your content, such as return visitors, bounce rate, or churn rate. Conversion metrics measure how your content leads to desired actions, such as subscriptions, sign-ups, or sales.

3 Content tools

To collect and analyze your content metrics, you need to use the right tools. There are many tools available for measuring content performance, but some of the most popular and useful ones are Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google Data Studio. Google Analytics is a web analytics tool that tracks and reports on various aspects of your website traffic, such as sources, behavior, and outcomes. Google Search Console is a webmaster tool that monitors and optimizes your website's presence on Google search results, such as keywords, rankings, and issues. Google Data Studio is a data visualization tool that allows you to create and share custom dashboards and reports based on data from various sources, such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and other third-party tools.

4 Content benchmarks

To evaluate your content performance, you need to compare it with some benchmarks. Benchmarks are the standards or references that help you assess how well your content is doing in relation to your goals, your competitors, or your industry. There are three types of benchmarks you can use: internal, external, and historical. Internal benchmarks are based on your own data and performance over time, such as your average page views, engagement rate, or conversion rate. External benchmarks are based on the data and performance of your competitors or peers in your industry, such as their traffic, audience size, or content quality. Historical benchmarks are based on the data and performance of your content in the past, such as your previous month, quarter, or year.

5 Content insights

To improve your content performance, you need to derive some insights from your data. Insights are the actionable and meaningful conclusions that you can draw from your data analysis, such as what works, what doesn't, and what you can do better. To generate insights, you need to ask yourself some questions, such as: What are the trends and patterns in your data? What are the causes and effects of your data? What are the gaps and opportunities in your data? What are the best practices and recommendations based on your data?

6 Content reports

To communicate your content performance, you need to create some reports. Reports are the documents or presentations that summarize and showcase your data, metrics, benchmarks, and insights, such as charts, tables, graphs, or narratives. To create effective reports, you need to follow some principles, such as: Know your audience and purpose. Who are you reporting to and why? What do they need to know and what do you want them to do? Choose the right format and style. How will you deliver and display your report? What tone and language will you use? Highlight the key findings and takeaways. What are the most important and relevant points in your report? What are the main conclusions and implications? Provide clear and concise explanations. How will you interpret and justify your data? What are the supporting evidence and arguments?

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?