Using the right blog metrics

by Jay Baer on 2010/02/10 · 51 comments 16,641 views

in a analytics smarter & actionable KPIs,c corporate blogging,great guest posts

If you are blogging for business, and not about your cat, baby, fashion addiction, or celebrity-crush, you need to set some success metrics.

Without a statistical measure of your blogging progress, adding content to your blog on a regular basis can be an incredibly lonely proposition. Is anyone out there? Does anyone care?

However, even in the business blogging world, there are a wide variety of potential measures to gauge your momentum. It is imperative that you select the most relevant ones that match with your blog’s purpose and intent.

What’s the point?
The first step in that processis knowing why you are blogging. This sounds simple, but it is shocking how many bloggers are unclear on the core business rationale behind their blog initiative.

There are three options here:

    Blogging for content: This is when you write with considerable emphasis on search optimization, attempting to drive traffic to the blog via strategic content creation and keyword inclusion.
    Blogging for commerce: Related to the first, but commerce-oriented blogs are more interested in conversion events than in traffic generation. Funneling traffic from the blog to some other destination (typically a corporate website or lead form) is the prime objective.
    Blogging for community: These blogs seek to guild a consistent readership that interact with the blogger(s) and advocate on behalf of the content through other social outposts.

Measuring the point
Depending on the rationale for your blog, you need to select the most appropriate success metrics.

    These are your key metrics when blogging for content:
    – Total visits,
    – Percentage of new visits (a recent study to be released soon by Compendium Blogware shows that among 86 percent of corporate blogs, first-time visitors comprise over 60 percent of their total traffic), and
    – Visits from search engines.
    These success measures are best for blogging for commerce:
    – Average length of stay,
    – Number of pages viewed per visit (both of these metrics measure depth of engagement, a key consideration when you’re trying to educate a potential customer and get them to take action), and
    – Referrers from other sites (if other sites are driving significant traffic to your blog, you need to know what they are, to replicate that success with other, similar sites).
    Pay closest attention to these statistics if you are blogging for community:
    – Repeat visits,
    – RSS subscribers (repeat visits and subscribers both measure stickiness and consistency, blog elements that build community over time),
    – Comments, and
    – Referrers from social outposts like Twitter or Digg.

Note that the recommended success metrics are entirely different for each blog type, yet in much of my social media consulting work, corporate blog owners are invariably most interested in total visits and RSS subscribers.

This is especially misplaced with group written blogs, where the broad content focus and inconsistent tone makes RSS subscription less likely. Imagine subscribing to a magazine that was about tennis one month, and about cooking the next month. That is what a lot of multi-author corporate blogs feel like, so is it any wonder that there are few subscribers?

Blogging success is a slow march, not a mad dash. If you create consistently good content, and promote it vigorously, your blog should eventually succeed. But to ensure you are not disheartened in the meantime, select success metrics that are appropriate for your goals.

For more on advanced blogging, please see my post or slide presentation below:



11 Must Dos For The Serious Blogger

View more presentations by Jay Baer.

Bottom line
Just because you have a blog does not mean your blogging objectives are the same as everyone else’s. There are three reasons to blog (other than personal blogging): content, commerce, or community.

Each type of blog has a different set of appropriate success metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), so it makes no sense to measure your success based on blogging for commerce, if you actually blog to build community.

There are three KPIs based on type of blog, to which you should pay the most attention. Do that, and you’ll be a happier and more successful blogger.

P.S. – Visit My.ComMetrics (register yourself – benchmark your blog(s) => improve performance). You can get updates for this blog on Twitter by following @ComMetrics or get a free subscription by RSS, or get new posts via email:

Article source: ComMetrics – Using the right blog metrics

Please register for our Free webinar: Benchmarking with the right metrics

Tagged as: analytics taking action, benchmarking, best metrics, blog metrics, effective metrics, free webinar, jay baer, measurement, social media measurement, why benchmark SM?

  • nilsmontan

    Excellent points Jay that most of us don't understand very well I am afraid. I need a graduate level course in this stuff.

  • Pingback: avenlea

  • http://My.ComMetrics.com Urs E. Gattiker

    Jay

    Thanks for this post, really interesting stuff. Looking at your three categories of blogs listed above I cam up with a fourth, namely the Corporate Blog

    Hence, successful corporate blogs are likely to incorporate all three of the above approaches. In turn, I suggest a forth category besides blogs focusing on content, commerce and community, namely:

    4 Blogging for current customers and targeted client groups: Interact with readers (community – interact, comments), getting new traffic to attract new readers (blogging for content) and getting people into the marketing funnel (commerce).

    In turn, to assess the possible success or failure of the above blog category, it might be necessary to use a mixture of the measures you propose above, such as:

    4 Metrics for corporate blogs focusing on current customers and targeted client groups: Number and quality of reader comments, subscriber rates (using email and RSS feed) reactions about blog posts (e.g., re-tweets, replies to and tweets about blog post on Twitter and other micro-blogging sites such as Identi.ca and Naijapulse) and the usual fare such as: Total visits, % of new visits, visits from search engines and visits from related sites.

    I wonder how you feel about this.

    Thanks for this great guest post.

    Urs

    • http://www.convinceandconvert.com jaybaer

      Sure, your blog can have multiple purposes. But I find consistently that blogs that try to do that fail on all accounts. I believe strongly you need to know precisely why you are blogging, and build a success path (including appropriate metrics) to make that happen. Focus and consistency will beat trying to serve multiple masters 100 times out of 100.

      • http://My.ComMetrics.com Urs E. Gattiker

        Jay

        Thanks for replying to my comment. Let me expand a bit on my thoughts. In my experience, things maybe not as cut and dried as you seem to emphasize. For starters, I think we need to clarify context, such as: Fortune 500 versus small company, consumer goods versus durables or a law office.

        I believe a Fortune 500 firm such as Dell does definitely what you suggest. It has different blogs that can be assigned relatively easy to one of your categories. At least 70% of the blog content belongs to that one category but the rest of its content may belong to another. So is this blog focused or does it fail on all accounts?

        But for a small company resources are such that it can have one blog only. As well, a small engineering firm may not use its blog content to generate direct sales (i.e. getting people through the marketing funnel). Instead, building trust with clients and potential ones may be the focus, which in turn can support sales efforts indirectly.

        So for us, for instance, conversion events do happen (e.g., people signing up for our software tools) but unless we have content that attracts the people to visit our blog… we have missed another opportunity for getting new clients.

        As well , current customers need to find our content valuable, why would they otherwise come back?

        To conclude, I find your assumption that blogs not narrow in focus (i.e. content delivers content in one of your 3-groups above) is maybe a bit idealistic. Yes I agree that probably 50-70% of the content needs to be reflective of one of your three groups. But for the rest … see above explanations.

        If I am misunderstanding or if I am wrong, I would very much appreciate a clarification. Thanks for being so helpful.

  • Pingback: Chris Rogers

  • thos003

    Jay,

    You are right on here. The guys with the money, CEOs, have the money because they track the money. You bring out some interesting points and its nice to see a social media guy think like a business guy… not that all social media guys don't… but many don't know how to communicate the value of social media. Or the value of blogging.

    It still proves difficult as a pest control guy to show the CEO the value of a pest control blog when their is no direct line to conversion. Our end goal is to get people to call us. But, learning to estimate the value of a keyword position and then relating that back to blogging for content/SEO is possible.

    The last tidbit that makes such metrics for blogging difficult is that a blog post I do today may not see a conversion today. And what is the residual value of that post?

    When working with a CEO you've got to set a break even point. If it converts x number in y time then its a wash. If it converts 2x in y time then we know we can do this again. Sell the worst case senerio and hope for the best case senerio, not vice a versa. And when it doesn't work. Move on. Don't keep beating a dead scorpion…. I mean unicorn… I mean cow. =)

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Pan-Aveyard/100000670730112 Pan Aveyard

    Hi Jay

    Interesting points, and ones I will take on-board.
    I'm involved with Social web intelligence analysis, and am always interested in breakdowns of specific media.

    The metrics are always going to flow around the intent, so understanding this before optimising searches is imperative.

    Thanks

    Pan

  • Pingback: World Economic Forum

  • Pingback: mayyasi

  • Pingback: swissbusiness

  • Pingback: swissbusiness

  • http://deborahdrake.com/Blog Deborah Drake – Catalyst

    The value of metrics was brought home to me today as I had to listen to a presentation that didn’t quantify results as much as it could and it got me thinking about Social Media for a variety of reasons.nnSocial Media creates the opportunity to be anecdotal as a consumer, an observer, a producer, etc.nnAnd I agree that blogging allows for the possibility of engaging current clients and targeted client groups who at first may not be so savvy to the data gathering going on, but eventually, some of us do realize we are being indirectly or directly surveyed for the what next….nnIt doesn’t alter the need for good metrics to be looking to gather. So suggest I who love the anecdotal information more than most.nnI do also agree that that these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did, no concern to be found or monetize, but it was simply my online journal really. I had six loyal readers and they were more than enough.nn2005, those were the days!nn

  • http://deborahdrake.com/Blog Deborah Drake – Catalyst

    The value of metrics was brought home to me today as I had to listen to a presentation that didn’t quantify results as much as it could and it got me thinking about Social Media for a variety of reasons.nnSocial Media creates the opportunity to be anecdotal as a consumer, an observer, a producer, etc.nnAnd I agree that blogging allows for the possibility of engaging current clients and targeted client groups who at first may not be so savvy to the data gathering going on, but eventually, some of us do realize we are being indirectly or directly surveyed for the what next….nnIt doesn’t alter the need for good metrics to be looking to gather. So suggest I who love the anecdotal information more than most.nnI do also agree that that these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did, no concern to be found or monetize, but it was simply my online journal really. I had six loyal readers and they were more than enough.nn2005, those were the days!nn

  • http://deborahdrake.com/Blog Deborah Drake – Catalyst

    The value of metrics was brought home to me today as I had to listen to a presentation that didn’t quantify results as much as it could and it got me thinking about Social Media for a variety of reasons.nnSocial Media creates the opportunity to be anecdotal as a consumer, an observer, a producer, etc.nnAnd I agree that blogging allows for the possibility of engaging current clients and targeted client groups who at first may not be so savvy to the data gathering going on, but eventually, some of us do realize we are being indirectly or directly surveyed for the what next….nnIt doesn’t alter the need for good metrics to be looking to gather. So suggest I who love the anecdotal information more than most.nnI do also agree that that these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did, no concern to be found or monetize, but it was simply my online journal really. I had six loyal readers and they were more than enough.nn2005, those were the days!nn

  • http://deborahdrake.com/Blog Deborah Drake – Catalyst

    The value of metrics was brought home to me today as I had to listen to a presentation that didn’t quantify results as much as it could and it got me thinking about Social Media for a variety of reasons.nnSocial Media creates the opportunity to be anecdotal as a consumer, an observer, a producer, etc.nnAnd I agree that blogging allows for the possibility of engaging current clients and targeted client groups who at first may not be so savvy to the data gathering going on, but eventually, some of us do realize we are being indirectly or directly surveyed for the what next….nnIt doesn’t alter the need for good metrics to be looking to gather. So suggest I who love the anecdotal information more than most.nnI do also agree that that these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did, no concern to be found or monetize, but it was simply my online journal really. I had six loyal readers and they were more than enough.nn2005, those were the days!nn

  • http://deborahdrake.com/Blog Deborah Drake – Catalyst

    The value of metrics was brought home to me today as I had to listen to a presentation that didn’t quantify results as much as it could and it got me thinking about Social Media for a variety of reasons.nnSocial Media creates the opportunity to be anecdotal as a consumer, an observer, a producer, etc.nnAnd I agree that blogging allows for the possibility of engaging current clients and targeted client groups who at first may not be so savvy to the data gathering going on, but eventually, some of us do realize we are being indirectly or directly surveyed for the what next….nnIt doesn’t alter the need for good metrics to be looking to gather. So suggest I who love the anecdotal information more than most.nnI do also agree that that these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did, no concern to be found or monetize, but it was simply my online journal really. I had six loyal readers and they were more than enough.nn2005, those were the days!nn

  • http://deborahdrake.com/Blog Deborah Drake – Catalyst

    The value of metrics was brought home to me today as I had to listen to a presentation that didn’t quantify results as much as it could and it got me thinking about Social Media for a variety of reasons.nnSocial Media creates the opportunity to be anecdotal as a consumer, an observer, a producer, etc.nnAnd I agree that blogging allows for the possibility of engaging current clients and targeted client groups who at first may not be so savvy to the data gathering going on, but eventually, some of us do realize we are being indirectly or directly surveyed for the what next….nnIt doesn’t alter the need for good metrics to be looking to gather. So suggest I who love the anecdotal information more than most.nnI do also agree that that these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did, no concern to be found or monetize, but it was simply my online journal really. I had six loyal readers and they were more than enough.nn2005, those were the days!nn

  • http://deborahdrake.com/Blog Deborah Drake – Catalyst

    The value of metrics was brought home to me today as I had to listen to a presentation that didn’t quantify results as much as it could and it got me thinking about Social Media for a variety of reasons.nnSocial Media creates the opportunity to be anecdotal as a consumer, an observer, a producer, etc.nnAnd I agree that blogging allows for the possibility of engaging current clients and targeted client groups who at first may not be so savvy to the data gathering going on, but eventually, some of us do realize we are being indirectly or directly surveyed for the what next….nnIt doesn’t alter the need for good metrics to be looking to gather. So suggest I who love the anecdotal information more than most.nnI do also agree that that these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did, no concern to be found or monetize, but it was simply my online journal really. I had six loyal readers and they were more than enough.nn2005, those were the days!nn

  • http://deborahdrake.com/Blog Deborah Drake – Catalyst

    The value of metrics was brought home to me today as I had to listen to a presentation that didn’t quantify results as much as it could and it got me thinking about Social Media for a variety of reasons.nnSocial Media creates the opportunity to be anecdotal as a consumer, an observer, a producer, etc.nnAnd I agree that blogging allows for the possibility of engaging current clients and targeted client groups who at first may not be so savvy to the data gathering going on, but eventually, some of us do realize we are being indirectly or directly surveyed for the what next….nnIt doesn’t alter the need for good metrics to be looking to gather. So suggest I who love the anecdotal information more than most.nnI do also agree that that these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did, no concern to be found or monetize, but it was simply my online journal really. I had six loyal readers and they were more than enough.nn2005, those were the days!nn

  • http://deborahdrake.com/Blog Deborah Drake – Catalyst

    The value of metrics was brought home to me today as I had to listen to a presentation that didn’t quantify results as much as it could and it got me thinking about Social Media for a variety of reasons.nnSocial Media creates the opportunity to be anecdotal as a consumer, an observer, a producer, etc.nnAnd I agree that blogging allows for the possibility of engaging current clients and targeted client groups who at first may not be so savvy to the data gathering going on, but eventually, some of us do realize we are being indirectly or directly surveyed for the what next….nnIt doesn’t alter the need for good metrics to be looking to gather. So suggest I who love the anecdotal information more than most.nnI do also agree that that these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did, no concern to be found or monetize, but it was simply my online journal really. I had six loyal readers and they were more than enough.nn2005, those were the days!nn

  • http://My.ComMetrics.com Urs E. Gattiker

    Hi DeborahnnI wanted to make a quick point regarding your comment. u00a0 Metrics are most certainly important. Nevertheless, sometimes u00a0we need additional information that go beyond the most obvious metrics we collected.nnTo illustrate, it could be that the number of unique visitors is interesting. Nevertheless, the spike in traffic requires some more digging (why was there a spike in traffice – due to certain post, referrer site or …. ?).nnAs well, qualitative data may be helpful also. These data permit one to assess things that go way beyond just the usual focus on traffic, pageviews, bounce rates and so forth.nnWe do this with the ComMetrics Health Check (hit hyperlinked text)nnI also find your point made here very helpful:nn”…these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did.”nnSounds similar to my point above, where I suggest that for a mid-size firm a blog honing in on blogging for content or commerce might work nicely in theory but not necessarily in practice (hit hyperlinked text to the left).nnDeborah, thanks so much for sharing and I hope that you will comment again soon on our blognnUrs – @ComMetricsnMy.ComMetrics.com – benchmark your blog – improve performancenn

  • http://My.ComMetrics.com Urs E. Gattiker

    Hi DeborahnnI wanted to make a quick point regarding your comment. u00a0 Metrics are most certainly important. Nevertheless, sometimes u00a0we need additional information that go beyond the most obvious metrics we collected.nnTo illustrate, it could be that the number of unique visitors is interesting. Nevertheless, the spike in traffic requires some more digging (why was there a spike in traffice – due to certain post, referrer site or …. ?).nnAs well, qualitative data may be helpful also. These data permit one to assess things that go way beyond just the usual focus on traffic, pageviews, bounce rates and so forth.nnWe do this with the ComMetrics Health Check (hit hyperlinked text)nnI also find your point made here very helpful:nn”…these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did.”nnSounds similar to my point above, where I suggest that for a mid-size firm a blog honing in on blogging for content or commerce might work nicely in theory but not necessarily in practice (hit hyperlinked text to the left).nnDeborah, thanks so much for sharing and I hope that you will comment again soon on our blognnUrs – @ComMetricsnMy.ComMetrics.com – benchmark your blog – improve performancenn

  • http://My.ComMetrics.com Urs E. Gattiker

    Hi DeborahnnI wanted to make a quick point regarding your comment. u00a0 Metrics are most certainly important. Nevertheless, sometimes u00a0we need additional information that go beyond the most obvious metrics we collected.nnTo illustrate, it could be that the number of unique visitors is interesting. Nevertheless, the spike in traffic requires some more digging (why was there a spike in traffice – due to certain post, referrer site or …. ?).nnAs well, qualitative data may be helpful also. These data permit one to assess things that go way beyond just the usual focus on traffic, pageviews, bounce rates and so forth.nnWe do this with the ComMetrics Health Check (hit hyperlinked text)nnI also find your point made here very helpful:nn”…these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did.”nnSounds similar to my point above, where I suggest that for a mid-size firm a blog honing in on blogging for content or commerce might work nicely in theory but not necessarily in practice (hit hyperlinked text to the left).nnDeborah, thanks so much for sharing and I hope that you will comment again soon on our blognnUrs – @ComMetricsnMy.ComMetrics.com – benchmark your blog – improve performancenn

  • http://My.ComMetrics.com Urs E. Gattiker

    Hi DeborahnnI wanted to make a quick point regarding your comment. u00a0 Metrics are most certainly important. Nevertheless, sometimes u00a0we need additional information that go beyond the most obvious metrics we collected.nnTo illustrate, it could be that the number of unique visitors is interesting. Nevertheless, the spike in traffic requires some more digging (why was there a spike in traffice – due to certain post, referrer site or …. ?).nnAs well, qualitative data may be helpful also. These data permit one to assess things that go way beyond just the usual focus on traffic, pageviews, bounce rates and so forth.nnWe do this with the ComMetrics Health Check (hit hyperlinked text)nnI also find your point made here very helpful:nn”…these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did.”nnSounds similar to my point above, where I suggest that for a mid-size firm a blog honing in on blogging for content or commerce might work nicely in theory but not necessarily in practice (hit hyperlinked text to the left).nnDeborah, thanks so much for sharing and I hope that you will comment again soon on our blognnUrs – @ComMetricsnMy.ComMetrics.com – benchmark your blog – improve performancenn

  • http://My.ComMetrics.com Urs E. Gattiker

    Hi DeborahnnI wanted to make a quick point regarding your comment. u00a0 Metrics are most certainly important. Nevertheless, sometimes u00a0we need additional information that go beyond the most obvious metrics we collected.nnTo illustrate, it could be that the number of unique visitors is interesting. Nevertheless, the spike in traffic requires some more digging (why was there a spike in traffice – due to certain post, referrer site or …. ?).nnAs well, qualitative data may be helpful also. These data permit one to assess things that go way beyond just the usual focus on traffic, pageviews, bounce rates and so forth.nnWe do this with the ComMetrics Health Check (hit hyperlinked text)nnI also find your point made here very helpful:nn”…these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did.”nnSounds similar to my point above, where I suggest that for a mid-size firm a blog honing in on blogging for content or commerce might work nicely in theory but not necessarily in practice (hit hyperlinked text to the left).nnDeborah, thanks so much for sharing and I hope that you will comment again soon on our blognnUrs – @ComMetricsnMy.ComMetrics.com – benchmark your blog – improve performancenn

  • http://My.ComMetrics.com Urs E. Gattiker

    Hi DeborahnnI wanted to make a quick point regarding your comment. u00a0 Metrics are most certainly important. Nevertheless, sometimes u00a0we need additional information that go beyond the most obvious metrics we collected.nnTo illustrate, it could be that the number of unique visitors is interesting. Nevertheless, the spike in traffic requires some more digging (why was there a spike in traffice – due to certain post, referrer site or …. ?).nnAs well, qualitative data may be helpful also. These data permit one to assess things that go way beyond just the usual focus on traffic, pageviews, bounce rates and so forth.nnWe do this with the ComMetrics Health Check (hit hyperlinked text)nnI also find your point made here very helpful:nn”…these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did.”nnSounds similar to my point above, where I suggest that for a mid-size firm a blog honing in on blogging for content or commerce might work nicely in theory but not necessarily in practice (hit hyperlinked text to the left).nnDeborah, thanks so much for sharing and I hope that you will comment again soon on our blognnUrs – @ComMetricsnMy.ComMetrics.com – benchmark your blog – improve performancenn

  • http://My.ComMetrics.com Urs E. Gattiker

    Hi DeborahnnI wanted to make a quick point regarding your comment. u00a0 Metrics are most certainly important. Nevertheless, sometimes u00a0we need additional information that go beyond the most obvious metrics we collected.nnTo illustrate, it could be that the number of unique visitors is interesting. Nevertheless, the spike in traffic requires some more digging (why was there a spike in traffice – due to certain post, referrer site or …. ?).nnAs well, qualitative data may be helpful also. These data permit one to assess things that go way beyond just the usual focus on traffic, pageviews, bounce rates and so forth.nnWe do this with the ComMetrics Health Check (hit hyperlinked text)nnI also find your point made here very helpful:nn”…these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did.”nnSounds similar to my point above, where I suggest that for a mid-size firm a blog honing in on blogging for content or commerce might work nicely in theory but not necessarily in practice (hit hyperlinked text to the left).nnDeborah, thanks so much for sharing and I hope that you will comment again soon on our blognnUrs – @ComMetricsnMy.ComMetrics.com – benchmark your blog – improve performancenn

  • http://My.ComMetrics.com Urs E. Gattiker

    Hi DeborahnnI wanted to make a quick point regarding your comment. u00a0 Metrics are most certainly important. Nevertheless, sometimes u00a0we need additional information that go beyond the most obvious metrics we collected.nnTo illustrate, it could be that the number of unique visitors is interesting. Nevertheless, the spike in traffic requires some more digging (why was there a spike in traffice – due to certain post, referrer site or …. ?).nnAs well, qualitative data may be helpful also. These data permit one to assess things that go way beyond just the usual focus on traffic, pageviews, bounce rates and so forth.nnWe do this with the ComMetrics Health Check (hit hyperlinked text)nnI also find your point made here very helpful:nn”…these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did.”nnSounds similar to my point above, where I suggest that for a mid-size firm a blog honing in on blogging for content or commerce might work nicely in theory but not necessarily in practice (hit hyperlinked text to the left).nnDeborah, thanks so much for sharing and I hope that you will comment again soon on our blognnUrs – @ComMetricsnMy.ComMetrics.com – benchmark your blog – improve performancenn

  • http://My.ComMetrics.com Urs E. Gattiker

    Hi DeborahnnI wanted to make a quick point regarding your comment. u00a0 Metrics are most certainly important. Nevertheless, sometimes u00a0we need additional information that go beyond the most obvious metrics we collected.nnTo illustrate, it could be that the number of unique visitors is interesting. Nevertheless, the spike in traffic requires some more digging (why was there a spike in traffice – due to certain post, referrer site or …. ?).nnAs well, qualitative data may be helpful also. These data permit one to assess things that go way beyond just the usual focus on traffic, pageviews, bounce rates and so forth.nnWe do this with the ComMetrics Health Check (hit hyperlinked text)nnI also find your point made here very helpful:nn”…these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did.”nnSounds similar to my point above, where I suggest that for a mid-size firm a blog honing in on blogging for content or commerce might work nicely in theory but not necessarily in practice (hit hyperlinked text to the left).nnDeborah, thanks so much for sharing and I hope that you will comment again soon on our blognnUrs – @ComMetricsnMy.ComMetrics.com – benchmark your blog – improve performancenn

  • Pingback: Urs E. Gattiker

  • Pingback: Ray van den Bel

  • http://deborahdrake.com/Blog Deborah Drake – Catalyst

    The value of metrics was brought home to me today as I had to listen to a presentation that didn't quantify results as much as it could and it got me thinking about Social Media for a variety of reasons.

    Social Media creates the opportunity to be anecdotal as a consumer, an observer, a producer, etc.

    And I agree that blogging allows for the possibility of engaging current clients and targeted client groups who at first may not be so savvy to the data gathering going on, but eventually, some of us do realize we are being indirectly or directly surveyed for the what next….

    It doesn't alter the need for good metrics to be looking to gather. So suggest I who love the anecdotal information more than most.

    I do also agree that that these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did, no concern to be found or monetize, but it was simply my online journal really. I had six loyal readers and they were more than enough.

    2005, those were the days!

  • http://My.ComMetrics.com Urs E. Gattiker

    Hi Deborah

    I wanted to make a quick point regarding your comment.   Metrics are most certainly important. Nevertheless, sometimes  we need additional information that go beyond the most obvious metrics we collected.

    To illustrate, it could be that the number of unique visitors is interesting. Nevertheless, the spike in traffic requires some more digging (why was there a spike in traffice – due to certain post, referrer site or …. ?).

    As well, qualitative data may be helpful also. These data permit one to assess things that go way beyond just the usual focus on traffic, pageviews, bounce rates and so forth.

    We do this with the ComMetrics Health Check (hit hyperlinked text)

    I also find your point made here very helpful:

    “…these days so much of blogging is for creating commerce through community by way of content. Pure blogging was something I did.”

    Sounds similar to my point above, where I suggest that for a mid-size firm a blog honing in on blogging for content or commerce might work nicely in theory but not necessarily in practice (hit hyperlinked text to the left).

    Deborah, thanks so much for sharing and I hope that you will comment again soon on our blog

    Urs – @ComMetrics
    My.ComMetrics.com – benchmark your blog – improve performance

  • Pingback: Lee Johnson

  • Pingback: SMM_News

  • Pingback: juanita essuahmensah

  • Pingback: Maher Farah

  • Pingback: Gustavo_Veliz

  • Pingback: Mika Matikainen

  • Pingback: DataInfoCom

  • Ablescon

    Interesting post. Very helpful. Thanks

  • Ablescon

    Interesting post. Very helpful. Thanks

  • Ablescon

    Interesting post. Very helpful. Thanks

  • Ablescon

    Interesting post. Very helpful. Thanks

  • Ablescon

    Interesting post. Very helpful. Thanks

  • Ablescon

    Interesting post. Very helpful. Thanks

  • Pingback: Robert Bacal

  • Pingback: Sample Quarterly Report to CEO and Executive Team | OpenView Labs

  • Pingback: Matthew King

  • Pingback: Perry A Davis Jr

Previous post:

Next post: