measuring content marketing - seocamp 2017

1#seocamp @David Iwanow

Measuring Content Marketing


Who am I?I’ve been doing SEO for over 10 years and I’m currently the Director of Strategy at BlueGlass, a London-

based digital marketing agency with a focus on SEO and Content Marketing.

We also have BlueGlass offices in Zurich and Tallinn.


The Drum 2016 Content Marketing Agency of the Year2 x UK Search Awards winner


1. Measuring links acquired (Majestic)2. Measuring changes in TF/CF (Majestic)3. Measuring shares (BuzzSumo)4. Measuring estimated reach (CoverageBook)5. Measuring referral traffic (Google Analytics)6. Measuring organic traffic (Google Analytics)7. Measuring uplift in impressions to target page (GSC)8. Measuring average rank uplift on target page (GSC)9. Measuring number of search terms driving traffic to page

(GSC)10.Keyword ranking uplift (SEOmonitor)11.Automated measuring (SEOmonitor)

How can you measure content marketing?There is always a way to measure impacts if you plan ahead...


Bad ways to measureWhat are some horrible ways you can measure content marketing?


▪ Focusing on the number of links alone opens it up to manipulation

▪ Focusing on a target number of links may limit the opportunity

▪ Measuring links without considering TF/CF is bad form

▪ Focusing on the number of articles created without a strategy around why they exist is problematic

Focusing without context


Measurement is keyWhy do I need to better measure what we’ve done?


▪You should be calculating an ROI on all content▪ You are fighting for marketing budget▪ You want to scale up anything that works▪ You want to learn from your mistakes▪ Because transparency is key to good relationships

Why is it important to measure?


Measuring linksDid you generate more links? Were they quality links?


Focus on improving TF over CF


Measuring changesHave the TF and CF increased?


Links acquired by competitors


Measuring sharesDid your content gain traction on social media?


Onsite content being shared?


Estimated reachHow many eyeballs might have seen your off-site content?


Aggregate content insights


Referral trafficDid you drive clicks from your off-site content back to your site?


Wrong way via UTM tags


Don’t forget to filter out the bots


Right way via Google Analytics


Organic trafficDid your onsite or target content acquire more organic traffic?


Onsite content can lift traffic


Impression upliftDid Google Search Console show you a positive change?


Clicks and impressions increased?


Average rank upliftDid the average rank of the target page increase?


Did average position change?


Number of keywordsDid the number of non-brand search terms driving traffic increase?


Number of terms driving clicks


Keyword rank upliftDid the rank of the target terms increase?


Track the target terms


Automated insightsDid the content performance report highlight any impacts?


Impact of external content


Add articles as published


ForecastingWhat might be the impact of content marketing?


▪ How established are the competitors?▪ What is the SEO difficulty score on target terms?▪ Average links per piece of existing content?▪ Average number of links competitors are building?▪ Referral traffic to content pieces?▪ Organic traffic to current pieces?

Forecasting your impacts


How much content?Work backwards from your goals to estimate resources needed


■ How much organic traffic needed?■ How many terms targeted?■ How much referral traffic needed?■ How many links are you behind?

How much content do you need?


Tracking successContent marketing should have a goal or KPI that is influential


▪ Platforms like SEOmonitor can help▪ Set up dashboards in Majestic▪ CoverageBook can track reach of content▪ Store data in Google Sheets and push into Tableau▪ YoY comparison to avoid factoring in seasonal

trends▪ Compare target pages against a control group

Reporting your results


Merci!