7 Signs That Your Blog or Website Is On the Right Track

Here is a list of 10 things that tell you that your online efforts are on the right track, your optimization, content and marketing strategies are working and bearing fruit. As you’ll soon find out, producing quality, valuable and fresh (read: up-to-date) content is at the center of everything good when it comes to your online presence!

1. Increasing Traffic and Visitors

Traffic is the heart and soul of a website. More traffic equals success – it’s as simple as that. Try comparing your website’s traffic and page views to last month’s, last quarter’s or even with same time last year. If they’re up (and showing an upward trend), give yourself a pat on the back because you’re on the right track. Traffic level is one of the most basic metrics of gauging your success online – a clear indicator that people are looking you up on search engines, and coming to your website from Google, social mediums, directories and other sources. It means that your SEO strategies and marketing campaigns are working well. Keep an eye on traffic levels using analytics suites such as Google Analytics.

2. Growing Number of Subscribers

As anyone running a website would know, getting subscribers is not easy. However an increasing number of subscriber-base would definitely mean that you are doing something right. It is important to realize that subscribers are people who have voluntarily opted-in so that they can be informed whenever you put something up – which means that the content you’re putting up on your blog is valuable and high-quality. It also means that you have successfully managed to make it easy for visitors to subscribe to your blog. Check your RSS count and the number of people subscribed to you via email.  

3. Increasing Number of Comments

If traffic is the heart and soul of a blog, comments are its lifeblood! For me, the number of actual, though-provoking comments that you get on your blog is a solid, concrete way of measuring its success. When you start off, getting comments can be pretty hard, even if you are getting decent amounts of traffic on your website – indeed, according to Nielsen’s statistics, only 1 in every 100 visitors actually makes an effort to leave you a comment. Increasing reader engagement can be tough. However if you are getting a decent number of genuine comments (ones that actually contribute to the conversation or the subject at hand), it means that you have successfully be able to engage readers by (a) providing them with valuable and/or thought-provoking content, and (b) making it easy to leave a comment.

4.  Low Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of people that landed on any given page of your website, and left without browsing or going on any other page apart from the one that they landed on. A low bounce rate is therefore essential, as it is a clear indicator that your blog is (a) being found for the right, most relevant search terms or phrases (keywords/phrases), (b) you’ve successfully been able to engage anyone who comes on your website by providing valuable, quality, informative and interesting content and information, (c) anyone who lands on your page is tempted to browse through your website and read the various articles, and (d) you’ve made navigation simple, and it is easy for people to go from your landing page.

5. Strong Social Presence

Today, having a strong presence in social media is just as important (if not more) as having large visitor-base, more subscribers or more engaged readers. The ability to be seen as an authority figure on social media – such as on Facebook or Twitter for instance – is essential, as it could potentially allow you to drive in massive amounts of traffic to your blog from these mediums, and have your opinion counted and valued. Facebook pages come with a comprehensive analytics suite built-in, which allow you to check subscriber count trends, engagement trends and the like. If your blog’s pages are getting more subscribers, and if you’ve been able to engage people on your Facebook page through comments, shares and likes, that brilliant because you have been able to establish a strong foothold in the social media – which you can leverage in order to drive inbound traffic to your blog.

6. Rising Number of Inbound Links

It is said that 95% of all SEO strategies and campaigns concentrate on link-building. The fact that your blog is getting inbound links is truly a massive achievement. It means that other blogs, website and people on social mediums are linking to your content – all of which translates into (a) more traffic, (b) more sales/revenue, and (c) better search engine rankings/higher SERPs. Above all, it means that you are now providing high-quality and relevant information on a regular basis – all of which urges people to link back to you. And perhaps the best part is that it allows you to be seen as an authority blogger in your niche, something to be proud of!

7. Successful Achievement of your Aims, Objectives and Goals

As a  blogger, it is essential to have blogging goals. They allow you to remain on track, on target and give you the ability to measure and gauge your success or failures. Above all, goals give you a clear vision of something that you want to accomplish, and allow you to develop a path through which you can accomplish your blogging goals. Such goals are usually short-term and long-term, and are updated with the passage of time. The more goals that you can simply tick off your list, the better, as it lets you know that you are on the right track. For instance a new blogger might aim to get at least 30 views-a-day on his blog initially, however some months down the road, not only would he have achieved that goal, he would also have a completely new, different set of goals like getting to a 1000 opt-ins, or maybe making an x amount of money from his or her blogging efforts. Devise paths on how you intend on achieving your goals.