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.