Posting online content can go either way: you get immediate feedback, or your blog post gets completely overlooked. Even influential Internet personalities upload content that shows only a handful of ones and zeros.
How can you predict what content is worth posting? It can be hard to define success online: some bloggers get a lot of attention one day, but are completely forgotten a week later; while others maintain a blog, website, or social media profile for years and only gain a following slowly over time.
There are many tools out there that businesses and individuals can use to evaluate their growth online. If you make use of these, you’ll get a better idea who your audience is, what time of day you should post your content, and which content you post gets the best response (and on which website).
Here’s how to track your success online.
1. Check your Klout score on an occasional basis
Klout is a service that connects someone’s social media profiles to track how influential they are online. The better your score, the more influence you or business has on your online audience.
You can also find out which were your most successful posts, what kind of Internet users are reading your posts, and get a generally better idea of what’s working online and what’s not.
2. Use analytic tools
Plenty of free and low-fee analytic tools offer site owners and social media users a graphic summary of their online activity. An analytic report will show the amount of traffic a webpage received, when people visited, and what keywords or links got them there.
Knowing what tags and keywords people search for can help you categorize and tag your future posts so they show up with higher rankings in search engine results.
3. Track email success
A simple, consistent email newsletter can keep your readers informed about the latest content and events on your website. However, newsletters run the risk of being sent directly to trash or marked as spam; even if they make it to the inbox, they can easily remain unopened.
The analytic specific to email tools will show you the number of emails that were opened and how many readers actually clicked through the links that were in the body of the newsletter. That will let you know what kind of titles catch your audience’s eye and which links and formats are the most successful.
