This afternoon I gave a presentation on business blogging, as part of SOHObiztube.com’s The Draft, an all-day social media workshop.
The last part of the presentation was on my favorite tools for monitoring conversations, as well as the conversions that a business blog initiates. Here’s the list:
Google Analytics — This is still my favorite way to monitor all blog activity. It is fairly easy to configure, it provides a great way to measure conversation (Google calls them “Goals”) and offers benchmarking with other blogs. Price: Free
Technorati — This site provides simply but helpful ways to track the growth of your site, by comparing its “popularity” to others and showing all backlinks (also known as “pingbacks” to your blog from others. Price: Free
CrazyEgg — This is new to me, and admittedly untried. But I like their visualization tools. The one below is a heatmap showing likelihood to click (not to be mistaken for an eye-scanning heatmap). Price: Plans vary in cost
Feedburner — This service, which was acquired two years ago by Google, is an industry favorite for monitoring how many people subscribe to you. It even has a badge, showing the number of subscribers you currently have. If you are reading this near the day it was published, you’ll see that the current theme of my blog displays the badge near the top of the righthand column of every page. (As of this morning, I had 365 subscribers. Thank you one-and-all!) Price: Free
There. That’s my list. What’s yours?
I had a great time talking to the group today, and invited them to post their questions about business blogging here in the comments section. I’m also inviting all of you to let me know what your favorite blog measurement tools are. I’m especially curious if you’ve used the CrazyEgg product line-up. If so, what do you think of it?
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Comments
6 responses to “Measuring your business blog’s success”
Great job, Jeff! Can’t believe this was the first time I heard you speak. Great blog post, too. Thanks for making this simple.
Thanks, Tom. And no offense taken — I still have to catch one of your presentations.
Glad you liked what I had to offer today. I was fun!
My favorites are Google Analytics and Web CEO (Web CEO has a free version, though it’s pretty limited). I have not used Crazy Egg but I’ve heard good things about it and the screenshots I have seen look pretty cool.
You may be interested in this article from Website Magazine that reviews usability tools http://bit.ly/32mqlQ
I am affiliated with usertesting.com but the article covers several others.
Amanda
Thanks for the suggestions and the link to more resources.
Also, good form with the disclosure of your affiliation. I’ve heard good things about usertesting.com. I’ll have to check them out.
Thanks for speaking for PRSSA this past Wednedsay, 12/2, and your time afterwards on your way to your next presentation. Saying the timing is right for us working with social media is very true as it’s first nature for us, casually. Using social media in a professional atmosphere is where the learning is, from a college senior’s point of view. Which is why having you speak and share this blog post was/is vital.
Josh Schwartz
Jeff: Great list!
I like to measure blog success by seeing how many RE tweets of my blog title get sent.
The website that I use to see this is http://www.topsy.com I search my blog’s url brandandmarket.com in the search box and it shows the number of tweets. Helps me write better headlines and better 140 character phrases.
Try it with your blog: here’s the link.
http://topsy.com/s?q=digitalsolid.com