When it comes to blogging, we all know that CONTENT is king. We also understand that social interactions and readers engagement play a primary role for making the blog successful.
So far, so good.
But then it's time to analyse data and make decisions. And that's where we often fail.
We usually take a web analytics tool like Google Analytics, install basic tracking code on pages, and analyze the blog like any other website. We look at most common metrics and take them as standard references to evaluate future performance. But we forget about the unique features that differentiate blogs from other digital properties: content consumption and social interactions.
This post will help you understand one of the most misused metrics to measure blogs performance: I am talking about time on page and time on site. Most bloggers don't understand what time metrics actually measure. So, first of all I will try to explain how they are calculated in a typical web analytics tool (it might be different from what you think!).
I will then discuss some of the drawbacks of using time metrics to measure blog performance and finally suggest a couple of more solid KPI's to better measure content engagement.
After reading this post, I am sure you will start looking at time metrics with a bit more critical thinking than before. And perhaps shift your blog analytics focus to other more powerful metrics.
Let's go!