How do you measure the value of a blog or the return on investment?
This is something I've been thinking about for the past few days and while I think I have some answers, I know I don't have them all.
First of all, what do you value most:
- Page Views
- Comments
- Subscribers
- Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- Ratings
- Or something else?
I think Comments and Trackbacks are most valuable since they require the most effort - and that effort translates directly into an action, emotion, or reaction that caused readers to either link to you or comment. Page views aren't really all that interesting, in fact they are probably the least interesting metric of all because they are the easiest to create.
Another valuable but difficult measurement is: what action did you or your organization take because of a conversation with your readers. Did you make a fundamental change in your product, idea, or strategy, etc.?
In the end I think it boils down to a few key concepts:
- Influence - what level of influence do your posts have to cause readers to change behavior or interact
- Action - how can you measure the actions that took place (such as links or comments) because of a post
I researched this topic a lot for my Blogging for Business presentation as well as for this keynote I'm giving at the Software Association of Oregon event. But the only results I've found are more people like me searching for how to measure beyond page views.
