Measure success

Deciding on the right metrics is the first step to enable you to measure success. Then set your KPIs to show the content is improving.

There are a lot of analytics you can use. It is better to measure less metrics but measure them consistently and analyse them. You will gain valuable insights by monitoring change over time.

The 3 objectives set for the Digital Profession's content strategy are:

• less content
• better content
• more efficient

If you choose to use these as your own objectives, apply these metrics to track content performance.

Less content

3 ways to measure the less content objective:

• reduction in the number of channels — count them and compare against a baseline
• reduction in the number of pages per channel. Your content audit will show you which pages are redundant
• reduction in duplication across channels — find them, count them and compare against a baseline

Better content

Usability

2 ways to measure usability:

• effectiveness — content needs to answer the user need it was designed for. This can be measured by whether users were able to complete their goal. A feedback mechanism on each page would be a great tool for measuring this.
• efficiency — content needs to be easy to find so that users are able to complete their task or meet their need quickly.

Findability

3 ways to measure findability:

• time — how long did it take a user to find what they were looking for?
• search — how many times did they have to search to find what they were looking for?
• bounce — the percentage of users who leave after visiting just one page

Accessibility

All users should be able to access the content including those with a disability or language challenges. 3 measures for accessibility:

• people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds can use the content
• compliance — WCAG 2.0 level AA compliance
• readability — content should have a Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level at or below year 9

More efficient

3 ways to measure reduced cost:

• reduced failure demand
• estimated cost of content production and maintenance per piece of content or section. You could also calculate this against number of visits to the content to determine ROI
• reduced cost per piece of content

Learn which metrics to use and how to interpret your website’s analytics. The power of data is in cross referencing. For example, using ‘time on site’ might show that visitors are not spending much time on a page. This could be a good result showing that users are finding what they need. Or it could show the content is not meeting user needs and they are bouncing (leaving) the page quickly.

Following are some examples of metrics you can use.

Average session duration

Find out how long users are spending on the website per visit. This is a good indicator for how relevant the website is for user needs.

Content cost

An effective way to show the value of your content strategy is to calculate the cost of production. Savings can be made by developing good processes and content.

Desktop and mobile

Find out how many visits are from desktop and mobile devices. Also find out which devices are used.

Failure demand

A badly designed website could cause increased demand for other services (referred to as failure demand). The reason is that users might need to phone or visit because their needs weren’t met on the website.

Pages per session

Find out how many pages are visited per session.

Pageviews and unique pageviews

Unique pageviews tells you how many times the page was visited by separate users. You can also see the total number of pageviews and unique pageviews for the whole site. If a user visits a page 3 times it’s counted as 3 pageviews and 1 unique pageview.

Referral sources

Show where traffic is coming to the website from. It can include other websites, intranets and social media channels.

Search terms

Find out what search terms are used to bring users to your website. You can find out search terms typed into search engines and also used within your site.

Site performance

Site performance includes metrics such as page load times and instances of users reaching 404 pages (broken or dead link).

Top pages

Find out the most visited and least visited pages. This gives you a good indication about what content is found and used.

Visitors

Find out the number of users visiting your content. You can also filter this by new and returning visitors, and also filter out internal visitors.

Find out how to set up an analytics tool.

Once you have your data from measuring content you then need to analyse it to make it ready for your report.

Analytics are a powerful way to gain insight into your users and their engagement with your online content. The best analytics come from cross-referencing data and then drawing insights from them.

Set up a tool

There are a variety of free and paid analytics tools you can use to track measurements on your website.

Discuss options with your IT team, business intelligence or analytics teams and legal and privacy teams.

Pick a team member who will be trained on the tool. They can manage access for other team members, prepare reports and stay up to date.

• Cookie tracking — many government agencies have strict cookie policies. This may limit the amount of data you can track
• privacy - government agencies have strict data storage rules software and hardware restrictions - undertake appropriate assessments with IT before you install any software or hardware packages