Session delivered at ContentEd in London on Thursday 29th June

1. METRICS AND MEASUREMENT –
TOOLS TO ASSESS CONTENT
QUALITY AND SUCCESS
Ellie Lovell, Head of Content Strategy
Pickle Jar Communications
Thursday 29th June 2017

2. Ellie Lovell @ellielovell
#contented17
“Once everything is up and running it’s time to
measure how successful you’ve been”

3. “Once everything is up and running it’s time to
measure how successful you’ve been”
Ellie Lovell @ellielovell
#contented17
WRONG

4. SO WHAT ARE WE GOING TO COVER?
DEFINING
OBJECTIVES
ANALYTICS AND
BENCHMARKING
PERFORMANCE
AUDIENCE
INSIGHTS AND
USER RESEARCH
MEASURING
ACTIVITY

5. “Before you’re able to measure the effect of
improvements to your web content and related
internal processes, you must define measurable
objectives for what you want these improvements
to achieve”
Content Strategy for the Web, Kristina Halvorson
Ellie Lovell @ellielovell
#contented17

6. DISCUSSION
• Do you have clearly defined objectives for your online activity?
• How often do you measure performance at your institution?
• What metrics do you look at?
• And what do you do with the information?

7. 1. DEFINING OBJECTIVES
Ellie Lovell @ellielovell
#contented17

8. SETTING OBJECTIVES
WBSITE/SOCIAL
MEDIA OBJECTIVES
BUSINESS
OBJECTIVES/
UNIVERSITY VISION
MARKETING &
COMMUNUNICATIONS
OBJECTIVES
WEBSITE/SOCIAL
MEDIA OBJECTIVES
1. What is your institution trying to achieve?
2. Are there marketing and communications objectives or
targets?
3. How can content strategy, website or social media support
achievement of those objectives?

9. SETTING OBJECTIVES
WBSITE/SOCIAL
MEDIA OBJECTIVES
BUSINESS
OBJECTIVES/
UNIVERSITY VISION
MARKETING &
COMMUNUNICATIONS
OBJECTIVES
WEBSITE/SOCIAL
MEDIA OBJECTIVES
INTERNATIONAL PROFILE
AND GROWTH
INCREASE RECRUITMENT
FROM KEY COUNTRIES
(CHINA) BY 30% BY
2020
INCREASE WEBSITE
VISITORS FROM CHINA
BY 100% IN NEXT 12
MONTHS
INCREASE FOLLOWERS
ON WECHAT BY 50% BY
DECEMBER 2017
Remember, the website and social media
won’t always be able to support all objectives

10. We will…
• Engage the public in our science and communicate widely the
significance of our research.
• Build relationships with alumni and supporters, encouraging them
to connect with and contribute to life at the university today.
• Attract partners at local, national and international level with
aligned values and objectives, who can collaborate with us to
advance our mission.
• Attract, develop and retain a talented and high performing
workforce with a shared sense of purpose.
BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

11. • Key performance indicators – another word for SMART
objectives or targets
• Need to be measuring regularly and know where you are
before you can say where you want to be
• Need to be realistic – targets for page views on /study
section will be higher than a department section
DETERMINING KPIS

12. KPIS/METRICS FOR EACH STAGE OF THE JOURNEY
AWARENESS INTEREST DESIRE ACTION ADVOCACY
Reach
Impressions
Page views
Time on page
Prospectus requests/
downloads
Enquiries
ApplicationsOpen day sign-ups
Positive
mentions
Profile views
Followers
Shares
Re-tweets
Open day attendance
Email subscribers
Open rate Conversion rate
Returning visitors
New visitors
Pages per visit
Goals
Click throughs

13. 2. ANALYSIS AND BENCHMARKING
WEBSITE PERFORMANCE
Ellie Lovell @ellielovell
#contented17

14. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR…
WEBSITE
AUDIENCECONTENT

15. WEBSITE
AUDIENCECONTENT
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR…
How many people use it?
What pages they use the most?
How have people found it?How long does it it take to load?
Where are they?
What language do they speak?
What devices do they use?
Who are they?
What are they looking for?
How long do they look at it for?
What do they do next?
What content makes them leave?
Did the content convert them to action?

16. GOOGLE ANALYTICS
WEBSITE • How many people use it?
• What pages they use the most?
• How have people found it?
• How long does it it take to load?
• Number of users
• Most viewed site content
• Acquisition – all traffic
• Site speed
AUDIENCE • Who are they?
• Where are they?
• What language do they speak?
• What devices do they use?
• What are they looking for?
• Demographics and interest reports
• Geo – location
• Geo – language
• Mobile / devices
• Most viewed site content and users flow
CONTENT • How long do people look at it for/watch it for?
• What do they do next?
• What content makes them leave?
• Did the content convert them to action?
• Time on page
• Users flow and drop off
• Drop off (in users flow) and exit rate
• Goals

17. • Website Grader by Hubspot
• Overall performance
– Performance
– Mobile
– SEO
– Security
• Mobile friendly
• SEO (titles, meta-descriptions,
headings, site map
• Security (SSL)
• What should I do next?
LOAD TIME
https://website.grader.com/

18. • Pingdom:
tools.pingdom.com
– Test from different locations
– Website speed test – overall
performance grade, load time,
average page size, plus specific
technical performance details
– 14 day free trial
• Test my site with Google:
testmysite.withgoogle.com
– Mobile friendliness
– Mobile speed
– Desktop speed
LOAD TIME
• You can run these tests as part of your
competitor analysis

19. • Useful for competitor benchmarking
• Global Rank and UK Rank – estimate
of site’s popularity
• Audience geography
• Gender, education and browsing
location
• Bounce rate
• Daily page views and time on site
• Top keywords
• Sites linking in
• Websites with similar visitors
• Load time
ALEXA RANK

20. • Video playbacks of how users
experience your website or
web app
• But you do get lots – so take
a snapshot of journeys
depending on duration
– <1 min, 1-5 mins, 5-10min, >10
mins
• Need to add a line of
JavaScript to your site
• Paid for service but 30 days
free trial
SESSION RECORDING

21. • How your website
ranks for certain
keywords and
how that changes
over time
Useful for…
• New services or
initiatives
• Research themes
• Degree
programmes
SERP TESTING

22. • Page name
• URL
• Audience
• Page owner
• Content (notes)
• Accuracy
• Usefulness
• Quality
• Headline analytics i.e. views,
time on page, exit rate etc
• What content do you have?
• Where on the site is it?
• Is it any good?
• Is it well written?
• What’s the reading age?
CONTENT AUDIT & ASSESSMENT

23. 3. AUDIENCE INSIGHTS AND USER
RESEARCH
Ellie Lovell @ellielovell
#contented17

24. “Discovering how your users behave on your
site is on the of key findings that can help
prioritise changes and help you understand
where to focus your content improvement
efforts”
Content Strategy for the Web, Kristina Halvorson
Ellie Lovell @ellielovell
#contented17

25. • User surveys
– Intercept surveys
• User testing
• Focus groups and interviews
• Online observations
• Market research insights from third parties
AUDIENCE INSIGHTS

26. • Ethnio
• On homepage and/or key pages:
– Are you a…
– What are you looking for on the
site today?
– Did you find it?
– Would you be happy to take
part in future research?
• Download results as CSV file
or excel
INTERCEPT SURVEYS

27. USER TESTING
• Free basic test
• Premium for longer
tests with specific
tasks
• Selecting audience
profile
• Good for qualitative
comments
• Can annotate for
analysis

28. Good for:
• Determining website goals and behaviours
• Plotting user journeys and decision making processes
• Seeking feedback on recent experiences
• Understanding more general online behaviour
• Feedback on prototypes and ideas
• Developing user personas
– What info are they looking for?
– What tasks do they want to perform?
Booking open day? Finding course?
Finding fee information?
FOCUS GROUPS & INTERVIEWS

29. 4. CONTENT METRICS & TOOLS
Ellie Lovell @ellielovell
#contented17

30. • Content audits and analysis
• Analytics specific to content i.e. views, time on page, exit rate
• In-page analysis i.e. session recording, heat mapping
• Feedback buttons on content - “How helpful was this?”
• Reading age
• Downloads of files and documents
• Video metrics
HOW DO YOU MEASURE CONTENT PERFORMANCE?

31. HEAT MAPPING
Confetti view – colours indicate traffic source
Heat map view – intensity signifies volume of clicks

32. • Feedback buttons,
“Was this helpful?”
• Lots of Wordpress
plugins
• Hotjar provide
various poll options
(as well as heat maps
and session
recordings)
• Costs based on how
many users per day
view your content
FEEDBACK BUTTONS ON CONTENT

33. • Flesch Reading Ease – score
out of 100. Higher score is
easier to read; lower score is
more difficult to read
• Flesch Kincaid Grade Level -
presents a score as a U.S.
school grade level
READABILITY

34. • For student recruitment
information you want to be
aiming lower
• Also for students whose first
language isn’t English
• Academic content or info for
postgraduates maybe higher
• Improve readability by:
– Shortening sentences
– Using less long words
– Use correct grammar and
punctuation
READABILITY
READABILITY
FLESCH
READING
EASE
FLESCH
KINCAID
GRADE LEVEL
AGE/EDUCATION LEVEL
Very Easy 90-100 Grade 4 10 year olds
Easy 80-90 Grade 5 11 year olds
Fairly Easy 70-80 Grade 6 12 year olds
Standard 60-70 Grade 7-9 13 to 15 year olds
Fairly Difficult 50-60 High school –
Grade 10 – 12
Senior High School/
A Level
Difficult 30-50 College College
Very Difficult 0-30 College
graduates
Higher degrees

35. 5. SOCIAL MEDIA METRICS
& TOOLS
Ellie Lovell @ellielovell
#contented17

36. METRICS FOR EACH STAGE OF THE JOURNEY
AWARENESS INTEREST DESIRE ACTION ADVOCACY
Reach
Impressions
Page views
Time on page
Prospectus requests/
downloads
Enquiries
ApplicationsOpen day sign-ups
Positive
mentions
Profile views
Followers
Shares
Re-tweets
Open day attendance
Email subscribers
Open rate Conversion rate
Returning visitors
New visitors
Pages per visit
Goals

37. SOCIAL METRICS FOR BROAD OBJECTIVES
AWARENESS • Reach (organic and paid)
• Impressions
• Profile views
ENGAGEMENT • Followers
• Likes/reactions
• Favourites
• Replies
• Re-tweets
• Shares
• Comments
• Re-posts
• Subscribers
ADVOCACY • Mentions
• Link shares
• Sentiment (positive, negative and neutral)

38. • Facebook insights
• Twitter analytics
• Tweetdeck and Hootsuite for monitoring
• Followerwonk
• Twitonomy
• Keyhole
• Fanpage Karma
• Simply Measured – free reports
TOOLS FOR MEASURING SOCIAL MEDIA PERFORMANCE

39. Useful for…
• Comparing followers of multiple
accounts
• Searching bios i.e. for your
institution name
With subscription…
• Analyze i.e. by dormant, influential
• Sort your followers (i.e. by number
of followers they have, “social
authority”)
• Track new and lost followers
FOLLOWERWONK

40. Useful for…
• Analysing Twitter profiles
(yours and others) i.e.
basic analytics for
benchmarking
• Tweets favourited and
retweeted
• Mentions, how many
users, and most
influential mentions
• Visualise mentions on a
map
TWITONOMY

41. TWITONOMY

42. What it’s good for:
• Tracking hashtags,
accounts, urls,
keywords and mentions
• How many people are
using your hashtag,
how many times it’s
been used, related
topics, location,
sentiment
• Best time to post,
optimal text length
• Pay to access more info
KEYHOLE

43. • Twitter, Instagram, Facebook page
• Activity analysis for your account and others
• Engagement rate per time of day, most
frequently used words and hashtags (and
which ones get most and least engagement)
• Paid, but free trial lets you sample it
FANPAGE KARMA

44. • Influencer mapping for UCL
• Our own methodology:
– NodeXL to get the social media
interactions
– Gephi for the network
visualisation
– Twitonomy to assess
individuals’ influence
• Seeing who is influential for
certain topics and themes
MEASURING INFLUENCE
http://www.picklejarcommunications.com/2017/01/04/online-influence/

45. • Twitonomy for looking to
influence of followers
– How many followers they have
– How often they’re listed
– % of tweets retweeted and
liked by others
– Average retweets per tweet
MEASURING INFLUENCE
http://www.picklejarcommunications.com/2017/01/04/online-influence/

46. • Twitter Follower Analysis
• Instagram User Analysis
• Facebook Fan Page Analysis
• Facebook Insights Analysis
• Facebook Competitive Analysis
• Facebook Content Analysis
• Twitter Customer Service Analysis
• https://simplymeasured.com/freebies
• https://simplymeasured.com/free-social-
media-tools
SIMPLY MEASURED

47. 6. SO WHAT DO YOU DO WITH ALL
OF THIS?
Ellie Lovell @ellielovell
#contented17

48. • Most important thing is to start now so you have a benchmark
• Measure at regular intervals – daily, weekly, monthly, annually
• Think about why you’re reporting
– To make improvements to existing activity
– To justify activity to others
– Demonstrate impact against objectives
• Dashboard/report – who for and what for? How detailed?
• Performance against your original objectives?
• Traffic light system
REPORTING

49. • So how do you do it in your institution?
DISCUSSION

50. QUESTIONS?
Ellie Lovell, Head of Content Strategy
Pickle Jar Communications
ellie@picklejarcommunications
@ellielovell
www.picklejarcommunications.com
@picklejar