Engagement. Business icon Peter Drucker once said, “What gets measured gets managed.” Businesses use data to measure lead generation, conversion rates, and user experience, while honing their message for maximum results.
The tools available have made it easy for businesses to gather and analyze the metrics they need to get more customers and improve their products and services.
But there’s one factor that many continue to overlook. Understanding this one vital metric helps you improve the value you provide and increase the growth of your business.
Understanding Engagement
Engagement is one of the most common objectives for businesses today. They’ve come to realize that without engagement with prospects and customers, they don’t have a business.
But how do you measure engagement? And have you defined what it means to your business?
For many, engagement means connecting and communicating with others. This occurs primarily on your website and social media. But engagement goes beyond these platforms.
Engagement spans the entire experience of your brand—both online and offline. Direct traffic to your website is an indication of your engagement with your audience. Users are familiar with you and have a pre-established familiarity or trust.
Search queries for your brand are another extension of engagement. When people are familiar with your name, logo, or product, they specifically search for it in the search engines.
Data related to the use of your website also sheds light on engagement. How long users navigate within your site (and what pages they navigate through) gives you insight into their level of engagement.
Why No One Is Optimizing
There are a number of reasons why businesses aren’t optimizing. This comes from the tendency to emphasize certain metrics at the expense of others.
Most business owners look at traffic and conversion rates. They may also consider the number of likes and shares on social media. But they don’t integrate it into a big picture view.
In many cases, businesses either don’t have or are unaware of the tools that are available to provide them with the appropriate data.
The result is a low emphasis on engagement and a lack of understanding of how vital it can be to marketing efforts.
Engagement Solutions
In order to make it work for you, you’ll need to develop and present a clear picture of its importance to your entire organization.
All of the leaders in your company must be aware of how vital engagement is to your entire SEO campaigns. They need to have a broader perspective that looks beyond keywords and link profiles.
You’ll also need to use the right tools to measure the right metrics. Google Analytics can provide you with some of the fundamental measures for analysis. Many others are available that can meet the unique needs of your business.
Finally, your perspective on SEO will need to shift to one where you address indirect SEO factors, despite what algorithm updates might say you need to focus on.
Every business is looking for more of this. But not everyone is measuring it. This requires you to prioritize it throughout your entire organization and implement the tools you need to analyze it over time. You’ll maximize your brand’s visibility, connect more deeply with customers, and dramatically grow your business.
Let us know how you’re measuring engagement for your business and the ways it’s helped you grow your customers.
