While the learning curve for Chartbeat Publishing should take under a minute – it’s awesomely intuitive in that way – there are a few extra tips and tricks that make that mastering the ancient art of Chartbeat Publishing an even more successful adventure, especially when it comes to learning strategies to grow your readership.
Our frequent dev cycles here at Chartbeat mean the scope of our real-time world is always evolving to expand the frontiers of real time’s potential, but also to meet the needs of our client-partners. We’re learning that it’s increasingly important to help our clients find new ways to drive value – and find that value very quickly.
As a member of the Product Outreach team, I help our clients spot ways to increase the quality of their content, so their audience comes back again and again – spotting those precious value-driving moments in he dashboard.
Studying for decades (poetic license allows for slight exaggeration, right?) under our education guru, I have learned to be the dashboard. Now, I’ll teach you a few tricks, grasshopper.
Take these ideas out for a spin; they’re all quick and effective ways to increase your traffic (and your content’s value).
1. Find an article with a high average Engaged Time and low internal traffic, then relocate it on your site.
Why? Articles with high Engaged Time averages are the most generous in terms of pushing users deeper into your site – they keep more active eyes on your content for longer periods of time. But content with low internal traffic (traffic coming from other pages in your site vs. from off your site through social, SEO, etc.) probably means people on your site aren’t seeing that super-engaging piece. So a high-engagement-low-traffic story is a huge opportunity to get your most loyal readers reading.
How? Organize your top pages by “most engaging”. Click through those articles until you find an article with low internal traffic.
Then what? Now that you’ve found your all-star content, relocate that story above the fold on your homepage or a place on the page where you know that story can gain some well-deserved readership.
2. Find a popular social article and cross-promote it across other social networks.
Why? The same guy who gets his news from Twitter is probably going to click an article that pops up in his Facebook newsfeed, right? Readers from similar referral sources are going to absorb similar content – you probably do it every day without even noticing it.
How? Sort your top pages using “Social” as the referrer. Find the article with the highest percentage of traffic from “Social”. Click into that article to find its most popular social source.
Then what? Promote the story across other social platforms (for instance if an article is popular on Facebook, then push it out on Twitter or your next email newsletter). Spread the social media love.
3. Optimize your referral channels to “complete the rainbow.”
Why? If all of your traffic isn’t coursing equivalently through your various referral channels (links, social, search and direct) you’re missing those traffic-exploding opportunities.
How? At the general site level, look at how you’re allocating resources towards promoting your social, search, or link traffic efforts. Put your audience-building hat on and reprioritize for the future — assign more resources to a certain channel if you see disparities in the ways you’re generating traffic.
At the article level, simply click on various articles and see where the bulk of your traffic is coming from, and get creative! Maybe you’re falling a little short in your Twitter referrals, or perhaps you can focus on that new link partnership you’ve been dreaming about.
Then what? Prioritize and organize. Then kick back, you’re generating equal traffic from all possible sources, you’re not missing a thing!
Want more tips? We’ve got more where these came from- drop me an email. Or maybe you’ve got a better idea up your sleeve– share your brilliant ideas in the comments section below.