You did your research, you put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), and you wrote up a high-quality piece of content. But then, when you check the Blogger Dashboard, you notice that your article isn’t scoring as well as you had hoped it would. Here’s what you can do now, and what you can do to improve your chances of having a high-scoring article in the future.
Our system takes several factors into account when calculating article scores. We look at:
Views and clicks from our sites and newsletters
It positively benefits your article’s score to have readers click on and view your article. First, make sure your content is appealing to click on! For tips on writing titles that grab a reader’s attention, check out our support article here: 7 Simple Secrets to B2B Lead Generation Titles that Convert Like Crazy
Second, articles with eye-catching images tend to be clicked on than articles without them. Don’t have an image for your post? Don’t worry: blogs that don’t have an image associated with them will automatically be assigned an image from our bank. However, distinctive, eye-catching images will help your blog receive more clicks.
When choosing a primary image for your blog, think about what will grab attention: graphs with tiny text will get glossed over, but evocative photos of people that are relevant to the article’s subject tend to do well.
Social sharing
Social media sharing will positively benefit your article’s score. You can share articles on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook directly from our site by clicking the + button under your article and choosing which social network from which you would like to share.
Share your articles often, and get others to share, as well! We only count sharing by different individuals – that is, if you share the same article over and over again on Twitter, it won’t rocket up your score. We also track who shares high quality content, so encourage colleagues who are involved in the area as well.
Finally, remember that every time you share an article, there’s a chance that your articles will get reshared. Be strategic! Most people tend to use Twitter and Facebook outside of business hours, and LinkedIn while at work. Think about how and when your audience uses social media for the most successful sharing strategy.
Article views via the Widget
Make sure that you’re using our widget! The widget is an optional piece of code that helps us monitor audience reading data. It can show up as a tasteful badge indicating you as a featured author, or as an invisible piece of code. It’s easy to install our widget on any website hosting platform. For instructions on how to install our widget, click here: Installing a Widget
Other tips
Now that you know how your article’s score is determined, here are some other tips that will help you set your future content up for success on our site.
Blogger Dashboard
First, are you using the Blogger Dashboard to track your progress, or are you using an internal or third-party tool to track engagement? Google Analytics can help track traffic source types. Clicks from the website will count as referral traffic, and clicks from our newsletter will be coming from emails, and thus will count as direct traffic.
Make sure you’re using our Blogger Dashboard. With the Blogger Dashboard, you can receive notifications when your post is doing well to remove the guesswork. Tip: When you see a post is trending and ranked high on the day that it was published, it’s a good idea to promote it even more so it has a chance to end up in our weekly, monthly, and even yearly newsletters. For more help with using the Blogger Dashboard, click here: Using the Blogger Dashboard
Share relevant thought leadership
If you publish a ton of blog posts and not all of them are on topic for the site, make use of a categorized RSS feed so your top relevant thought leadership is getting shared.
What is on-topic thought leadership? Here are types of blog posts that do not fall under this category:
- Press releases
- News
- Product announcements
- Posts not written in English
- Off-topic material that’s overly personal, or focused on a different area (e.g., a blog post about marketing on an HR-focused site)
Make sure your articles are of high quality. As we source from all sorts of top thought leaders across a given industry, competition is high on our sites. You’ll need to make sure your articles are well written to give them a chance to do well.
Let’s be clear: What makes an article well written, giving it a chance to do well?
- It is insightful, and/or it provides actionable insights that are not just advertisements for your product
- It goes beyond a statement of facts
- It’s not a round-up of other links
- It is more than two to three paragraphs long
- It has proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation
Nominate your articles for the MVP Awards
On certain sites, we host annual awards that honor the Most Valuable Posts of the year. Currently, these sites are:
- Business Innovation Brief / Nomination form
- B2B Marketing Zone / Nomination form
- Customer Contact Central / Nomination form
- Customer Experience Update / Nomination form
- eLearning Learning / Nomination form
- Human Resources Today / Nomination form
- Product Management Today / Nomination form
- Project Management Update / Nomination form
- Recruiting Brief / Nomination form
- Sales Pro Central / Nomination form
- Supply Chain Brief / Nomination form
At the end of the year, we announce Most Valuable Posts across several categories. As a blogger, you can nominate your best articles to have a chance at winning an award. This is a chance to give your best articles an end-of-the-year traffic boost!