One Google Analytics Metric That Will Measure Your Blog’s User Engagement (And It’s An Easy one!)
Have you ever picked up a book that you can’t put down?
What is it about ‘THAT’ book that keeps your mind engaged and eager to turn each page to reach the next chapter?
These are questions that you should also be asking yourself when it comes to your blog.
What is it exactly that entices readers back to your space on the internet?
If you can figure this out and ‘crack the code’ (so to speak) then you could unlock a potential loyal readership. Which, in turn will of course lead to new visitors turning into faithful followers too.
What Factors Affect User Engagement?
To be honest. There are many factors that will influence how ‘engaged’ visitors of your site are, including how they reached your blog in the first place. If they have an interest in what you are writing about. If they actually like your style (from clothes to your writing), your imagery, words and much more!
All of the above is of course, dependant on the individual. Which, makes the whole calculation a bit tricky.
One key is to share your content with the right people at the right time, in the right place. So perhaps, you will find this social media article I wrote helpful too:
The Best Free Tools For Scheduling Social Media Posts
One EASY Google Analytics Metric To Monitor User Engagement
When you are in your Google Analytic’s dashboard, there are a plethora of tools and metrics you can use to monitor user engagement. From pageviews, page specific views (which content is performing the best?) to time spent on your site, bounce rate and more.
Although all of the above measure how ‘engaged’ visitors to your site are. Visitors may have been mislead into clicking through to your site in the first place. Without actually knowing what you write about. So I don’t always see these tools as being the most effective ways to measure user engagement.
Personally, if I am going to look to one metric to monitor user engagement on my blog, it is the ‘New Vs Returning’ visitor tab. I mean, if people are ‘engaged’ with your content they will of course come back for more. Right?
Would you return to a book you didn’t enjoy reading?
Going back to the simile of picking up a book: if you don’t enjoy the first chapter and are not bothered about what happens next. Chances are, you won’t pick up that book again to finish reading it.
THE SAME CAN BE SAID FOR YOUR BLOG.
If you are not getting ‘return’ visitors, the likely chances are that they did not enjoy your content or find it engaging enough to return for more. Harsh I know, but it is a part of the unfortunate reality of putting yourself out there online. Plus the fact that not everyone is everyone else’s cup of tea.
But fear not, your target audience is out there somewhere. You just have to find / reach them!
(Hand up who wants a tips post on the above?)
What is A Good Return Vs New Visitor Rate?
Now, we move onto a 
tricky question. Again, an answer that is dependant on a number of other factors. Don’t we love the world of SEO!
The returning visitor rate on a website or blog will depend on the niche and area of the site. For example, if your target audience is people making a high price purchase, such as a car (which you don’t buy everyday) a good return visitor rate would be a lot less than a website publishing articles everyday on how to improve your lifestyle.
For the sake of discussing fashion / beauty / lifestyle / home / mommy blogs. Who are producing content at least twice per week. I would say that a good ‘return’ visitor mark would start around the 20% mark. Of course more is good, but perhaps return visitors above 70% could be seen as a bad thing, as it means that not many new people are discovering your site.
So, a happy medium of 20-50% returning visitors Vs 50-80% new visitors would be your best bet.
How ‘Engaged’ Is Your Audience?
There you have it! My simple tip for an easy way to monitor your user engagement. Why don’t you go and log into your Google Analytic’s dashboard now and see how ‘engaged’ your audience is?
I know all too well that Google Analytics can be a bit daunting to begin with. So I hope today’s tips post has been useful for you and that you will now easily be able to check how ‘engaged’ your audience is and monitor how this changes over time, especially when you are putting different types of content out there.
