The February 2015 Blog Report

This is the second in our series of monthly blog reports. (Check out January’s here.)

Most marketers do a combination of email, content, SEO and social. So while most of our readers are interested in email, we recognize learning more about content and SEO is important too. By publishing information about growing the blog, we hope to make it an even more valuable resource.

If you have questions, leave them in the comments. We love to chat marketing.

The Numbers (on the blog subdomain)

• Pageviews: 64,918 (+1.64%)
• Average time on site: 3:07 (+4.56%)
• Bounce rate: 79.60% (+3.51%)
• Organic search visits: 15,664 (+14.89%)
• New email subscribers: 799

A few other fun facts:

February is three days shorter than January but we still increased pageviews and increased organic visits by nearly 15 percent. If you compare the data from February 1 to March 3 (31 days), we actually earned 71,902 pageviews (+12.57%) and 17,595 organic search visits (+29.05%).

Here’s a look at our organic traffic growth and goals for this year.

Here’s a look at February traffic vs. January:

And here’s a look at February 2015 vs. February 2014:

New content:

• How to Bridge the Gap From Education to Activation
• How to Send a Great Shipping Confirmation Email, Courtesy of Zazzle
• How IKEA Sends Super-Targeted Promotional Emails
• The January 2015 Blog Report
• The Small Win Email: A New Way to Think About Conversions
• [AUDIO] Email Marketing Q&A with Chris Hexton
• How To Write and Send Super Effective Re-Engagement Emails
• TripAdvisor’s Unfair Email Marketing Advantage
• Email Bag: Email Marketing Questions, Answered

Top performing content:

1. 20 Tips for Dramatically Better Emails (8,556)
2. The Ultimate Lifecycle Email Marketing Guide (6,614)
3. How TripAdvisor Nails Customer Relationship Management (4,565)
4. How IKEA Sends Super-Targeted Promotional Emails (1,841)
5. The Small Win Email: A New Way to Think About Conversions (1,737)

Highlights

There’s nothing I love more than publishing something I’m really proud of. That’s why it was so fun to launch the TripAdvisor guide. Here are a few highlights of that launch:

• Trending #1 on GrowthHackers.com (and lots of good comments)
Getting shares (more than 700 of them) from lots of smart people

Incredibly detailed post @jimmy_daly. I can only pass this along to my colleagues and share on twitter, great post >> https://t.co/IJdIlKEpd6

— Danny Prol (@DannyProl) February 23, 2015

• Getting featured in the Founder Weekly, Growth Hack Weekly, ShivarWeb and ActionRocket newsletters

What Worked, What Flopped

Last month, I talked a lot about our epic posts (which are killing it). But it’s important to reflect on what didn’t work.

Here is a challenge most marketers can relate to. At Vero, we create great content a regular basis. Most new posts slow down after about 2,000 pageviews. Once a post hits our normal distribution channels – our email list, Twitter, Facebook, GrowthHackers, etc. – we have to create new channels to draw in new readers.

This is a real challenge.

As a marketer, you have to decide where to invest your time. Should you spend more time promoting existing content or write something new? It’s a question I’m constantly asking myself.

This month, we did a great job getting new content out there but we didn’t create any new distribution channels. That something I’m focusing on in March.

On Tap for Next Month

I just got back from SMX West and learned a few keys things we’re going to tackle in March and April.

1. Mobile. Our site has never been very friendly on mobile devices. We’ve already made real progress and we’ll continue to make the mobile experience a great one. (On April 21, Google is releasing an algorithm update that will favor mobile-friendly sites.)
2. Links. Like most sites, we get a lot of links from spammy sites. We don’t do any black hat SEO, it’s just a side effect of publishing a lot of content. We’ve never disavowed bad links and we plan to tackle that as soon as possible.
3. Product updates. If you’ve never used Vero before, you’re missing out. It’s a robust email tool and we plan to start posting product updates on the blog. The goal isn’t to brag about the product, rather to inspire you to use the tools at your disposal to send the best emails you can.

Have any questions? Feel free to drop them in the comments.