Pageviews are the most commonly reported content metric and one of the least useful. A page can receive a million views and produce zero business outcomes. The problem with vanity metrics — pageviews, social shares, follower counts — is that they are easy to measure and feel like progress, but are not connected to outcomes.
What content is supposed to produce
Before you can measure content performance, define what the content is supposed to produce. For a professional services firm, it might be qualified inquiries. For a SaaS product, trial signups. The measurement framework follows from the goal.
Engagement metrics that matter
Time on page and scroll depth are useful signals of whether content is being read. Return visits signal whether content is building a relationship with readers. A reader who returns multiple times is more likely to convert than one who visits once.
The attribution problem
Content attribution is genuinely difficult. Use a combination of direct conversion tracking, assisted conversion tracking, and qualitative data — asking customers how they found you — to fill in the gaps.