- Did our three KPIs improve year-over-year? Measure lots of things, yes, but let’s focus on three or four actionable metrics to guide our content decision-making.
- What were our most popular topics? Let’s revisit or expand on that coverage.
- Did we publish any unexpected duds? Can we learn anything from that (without overreacting)?
- What were our most popular formats and headline treatments? Let’s shift resources in that direction.
- Are our traffic sources changing? Which channels are improving fastest? What channels have the most potential for future growth? Are we earning links and shares as expected?
- Did our promotional efforts yield meaningful improvement? Did our social following grow? Is paid promotion giving us long-term growth or just short-term bumps? Is our newsletter doing what we want it to do? (Clicks aren’t the only goal, or necessarily even the right goal, depending on your audience.)
- Did our audience behaviors match usual seasonal patterns? If not, why?
- Did our audience’s device usage shift meaningfully? Some sites in 2020 saw a lot of growth in desktop visits. Does that reflect people stuck at their desk during pandemic lockdowns?
- Did our audience demographics shift meaningfully? Was that a goal, or an accident? What contributed? Do we need to do something different or stay the course?
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