In its traditional form a blog is considered as an online platform generally maintained by individuals who provides regular updated entries of commentary or news regarding a particular subject or event
A blog is a well arranged combination of text, images, videos, audios, and links to other blogs related to the topic. As blogs evolved into business ventures some of them started allowing users to seamlessly follow the blog through different means and even embed it into their social networks and innovative concepts like micro-blogging through mobiles also came into prominence. This has led to the need of effective techniques for tracking the performance of a blog and invariably KPIs have come across as a preferred choice.
KPIs in Web Blog can be classified under four key areas- Reliability and Serviceability Perspective, Usability Perspective, Growth Perspective and Customer Engagement Perspective. Reliability and Serviceability Perspective caters to KPIs like uptime, % improvement in bandwidth, complaint response time, etc. Usability Perspective includes KPIs such as ease of usage, average page load time, number of interactive tools offered and number of presentation tools provided. KPIs like % rise in unique visitors, new to returning visitors ratio, etc. are included in Growth Perspective. Customer Engagement Perspective takes into account KPIs such as pageviews per visit, average time spent per visitor, % rise in number of visits per day, etc.
Popularity of a blog is basically associated with two measures; one is popularity through citations, and secondly through affiliation or blogrolls. Blog owners also prefer the method of developing permalinks as they believe that it can boost the popularity of the blog more quickly than other available methods.
The success or failure of a blog platform often depends upon the reliability and serviceability provided by the blog owner, apart from the quality and uniqueness of topics discussed in the blog. Blog owner have to combat with a number of challenges effectively for making the blog platform successful. They are required to keep the blog uptime to ensure that bloggers can make use of the blog anytime they need. A sufficient level of bandwidth needs to be offered to each user so they can operate smoothly without any delays.
A high level of bounce rate is often considered a dangerous sign for the blog owners, as it indicates the number of people that are unimpressed with their content or presentation. So the owner is required to make necessary changes on the blog to make it more attractive for the visitors. Ease of usability of blog is another important consideration which persuades a blogger to visit a site again and again. A highly complex functionality of a blog can become a big impediment in path of its success. Use of interactive communication and presentation tools on the blog can enhance it usability and popularity among the bloggers.
To sum up, blog owners are required to make necessary adjustments in the blog platform time to time as they experience a change in the requirements of their visitors. Blog owners with the help of KPIs can keep an eye on the functionality and current trends related to their blog, and can easily locate those areas that seriously need some attention.