A simple concepts, and a bit of review… Chances are, you’ve placed some content on your web site or blog and made it available for your users to download. If that is the case, I’m guessing you believe your content to be useful to your audience (and it probably is).
Wouldn’t it be helpful to know exactly how many times your content is, in fact, downloaded? Here is the simple code to install on your site (assuming you are using Google Analytics) to track the each download event of each file:
onClick=”javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/downloads/_custom‘); ”
This code is placed inside the href tag and after the link file name. The portion noted in red above ‘custom’ is your way of differentiating between types of content you may offer up on your site for more granular tracking. (eg. white_papers, case_studies, etc.)
So a completed link might look like this:
<a href=”http://www.yourwebsite.com” onClick=”javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/downloads/white_paper’); “>
Things to think about if your download counts are low:
- Is the document download link strategically placed on the page or hidden within the content?
- Is the document link labeled appropriately (might consider a call-out)
- Is the actual landing page where the download is offered well structured and search optimized?
- Is the landing page buried several clicks deep on your site?
These are some areas for trial and error to improve visibility of your downloadable content. Try to modify one of all of the above to improve exposure to your content.
Our web content should serve a purpose for our audience – that being said, we need to know how it’s performing.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I like the new look to your blog. It is a great uplifting change. Thanks for the clear directions – which I always need – in this post. I had done this a year ago and completely forgot how to do it. Thanks. I going to go add some serious tracking to some of my sites.