If you manage an editorial team, then you are faced with the need to measure the performance of your web editors. The use of performance indicators for a web editor can be the solution.
Number of articles
The first key performance indicator for a web editor that naturally comes to mind is the amount of articles he or she is able to produce over a set period of time.
For example : average number of articles published during the last 10 days worked.
I think it is an essential KPI because it will push your employee to be productive.
However, the biases of this key performance indicator are as follows :
- The writer may be tempted to rush the content of the article to increase the number of articles produced more quickly
- The writer could voluntarily reduce the number of words per article (which is similar to the previous point)
- The writer could only deal with « easy » and superficial topics
- The writer could limit his or her search for information, resulting in a less reliable and low-value article
Average number of words per article
To facilitate the calculation of this performance indicator for the web editor, this average number can be calculated over the last 20 articles produced, for example.
This KPI compensates for a bias in the previous indicator. The web editor will no longer be tempted to write articles that are too short.
However, the obvious bias in the average number of words per article is that the employee could be pushed to add « hollow » words with no added value to the text. For example, an abuse of the use of expressions such as :
- « But again »
- « In my humble opinion »
- « In this case »
- « This is a very important point. »
- etc.
The abusive addition of « hollow » words reduces the relevance, quality and originality of the text. In addition, it brings a heavy style that will discourage the reading of the article…
Average number of words published
A variant, or rather a kind of synthesis of the two previous indicators, can be the average number of words published over a given period.
The advantage of such an indicator is that it allows the writer to publish long articles that would take several days to write without being penalized for his or her objectives.
The articles can therefore be more in-depth and better documented.
Variation in the number of visits to the site
I really like this performance indicator because it allows the writer to understand the value of writing interesting and optimized articles for the web. The employee has a better understanding of the results of his or her work within the company.
However, this indicator is not only influenced by the work of the writer, but also by :
- by the webmaster for the quality of the source code and the ergonomics of the website
- by the webdesigner for the aesthetic appeal of the site
- by servers for speed of display and availability
- by reference persons
This indicator makes it possible to give a common goal to an entire team working on the same website.
We could also consider the other indicators specific to websites :
- bounce rate
- time spent on the site
- percentage of recurring visitors
- number of pages viewed per visit
- etc.
My personal selection of performance indicators for web editors
A good selection of performance indicators for web editors begins by choosing only a limited number of them.
I personally opted for the combination of the following three indicators in order of importance :
- average number of words published over the last 10 days worked
- average number of articles published over the last 10 days worked
- change in the number of visits in the last 30 days compared to the previous period
Of course, depending on your own objectives, it will be more appropriate to choose another combination of key performance indicators.
See also this article : Examples of performance indicators, the most complete list on the web and the list of video editing software.
