Blogging as a business method has been around for a while. Having a blog is good for the sales funnel and the conversions process. On the other hand, just having one is not good enough these days. The online marketplace has become very competitive and saturated. As the law of competition dictates, we have to go a step further in order to distinguish ourselves from the competition. Blogging is a part of any modern digital marketing strategy. It is a way of attracting organic traffic and increase conversions. As with most things in business, it can be optimized. In this article, we will cover the best ways to optimize your blog in terms of converting visitors to paying customers. With that, we can use these basic principles to make users sign up to our mailing lists, participate in trials, etc. Here is how to start with blog optimization.
Conversion metrics
To improve upon something, we first need to be able to measure it. “Conversion” is a very broad marketing term. Different marketing teams use this term to define different metrics of success. For greater detail, we can split it in 3 precise metrics. Firstly, there is the conversion rate. This is the percentage of visitors who convert into paying customers or newsletter subscribers. Usually, this is done upon viewing a blog, a landing page, a website, or a call to action. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the digital marketing strategy that is used to optimize a website. The main goal is to get more online visitors to make the step towards conversions. Lastly, there is the Cost per Conversion. This is a metric that describes the cost of advertising per the number of conversions. Ideally, the cost should be minimal while achieving the maximum conversion rate.
Keyword relevance
Everyone is aware of the most basic SEO practices. These apply to blogs as well. Keywords in blogs can be set in a way to target different customer lifecycles. These are generally split into three parts. There are top, middle and bottom funnels. We want to create blog posts that target all of our various offers. But also, we want to cover all the targeted demographics. The so-called top-funnel is aiming to reel in a wider audience. These are used to generate leads and traffic. Mid-funnels we use to provide more value in our blogs. These posts go into more details on how products and services that your offer perform. Touch upon how they solve problems offer different features, etc. The bottom-funnels are the most sales-focused ones. These are aimed at visitors who are all but ready to convert. Utilize these in a strategic manner.
Refurbish old content
Old content can provide us with a great effort-to-value ratio. Most of the blog posts posted today are derived from old blogs. Old content had a lot of time to go through the search engine algorithms. This means it developed a good standing with the SEO standards. But also, it means it can do even better by having a makeover. The point is to try and get value and longevity out of these older posts. Repurpose and republish them with minimal effort in order to bring traffic to the blog site. Repurposing is used to take established blogs and turn them into relevant, related content. Republishing a blog refreshes old to contend with up-to-date information. This is most obvious with annual blog posts. These have a certain time period related information. We can use this template and update the post with the most up to date information.
Having a Call to Action
A CTA is used in our blog posts to increase conversion. Including a CTA will be unique for every blog. There is no easy to follow template that will fit everyone’s needs. The best solution can be found in each article itself. Some posts will include CTAs in the first paragraph. While others will leave in at the bottom. One of the very few commonalities is that we have to build up to a CTA using the entire body of the article. It needs to look like the next natural step. Obvious sales pitches do not come across well. Our blogs need to get visitors interested and to provide a hook. We can do this by providing plenty of value in our posts. Basically, offer valuable information for free. Within this information, we need to plug our own offering as a natural evolution of the subject matter.
Target a specific audience
It may seem counterintuitive to narrow down the audience we are trying to target. Wouldn’t we all like to have as wide a reach as possible? Not necessarily. The digital market is incredibly wast. There is an audience for every industry and every niche. Writing a blog for everyone limits the chances of it being read. The explanation for this is simple, the competition is too vast. We need to narrow down our blogs enough to target a certain niche within the industry. This way, we will limit the number of fronts we need to fight in. one we establish ourselves as the thought leaders within this niche, then we can consider expanding our field of influence. Try and write high-quality but also very specific blogs. A too small of an audience is not something that should be troubling you. With good enough content, even a small niche will prove plenty.
Specificity in landing pages
Unique visitors should not be sent to the blog’s universal homepage. This ties into our previous point. We need to create specific landing pages for each subject we encroach upon. We can create these landing pages and add them to your navigational menu bars. Most homepages have way too many elements. These are unnecessary and tend to confuse the new audience. Get rid of distractions. Present as much content as possible, but with as little as possible. The new visitors need to focus on the brand and message. If you want to create a sales-related page, make it a dedicated one. Of course, the links to this page should be obvious and frequently used in your blogs. You can begin with one landing page for your site visitors. From there, you can introduce other ones to help improve your conversion rates in the future.
Website optimization
The content we offer is the major part of our blog. But there is a lot of metadata that goes into an SEO optimized site. The main goal of any online presence is to bring in organic traffic. Other than that, it is important to appeal to search engines. The truth is, most traffic comes from the search engine results pages. We need to invest time and effort into increasing search engine rankings. Plenty of experienced SEO companies in Sydney deal with such endeavours. We need SEO. It focuses on increasing our website rankings and bumps us up in the search results pages. The higher we are to that no. 1 spot, the greater the chances we will get a click and a visit. SEO is an art and a science as well. It takes time, though, and consideration when coming up with an effective SEO marketing strategy.
Creating easy to read content
The blog content we create needs to be easily digestible. Yes, we need to provide value and information, but do not make it too dry. If you do, people will have a difficult time getting through it. The posts need to be easy to read and skim through. Also, links towards the CTAs need to be clearly visible for all the customer that have clear intention towards conversion. Spread the information you are planning to provide all throughout your blogs. Do not pack one post and leave others dry and tasteless. Pacing is the word that best describes this principle. The goal of your posts is to get to the point relatively quickly. Online users have a very short attention span and will not linger for too long. Utilize bold texts, links, and other elements to signify the importance of certain things in your posts. Make it engaging.
Copywriting skills
Great and quality content goes a long way. That being said, there are many supporting factors that can make or break a blog. The content provided needs to entice the customers to your attractive offers. Copywriting helps us promote these offers more effectively while preserving their quality. The entire post needs to be well-paced into one fluid whole. Overtly separating the information, value, fluff, and CTAs is not desirable. It makes our efforts seem cheap and lazy. Good copywriting blends all of these elements seamlessly into a post that most people will enjoy going through
Optimizing our blogs for higher conversions may prove complicated depending on your niche and industry. It is always much easier when we know where to start. Put together all the elements that you want to incorporate and wage their value. This value should be looked at from your perspective and the perspective of the potential customer as well.