Optimizing blog conversion rates is one of the main content marketing goals. However, you can’t get to that unless you unify and align your strategy with the best practices.
There are different types of conversion, and each business needs a specific one at a given moment. That is part of a strategy in a particular context, and in this case, optimization is vital.
Those are the practices that make it possible to have your reader take some relevant action.
In this post, you will know the benefits of improving your conversion rates and learn eight ways of doing that.
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Defining Your Conversion Point
A conversion is a defined action that a customer takes that moves them further in your marketing funnel.
In digital marketing, a conversion usually refers to an action a customer takes to give you their information and become a marketing or sales lead. Some of the actions that a person could take include filling out a form to access more content or starting a trial of your solution.
When calculating your conversion rate and tracking conversions on your website, you should select one of these actions or just a few to include.
Consider what conversions are most indicative of an interested customer and will help you truly understand if they are interested in your brand. Is a newsletter signup an invested customer? Or should you track blog CTA clicks instead?
Why Care About Blog Conversion Rates?
Boosting the average conversion rate on your blog makes perfect sense, and it’s worth all the effort of your marketing team.
It’s not just a number: it indicates that you’re closer to your target audience, that you’re achieving your goals, and that you’re reaching a lot of people with your blog.
Next, you will learn the main benefits of conversion rate optimization and how the numbers generate a positive impact on a content strategy.
Is the reader engaged?
If a blog is generating more conversions, that means your reader connects with the published content. Each piece contains a call to action that leads people to decisions, which they only follow along if they consider the information valuable.
As for the conversions, if the numbers are increasing, you can interpret that as a result of good, strategic work. Therefore, it’s natural to see users utterly engaged.
The more readers are satisfied with those blog posts, the more they will convert.
Are the results aligned with the company’s goals?
Generally, a company’s marketing plan is developed according to its primary goals. Different scenarios require different purposes, like increasing sales, expanding the leads database, or simply expanding the business.
Conversions are essential for achieving those.
Not to mention that each conversion is an action. For instance, if your business aims to boost sales, each unique purchase is a conversion. That’s why your blog content must prepare the reader for the next step in the final stage of the buyer’s journey. The next step, in this case, is the purchase itself.
Are the business metrics improving?
In this Digital Transformation era, metrics are vital for leaders to have an analytical and precise vision of overall performance. Numbers are extremely valuable, and that’s why they need to be looked into very carefully.
Even though metrics demand some effort in handling them, they are essential and provide indicators worth attention.
A blog’s purpose, at any stage of the strategy, will be to drive action from the target audience. If the conversion rates vary too much, there is a problem with how the content stimulates it.
When there are more conversions, metrics improve. And that’s a concrete result, beyond merely the raising of numbers.
When Should You Worry About Conversions?
Achieving conversion on your blog is always an important goal, but there are moments, under different circumstances and strategies when it becomes even more urgent and relevant. Then, it’s time to take action.
Now, let’s dive into the different scenarios where you might need to optimize conversions.
When the sales team needs more leads
To be able to sell something, your sales team needs leads. People are more likely to buy and are interested in what your company offers can be good leads. That can bring you more conversions.
Offering useful content and creating a newsletter are some ways to drive more conversions. After all, those are key aspects for capturing information from customers, which is essential for any email marketing strategy.
When conversion rates are low
Low conversion rates must raise a red flag for your marketing team! However, a blog not driving action does not necessarily mean it’s full of bad content.
There are many things to take into account. Even the website structure and the conversion path can drive people away from your brand. The important thing to do is to try to understand the problem’s origin to fix it and work on other strategies that lead to more conversions.
When there are excellent opportunities for increasing sales
Opportunities to increase sales come at specific moments: the release of a new product, products on sale, special dates, etc.
That’s when the blog becomes a vital tool to help the reader convert. It’s crucial to leverage those moments and create content that leads people to the buying decision.
8 Best Strategies to Improve Blog Conversion Rates
Getting more conversions is not an easy task. There is no magic formula. However, if you move in more than one direction, you will undoubtedly see better results.
Next, we’re going to review the eight best practices and their effects.
1. Reduce the ads
Ads are efficient, and they inevitably generate revenue. No doubt about it. But are they really essential to your blog? Think about it: many of them cause problems with website navigation and produce visual noise.
Don’t forget that the user experience, while reading your blog, is a key aspect of optimizing conversions. When readers go to a blog page that is stuffed full of annoying ads and pop-ups, they are likely going to bounce from the page immediately.
In fact, ads aren’t as effective as you might think. Most ads have a click-through rate of about 0.1%. In short, they aren’t worth the annoyance they give to readers.
So, what you have to do is to reduce the number of ads and always prioritize the reader’s experience on the conversion path. After all, if they can’t use your website and blog easily, they will end up annoyed and unsatisfied.
Make sure to leave only the most profitable ads and place them where there’s no distraction for website visitors.
2. Work on the footer
Speaking of visual noise, there’s the footer. It’s an area that usually is always too busy and full of information, which can be distracting and non-effective.
Your website footer is the area at the bottom of your website page that contains the copyright, link menu, and other information. Some businesses try to stuff too much information in the footer.
When a footer has too much content, it becomes an eyesore rather than eye-catching.
Simplifying your footer can help you keep it clean, so the focus of your blog readers goes right to the CTA instead of anywhere else. If the footer is busy, a reader may not pay attention to your call-to-action, which means that you won’t convert that user.
So, always keep the footer clean.
3. Develop eye-catching CTAs
The way you suggest action to your reader is crucial to conversion rate optimization.
Typically, a blog CTA has a conversion rate of about 4-5%. If you aren’t hitting that, it’s time to take a second look at your CTAs. The CTA needs to stand out from the rest of the content and be easily identifiable as a link.
If it blends into the other content, it’s harder for readers to notice it. Having an image or contrasting color in your CTA can help it catch the eye of readers.
A good CTA has to be clear, engaging and precise, and needs to contain social proof. Make sure that it’s not arrogant, though, and keep your word and deliver what you’re promising.
It must be a complement that stimulates conversion, which means, must be a slight push the readers need to go and finally decide. This way you can build a good email list to engage your leads.
4. Deliver valuable content
Content marketing is a strategy that benefits both sides: on the one hand, people are eager to consume essential information for them, while on the other hand, the business creates those pieces seeking revenue.
Conversions are somewhere in the middle.
It might go without saying, but the content in your blog needs to have value for readers. If you have unengaging, unhelpful content, why would a reader take action to learn more about you? Investing in high-quality, well-written content is an important part of the optimization process for conversions.
If you can’t produce high-quality content yourself, a platform like WriterAccess can take care of the improvements for you and give you the content you need.
5. Promise some bonus offer
An excellent piece of content will leave the reader hungry for more. So, offering something else is actually a great strategy for driving more leads.
At the end of the piece, why not offer an article to complement what’s been said? Or why not offer a free trial of your product? Chances are your user will be highly interested. So, in exchange, you can demand their email address by leading them to a sign-up form.
Having a bonus offer as the CTA for your blog can help encourage people to click and explore what your business has to offer.
Try having a CTA button that leads to a free trial or a sample of a product rather than another website page or blog post. That can help intrigue readers and encourage them to take a conversion action that they would typically ignore.
6. Prefer simple and precise landing pages
The landing page (LP) is a crucial element to generate conversions on your blog since it captures data from people while making a promise. But don’t forget that the customer wants to have access to the promised content as fast as possible.
Landing pages can have a 160% higher conversion rate than other website pages, making them an essential part of your conversion strategy.
Simplifying the page and making the offer concise and clear helps you make it easy for customers to sign up. If your page is too complicated and filled with distracting visuals or information, people are more likely to bounce from the page.
Don’t make your website visitors wait, ask for their information with a straightforward approach. The LP has to present some info on the content, and the visual design needs to be attractive.
You can always use a split test (also known as A/B test) to put two or more versions of a landing page to proof and see which one generates more conversions.
7. Offer easy-to-access sign-up fields
Another way to get lead generation and conversions is by using newsletter forms. You can use them on your CTAs, at the end of articles, and on your banners. One good thing to keep in mind is that you have to make it easy to find.
This most often comes in the form of an email or newsletter sign-up. Over 90% of Americans are signed up for at least one email newsletter, so this can be a great way to start adding people to your marketing funnel.
An email sign-up is also low-commitment for web visitors. Rather than giving your detailed information like the name and phone number, they are only required to enter their email in a single field. This makes signing up easy and hassle-free.
So, what are the best practices? First, make it simple, clear, and precise. Second, you have to place it where it grabs the user’s attention.
One perfect example could be a small, eye-catching input box with: “insert your email to receive more content regularly”.
8. Go easy on CTAs on the sidebar
If used correctly, the blog’s sidebar is an important area of your site since it’s easy to get the attention of someone visiting the page. It’s powerful, and that’s why many blogs don’t make good use of it, choosing a busy combination of banners and CTAs.
That visual noise only keeps people from actually understanding the purpose of each image and text.
Just as your footers should be clean and simple, so should your blog sidebar. The sidebar will scroll down with the blog, making it a helpful place to put your email signup and other valuable information like related blogs. However, if it is too complicated, it can turn readers away.
Keep your sidebar in the same style as the rest of the page so it isn’t too distracting to people trying to read the blog. And make sure that the information you put in it is relevant, helpful, and not full of ads or other annoying features that make readers uninterested in exploring it.
Wrap-Up
Blog conversion rates are part of a marketing strategy that implies good results. Those tips can be valuable for you and your content planning, so, follow each one of them to see your rates increase significantly.
Improving your conversion rates is an essential part of making your website a lead-generation machine. Without optimizing your approach, you might struggle to get web visitors to take that next step and become part of your sales funnel.
At WriterAccess, we have a team of experienced professionals who understand the best practices for blog conversions inside and out. Our freelance marketplace helps you connect with customers on a personal level and drive more conversions. To learn more, try a 14-day free trial of WriterAccess today!
