How To Optimise Your Content For Conversion

Sarah Jordan

Read Time: 3 minutes

Promoting your content is good for driving traffic, but how do you capitalise upon all these extra visitors to your site?

Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) is the process of enhancing your content for conversion. In other words, encouraging users to take a specific, measurable action in-line with your business goals. This may be newsletter sign-ups, online sales or free trial downloads. There are 5 key steps to CRO that are quick and easy to implement.

 

1. Hooks And Grammar

You sent a tweet about your latest blog post and got somebody to click through to your website – well done! Now like the proverbial first 3 seconds of a job interview, you have about the same amount of time to encourage your visitor to keep reading. An attention grabbing hook is the only thing that is going to spark your visitor’s interest.

However one good hook does not a great article make. You need to make sure each sentence encourages your visitor to keep reading and not fall asleep, or worse, click away!

The other vital component that will immediately turn off your visitor is bad grammar. There’s no excuse. English not your strong suit? Add Grammarly to your Chrome extensions if you really find it tricky. Heck, add it to your Chrome extensions even if you are a true grammar nut.

Read More: 5 Essential Steps To Copywriting Success

 

2. Aesthetics And Readability

Your words are now top notch and ready to grab attention, but your page has got to look nice and be easily readable too. This means ensuring your sentences and paragraphs are short, your language is easy to understand (not full of jargon – says the content marketer…). Check that there’s ample space between your paragraphs, your page flows well and your text columns are narrow enough to scan comfortably (if you have to move your head to read a line, it’s too wide!).

 

3. UX And Usability

You have your cracking copy and it looks great too, now you need to make sure your content is easy to engage with from a technical perspective. Be sure that links are working and navigation is simple. To please your visitors (and Google) ensure that your website is mobile responsive and that your web page is clean, simple and not distracting (Google will now penalise websites for using excessive on-page distractions such as lightboxes and ads).

 

4. Link Building

Our CRO focus up until this point has been primarily about the ‘housekeeping’ of good content. The nitty gritty tricks that should directly impact your conversion rate are links and calls-to-action (CTAs). Internally, you should link to any products or other web pages that are relevant to your content. Externally, you should try to build reciprocal link relationships with any suppliers/partners/third parties that you mention and are relevant to your content. Building links helps to improve your website’s domain authority and thus its organic visibility.

 

5. Calls-To-Action

Finally, the key ingredient to any recipe for CRO success is the use of clear CTAs. These are the (subtle) flashing neon signs telling your visitors exactly what you want them to do. Think about these carefully. Not enough CTAs – your user is likely to bounce (giving your content a disproportionately high bounce rate). Too many different CTAs – your user will be completely perplexed and probably bounce too.

What are your specific goals and how can your CTAs aid these? Are you trying to drive sales? Direct your user to a specific product. Are you trying to boost data capture? Incentivise your user for newsletter sign up. Are you trying to increase downloads of your free trial? Include an obvious CTA that directly states this. From a design perspective, a CTA should be a clear button in an obvious colour that stands out from the rest of the page and screams, “Shop Now,” “Browse Collection,” or “Buy Today.”

Read More: How To Get Your Content Noticed Online


Written By: Sarah Jordan

Written By: Sarah Jordan

Sarah Jordan is the founder and director of The William Agency. She specialises in brand storytelling and branded content marketing. Sarah is highly regarded in the UK and international diamond jewellery sector as a specialist in luxury copywriting.

MORE INSIGHTS

The SEO Checklist You Need to Follow
The SEO Checklist You Need to Follow

Although there isn’t an exact recipe that ensures being prioritised by Google, a lot can be done to improve your ranking. As the SEO game is always changing, it is important to keep-up with the SEO experts on new ways to optimise your search engine results. If you are...

How to Convert Traffic to Sales
How to Convert Traffic to Sales

Capturing an audience and driving them to your website is great, but are you doing enough to convert traffic into sales? You have a nice website, you've implemented SEO and figured out the type of Google and social ads that speak to your target audience. You are...

Where to Find Content Inspiration
Where to Find Content Inspiration

As you become more consistent with publishing content, you might struggle to find content inspiration that continues to engage your audience. Do you find yourself completely out of ideas when it is time to fill in your content calendar? Do you feel that your content...

New Content Types to Add to Your Website
New Content Types to Add to Your Website

Diversifying the content types on your website will help engage your audience in different ways and will help increase conversion rates. Content marketing is one of the most powerful tools in the digital age. You can share your knowledge and insight with your readers...

Branded Copywriting: Finding Your Brand’s Unique Voice
Branded Copywriting: Finding Your Brand’s Unique Voice

Whether your business is well established or you’re just getting started, it is never too late to define your brand's voice. Having a voice will give your brand personality. It will also help your target audience relate and connect to your brand on an emotional level....

How to Perfect the Customer Journey Online
How to Perfect the Customer Journey Online

Creating an effective customer journey online involves researching your customer, mapping out their journey and planning a strategy around that. Ever wondered why your customers are leaving your website after spending a long time on a specific page? Or why you have a...

0 Comments

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This