Imagine you’ve spent a load of time writing content for your website. It’s all optimised. It’s entertaining. It’s ranking in search. Even better, it’s bringing traffic to your site. But. There’s a problem. You’ve noticed that traffic isn’t turning into customers. It’s not converting. This is what happens when you go down the path of
Imagine you’ve spent a load of time writing content for your website.
It’s all optimised. It’s entertaining. It’s ranking in search. Even better, it’s bringing traffic to your site.
But.
There’s a problem.
You’ve noticed that traffic isn’t turning into customers. It’s not converting.
This is what happens when you go down the path of writing SEO content just to get traffic.
Admittedly, it’s what SEO used to be about. But not anymore. If your SEO content isn’t moving customers down the buyer journey, taking them towards a sale, then it’s all a bit pointless.
So, here’s how you can write SEO content that converts.
Everything you write for your website should have the same goal.
Attract leads and move them towards a purchase.
Whether that’s catching them early in the buyer journey with informational content that helps them identify or solve a problem.
Or at the bottom of the funnel when they’re ready to buy and looking for a specific product or service.
So the first thing to do to write SEO content that converts, is think about your customers’ pain points, and solve them.
Think about the purpose of this blog that you’re reading.
We’ve understood that your pain point is trying to write SEO content that converts, and have provided a guide to improve it.
This isn’t about going onto a keyword tool and picking a bunch of keywords that sound right.
It’s about thinking where those searches and keywords fit into the buyer journey, and if they’re relevant enough to attract customers who are looking to buy from you.
An easy example is a sportswear brand writing an article like “best running shoes”.
It sounds right, doesn’t it?
But it’s also pretty generic.
Are we talking about running shoes for men? women? kids?
What type of running are we talking about? road? trail? 5k? 10k? marathon distance?
This is the level of research your customers are doing as they move towards a purchase.
If you’re not creating this type of content, you might get the traffic early on, but you won’t get the conversions at the end of it.
You can see in this example below just how many customers are searching for a very specific type of running shoe.
This is the type of content that converts into sales, and is what you’d miss by just going for a high traffic search like “running shoes”.
This is a huge part of getting conversions from any content you create.
Search intent is about understanding what the user expects to find when they search for something.
Take the above example of running shoes.
Say you’ve nailed the specific search and have content about the best beginner running shoes.
What do you think someone is expecting to find by searching for that?
Probably a list of recommendations for running shoes that would be good for beginners to buy…along with the option to buy them.
Which is exactly what you get…
But, if you didn’t understand the search intent behind this, you might have written an article explaining the benefits of running shoes for beginners.
The article might have been well researched, helpful and interesting, but it’s not what the reader is looking for.
It was advertising great David Ogilvy who said, “5 times as many people will read the headline as will read the body copy. When you’ve written your headline, you’ve spent 80 cents of your marketing dollar.”
Writing SEO headlines is a tough job because you need to mix keywords (so Google finds and rank your content) with conversion techniques to entice a click.
There are a few tricks you can use though that are proven to work:
Buzzsumo once did a study analysing 100m headlines to see what worked best. What they found was the most clicked headlines included numbers.
Not surprising then that the two top search results in the above running shoe example, include numbers.
People like numbers and lists because they know what they’re going to get.
If you’re headline was simply “best trail running shoes” they don’t know if they’re going to get recommendations or a long article.
These are words like “best”, “affordable”, ‘bonus”, “free”.
Again, this goes some way towards matching search intent. A customer on a budget is more than likely looking for products or services below a certain cost.
Customers who aren’t particularly sure what product is right for them is going to be reassured that you’re recommending something that fits their level.
Look at the running shoe example above and again you’ll see that most of the results say they’re recommending the best running shoes for beginners.
Don’t try and make your headline all things to all people.
Customers looking online usually have a specific thing they’re trying to do, or problem they’re trying to solve.
So, be specific with your headline. Tell the reader exactly what they’re going to find on the other end of their click, and stick to one problem at a time.
Content isn’t just about giving people information.
Sure, your content can be technically correct and highly informative.
But if it’s an impenetrable wall of text with no structure, no one is going to read it, never mind convert.
Avoid long, rambling intros. I get you want to set a scene, but readers want to get to the point.
So get there quickly.
Lay out what the reader can expect in the article, and move on.
You can see in this example from our blog.
We’re not spending loads of time leading into the main article.
This intro starts by challenging a preconceived idea about blogging, and then gets into the main topic.
You should also make your content easy to read.
Avoid long sentences. Keep everything short, sharp, and to the point.
This not only makes your content easier to read. It keeps the reader moving through the article.
This means there’s a higher chance they’ll get to your CTAs and take an action.
The worst thing you can do with content is try and talk to everyone.
Instead, think about your ideal customer, what problem they’re solving by reading your blog, and speak directly to them.
Use empathy to show you understand their problem and provide quick, clear answers.
There’s nothing more convincing when trying to convert someone than being able to show what you’re recommending actually works.
Customers will do all the research they want, but without proof or a recommendation, there’s always going to be potential for them to back out.
Take us for example.
The reason we’re able to confidently write about increasing conversions with SEO content, is because we’ve done it for our clients.
You can see how by reading our case studies.
There will be some people who come to your website who aren’t ready to buy.
You, for example, may not be ready to buy SEO content services.
For these readers, a softer commitment, like a free download, like an eBook or guide, can help you convert them now and then nurture them in the future when they are ready to buy.
These micro commitments are a great tool for leads in the early stages of the buyer journey that you want to keep hold of.
I think this is the most underrated part of getting conversions from SEO content.
If you want the reader to take a specific action, tell them what that action is.
Don’t leave them guessing.
Want them to download an eBook? Tell them.
Want them to get in touch? Tell them to call or email.
You should have multiple CTAs throughout your content (at least throughout the copy and at the end) asking the reader to take a specific action.
If you want to get more conversions out of your SEO content, then you definitely need to set up tracking and spend time reviewing conversion rates across your content.
This will give you scope to experiment with different content formats, lay outs and CTA types and placements to give you an idea of what is working and what isn’t.
If articles with video embeds perform better, that’s a sign you need to create more interactive content.
A certain type of CTA working better than others?
Put more of those CTAs in your content and see if that makes a difference.
Getting conversions from content is an ongoing process of experiments to figure out what your readers respond to.
We’ve got loads more content on how to do SEO for businesses that can help you tackle every problem from picking the right keywords to blogging and getting more customers from SEO.
If you’re looking for help now from a professional UK SEO agency, then feel free to get in touch and talk to one of our team today.
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