We all know that content is king – it’s not exactly a new concept within the world of digital marketing. However, these days content writing is more relevant and important than it ever has been before. Take some of the best digital agencies in the world for instance; they’re all pushing their content writing services to the forefront of their marketing strategies as it’s a great method to increase conversion rates – Red Bull are a great example of this.
If you want to follow suit and create conversion orientated content then follow our top tips:
What’s the point?
People today are busy. We hate to break it to you but most people probably don’t have time to sit and read a 700+ word blog post which rambles on. Therefore, you should try to give away the point/purpose of the article within the first sentence. This will draw the reader in and ensure they understand exactly what they’re getting out of the post. You only have a few seconds to grab the reader’s attention so you might as well make the most of it!
Time to power up
It’s time to power up your language – cut down on the waffle. Utilising directive, power words to convey your points will make the copy more interesting and compelling to the reader. Plus by using this type of language the reader will understand exactly what they’re supposed to do next without any confusion (it’s download more content by the way).
Hit the headlines
This time, you can hit the headlines for all the right reasons by utilising them within your conversion orientated content. Creating clear, value proposition headlines will help you understand the value of your content and grab your reader’s attention immediately. This is especially important when people are five times more likely read the headline than the body of the text. Making use of headlines will also help to increase your conversion rate as they too grab the attention of search engines improving keyword rankings.
Photos aren’t just pretty
Photos really are worth a thousand words in the world of digital marketing and they should be utilised within your conversion orientated content. Not only do they vary your visual content and help you get your points across in an alternative way but they improve readability and visual communication with your reader. Get creative with your visual content and make use of:
- Flowcharts
- Photos
- Slideshares
- Infographics
It’s not just all about you
Although it seems hard to believe that a piece of content that you’ve written isn’t all about you, you should try to shift the focus to the reader as often as you can. Try opening the floor of the article to questions for your reader in your content writing. This will keep the reader engaged and give you questions to answer to form part of your content marketing strategy. Plus people are more inclined to read articles that offer advice and guidance to their problems – encouraging conversion. Once you start to think about solving the customer's problem, the ideas will start flowing!
Be the reader’s friend
Try to be a good friend to the reader and optimise their user experience with your conversion orientated content the absolute best it can be. This won’t just make their life easier but it will encourage them to read the entire piece of content you’re offering – and if they like what they see they’re more likely to want to see more. Try and include the following optimisation techniques in your content marketing:
- Bullet points
- Numbers
- Images
- Headers
- Different fonts
- Bolding
- Italics
These are all simple tricks that improve content readability and the end user experience.
Keep it simple silly!
Jargon: something which should be carefully considered when content writing. We’ve all been bombarded with sales and marketing jargon which has made us only want to do one thing. Click the red cross of the internet browser. AKA conversion suicide.
But you can put a stop to this by keeping your content marketing simple and streamlined. Recent studies conducted by Stanford University found that people are more likely to prefer and trust language that is simple therefore, cut down on the jargon you’re using in your content marketing. And if you absolutely have to use industry related words then make them a rarity – or else your prospect will exit pretty sharpish.
We hope that you’ve found this useful to your content writing strategy in improving your conversion rates. However, if you still feel like learning some more then why not download our 5 step plan to generating leads from content marketing?
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