Step 3: Getting the content to convert
Once you’ve created and optimized the content and it’s generating traffic, it’s important to evaluate how the content is performing. Step 3 is often the most overlooked step of content creation. If you did steps 1 and 2 well, you’ll be driving lots of organic traffic to your site. But what good is traffic if it doesn’t complete your call to action?
I was recently working with a client who does a fantastic job of content creation. The content is very creative and popular. One post alone brought in 17,000 unique visitors from organic search this year to date!
The unfortunate reality, though, was that not one of those 17,000 visitors completed a site goal. NOT ONE.
You likely spend a lot of time and resources on content creation. And while many people may consume the content, unless you’re a content publisher by trade, your job isn’t just to create meaningful content for everyone’s reading pleasure. Your ultimate goal is to create that content for conversion.
The first step to understanding how your content is converting is to ensure you have set up trackable goals in your analytics. Once goals are set and your content starts receiving organic traffic, monitor whether this traffic is also completing goals. Quite often, I see fantastic blogs that have great organic traffic, like my client’s, but have no measurable conversions. So what can you do?
There are many great conversion rate optimization (CRO) tools available on the market today, many for a very low cost or free. Some I’ve tested include Convert Experiments, Visual Website Optimizer (VWO) and Optimizely.
Once you have a tool in place, you’ll next want to try different techniques to drive conversion. Would a banner advertising your newsletter at the end of a blog post increase newsletter signups? Would more text-based links in your content’s copy help drive traffic to conversion pages? Would adding a popover be annoying, or would it generate more leads? The sky’s the limit with options.
Then test. And test more. Try different ideas. See what moves the needle.
(If you need ideas for testing for your blog, Aaron Agius compiled a nice list of 27 ideas to start with.)
Parting thoughts
As a search engine optimizer, you’re a marketer first. That means helping your company generate leads, increasing online sales, getting more donations and so on. Your eye always has to be on conversion.
It’s not enough to simply create and optimize content; you also have to ensure that it converts. In the end, your content needs to work for you in more ways than one. You’ve made an investment in content — make it pay off to its fullest.