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How to Use Content to Supercharge Your Traffic and Convert Your Shoppers into Buyers
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JULY 2017
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Are you publishing unique and valuable content regularly, without seeing any boosts in traffic and sales? A few years ago, it would have been impossible. Now, everyone’s doing content marketing, so you need to stand out from the crowd if you want to see some results.
How do you do that? First, take a deep breath. Then, conduct a content audit on your own website. Do your posts qualify as compounding or decaying? Compounding posts are great at driving traffic to your website, and they have long-term effects.
However, gaining website visitors is not enough to guarantee your profitability and success. You need to convince those visitors to return, share and link to your posts, and, more important, you need to convert them into customers.
There are many different ways to accomplish this, but let’s focus on content. No, you won’t need three different content strategies or a three times bigger budget! You only need to pursue all these three goals with every post you write.
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How to Boost, Maintain, and Convert Your Website Traffic with Content
As mentioned above, compounding posts are the best way to supercharge your website traffic. Therefore, you need to cover evergreen topics, and provide useful information and long-term effective advice. This way, your posts will not become outdated.
To convince visitors to linger and return to your website, you’ll need to personalize those compounding posts. This involves getting to know your audience, and using data and technology to provide what they need and look for. It means going into details and providing meaningful information that will help your audience and prove your expertise in the field.
It goes without saying that personalized compounding posts are long, well structured, and backed by actual, verifiable data. However, most visitors don’t actually read content. They scan it, so you need to make your content attractive and useful to them as well. We’ll discuss how in the following lines, so stay tuned!
By now, you already know what it takes to attract visitors and convince them to read your content, recommend it to their peers, and return to your website. If you want some money in your pocket, you still need to convince them to buy from you.
The buying decision is the most complex process of all, as it is the result of several other factors besides content, like product or service presentation, price, guarantees, and reputation. Assuming you have all the rest, your content needs to provide value, earn your audience’s trust, and guide your audience to the buying decision through compelling arguments and irresistible calls to action.
We know, it seems a little difficult at first sight. That’s why we’ve put together a list of rules for writing engaging, authoritative, and convincing content.
5 Rules for Creating Content That Supercharges Traffic and Converts Shoppers into Buyers
If you want your content to attract a bigger audience and a higher sales volume, you need to make sure it follows the next 5 rules:
Write a Killer Headline – Headlines that are 6-13 words long, contain colons or hyphens, odd numbers, and end with question marks draw the most attention, especially when they include words like “free,” “now”, “new”, “ultimate,” etc. Obviously, the headlines should let readers know what the posts are about. If they are misleading, readers will be disappointed and will not return.
Write an Intriguing Introduction – If a good headline can attract readers, a good introduction will stir their curiosity and convince them to keep reading. It should be short and emphasize how the post will benefit its readers.
Add Visuals – They draw attention, they help break up long content pieces, and they make content easier to scan and likelier to be shared or linked to. You can use graphics, charts, screenshots, infographics, videos, or slideshows. It is best to create your own, but if you borrow them, don’t forget to choose authority sources and give them credit for their work.
Make Your Text Easy to Scan and Read – The secret is to write short sentences, in the active voice, and build short paragraphs (3-5 lines). Numbers and bullets lists are of great help, and so are subheads.
End with an Irresistible CTA – It should tell readers what you want them to do and what’s in it for them, in a short but memorable phrase. It should make readers feel they are receiving a unique opportunity, and create a sense of urgency, with words like: “unique,” “instant,” “only,” “now”, etc.
Assess the Success of Your Efforts and Learn from Your Mistakes
Although the above tips and strategies have been tried and proven, you may not be able to obtain the excellent results you are looking for with the first posts. It doesn’t mean the recipe is wrong, it just means you are not following it to the letter, or you may be using the wrong ingredients.
The best way to figure out what you did wrong is to monitor the performance of your posts, ask for feedback, and use it to improve your strategy. Try creating more posts similar to those that drove more traffic and received more reactions, and rethinking posts that didn’t live up to your expectations. Let us know how it goes, and don’t hesitate to ask for help when you need it!
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Want to learn more how to leverage your online content for better results? Our newest eBook has the answers. Learn how to become a content superhero with just a few smart tricks from this imaginative collection of content marketing tips. Order one content piece today and get the eBook for free.
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_divider color=”#cc4315″ show_divider=”on” divider_style=”groove” divider_position=”top” hide_on_mobile=”on” /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”Blog post main Section” fullwidth=”off” specialty=”off” transparent_background=”off” background_color=”FDF3E7″ allow_player_pause=”off” inner_shadow=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” padding_mobile=”off” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” make_equal=”off” use_custom_gutter=”off”][et_pb_row make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”off” padding_mobile=”off” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_2=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_image src=”https://iriscontent.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/annie-smmmII.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”off” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” sticky=”off” align=”right” force_fullwidth=”off” always_center_on_mobile=”on” border_style=”solid” _builder_version=”3.0.58″ /][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_team_member name=”Annie Ianko” position=”Chief Content Officer” animation=”off” background_layout=”light” facebook_url=”https://www.facebook.com/IrisWebContent/” twitter_url=”https://twitter.com/Iris_Content” border_style=”solid” custom_css_main_element=”box-shadow: 0 0 20px rgba(0,0,0,.1);||” _builder_version=”3.0.58″]
Annie has 20 years of experience as an editor and content creator and manager. With work in television and written media, she has dedicated her past 10 years to learning the ropes of online content creation, from writing to editing, from SEO to content management.
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