Conversion is when a website visitor does what you want them to. A website’s conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who do what we want them to do, or, convert. Your site’s conversion rate is a very important way to measure the effectiveness of what you’re doing.

Are You Throwing Your Money Away?

If visitors don’t take actions that result in profits, you are wasting your time.

You can do all the SEO work you like, but if nothing happens when visitors show up, you did it for nothing. You can pay tons of money in advertising, and you have thrown away every penny if nobody buys anything or signs up for your newsletter. You can write comments on other blogs and work through social media to attract visitors, but if those visitors just bounce right back out of your site without doing what you want, you’re leaving money on the table.

Two Kinds of Conversion: Content and Design

I see two kinds of conversion: content-driven and design-driven.

1. Content-driven conversion is nothing more than good ol’ copywriting. By itself, it is a powerful tool.
2. Design-driven conversion has to do with where elements are placed on the screen, their size, color, and visual qualities. Did you think that “design” for blogs was only the theme or template you chose? No, my friends, it is much, much more than that. By itself, without changing a word of your copy, you can improve conversion by changing your design.

You magnify the power of both kinds of conversion by combining them together for a hard-hitting one-two punch that really gets results–results you can measure.

Conversion Goals

You can’t achieve higher conversion unless you know what you want to accomplish. Do you want visitors to make a purchase? Fill out an inquiry form? Sign up for your newsletter? Decide what your primary and secondary conversion goals are, because everything you write and your entire blog/site design should move to meet these goals.

Tips for Improving Conversion and Increasing Response Rates

• Measure and Test. Take the average number of visitors for your services or products pages and the number of clicks for links that are the result of conversion, such as a buy button or a contact form submission. Calculate the percentage of conversion clicks out of visits, and that is your conversion rate. A conversion rate doesn’t have to be for an entire site, it can be for specific pages or set of pages. After you make a change to improve conversion, test again and look for improvement.
• Learn copywriting. In spite of all the blogging “how to” advice out there on the web, the one thing you should do to dramatically improve the quality of your content (and therefore the response to it) is to learn and apply copywriting. Understanding your audience, getting inside their head, and writing persuasively to them without sounding like barking salesperson are what good web copywriting is all about. There is no better place to learn the basics than Brian Clark’s Copywriting 101 series of posts on Copyblogger.
• Make conversion links prominent. This is the number one thing you can do to experience improvements in conversion immediately. My own site is an example: clearly, I want you to check out my free ebook, investigate my services, and visit Gateway Blogging. Those boxes are in your face. And they work wonders. A link that is buried in the overall design will not stand out and it will not get clicked. When I redesigned the Cosmetic Dentistry Guide, conversion rates shot up 200% for blog and forum visits.
• Place conversion links above the fold. Above the “fold” is a phrase borrowed from newspapers: the main headline and part of the picture were always above the fold in the paper. You’d get sucked in by the headline and want to see the other half below the fold. On a computer screen, above the fold is what you see without scrolling down. Visitors are more likely to see–and therefore click–on prominent links above the fold.
• Clearly communicate the benefit of clicking the link. Write in clear, simple terms what the visitor is rewarded with if they click on the link. My link to my services above invites you to learn more, and the page which follows delivers on that promise. For the cosmetic dentists’ site, visitors are invited to discuss cosmetic dentistry issues in the forums. Simple!

Where Conversion Fits into the Big Picture

There are four general stages a blog visitor who converts will go through:

1. Finding and getting to your site (usually via search, which is why you should learn SEO)
2. Pre-conversion investigation/research (for blogs, this often means subscribing, a secondary conversion goal)
3. Conversion
4. Post-conversion/follow-through (once a visitor has converted on something, it’s easier for them to do it again, but it’s also easy for you to lose them)

If you found this post useful, consider subscribing for free to get updates when new posts are published.

If you want professional help improving conversion for your blog, contact me for a free phone chat to tell me what your goals are and we’ll see what I can do to help your blog succeed.

Guest Blogger Week continues here on Remarkablogger, with Lidija aka Lid of BlogWell.

Good marketing, regardless of the vehicle that is used to push it out, is all about effective communications.

One of my favorite books is Ogilvy on Advertising (1983) by David Ogilvy. In it, he points out that in 1983 he was still using many of the same techniques he used in 1963, even though the world had undergone a major change – television.

Today, we can add Internet as the second major media change. Although we’ve moved forward another 25 years, the fundamental principles still apply today; getting your message out is only half of it, it also must be understood.

In this post, I’ll take three of Ogilvy’s copywriting principles, headlines, images and copy, and show you how to apply them to your business blog.

Headlines:

“On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 per cent of your money.”

Unless your headline catches the attention of your readers, you’ve wasted 90 per cent of your time writing the text – readers won’t get to see it. Spend some time crafting the perfect heading if you want readers to continue.

Promise your readers a benefit

Grab a magazine (any popular magazine in your niche), and count the number of times the headline offers a benefit of some type. Does your product or service offer your readers more time to spend with their kids? Does it offer a better way to save money? Does it help them determine the best retirement plan? What about helping them lose weight?

Every business offers something; if yours doesn’t you should be rethinking your business strategy. Offer your readers something that will benefit them.

Teach

Regardless of whether you are showing your readers how to use a product better, or showing them a new way to use an old product, make sure you include it in your headline. Remember, show, don’t tell. ‘How to’ and ‘what is’ types of posts are the most effective.

From .net magazine December 2007:

• Create a Flash site that plays MP3s
• Spell check your site with PHP
• Secure your site
• The hottest Firefox dev tools

Offer News

News sells. Take a look at Reuters, Associated Press, CNN, ABC. If you have news to share, don’t make readers wait until the blog post, tell them about it up front and center in your headline. Released a new product or service? Share it with your readers. Found a soap that stops your 8yo from breaking out in a rash? Share it with your readers. Developed a new addon for Twitter? Let your readers know about it quickly by writing a great headline.

Know Your Demographic

If your brand or product is tailored to a specific group of people, include a couple of words in your headline to grab their attention, like 25 year olds, marketers, moms, developers.

Be Specific

While many people advocate writing tricky headlines – double meanings, play on words, etc – try to avoid them in business blogging. You are competing with millions of other bloggers, and readers want information quickly. If they have to try and work out what the headline is, or what it is supposed to mean, they’re more likely to go elsewhere.

Avoid Blind Headlines

Headlines that don’t say what the product/brand or benefit is, are labeled blind. By using your brand name in your headline, you are also pointing it out to the search engines, and this is important if you want to rank well. Search folk call these key words.

Images

“A picture, they say, can be worth a thousand words”

Use of imagery is extremely important – if the picture is remarkable. What was true 25 years ago, still applies today:

• Don’t use images for the sake of having an image
• The best images are those which pique curiosity
• If you have before and after shots, always use the after
• Images of most interest to readers – babies, animals, sex
• When the copy is aimed at women, use a picture of a woman. When the copy is aimed at men, use a picture of a man – or – a sexy woman

Copy

“Nobody reads body copy. True of False? It depends on two things. First, on how many people are interested in the kind of product you are advertising; a lot of women will read copy about food products, but few will read copy about cigars. Second, on how many people have been enticed into your ad by your illustration and headline.”

If you have written an attention grabbing headline, and used images that pique curiosity, you should be fairly safe in expecting your visitor to continue reading. Don’t get complacent though, now you need to lead your visitor through your copy in a formulaic fashion, enticing, encouraging and holding their hand through to the end.

Write to each individual reader

When someone visits your business blog, they usually come on their own. They read alone. Present your copy as a personal letter to that one person, not as a speech written for a fully packed conference room. You are one human being writing to another, the second person is singular.

Interest your readers, don’t bore them

Keep the word brevity in mind when you write. Keep sentences and paragraphs short, use subheadings and remove any difficult words. Ogilvy, when writing the Dove campaign, wrote that Dove made soap “obsolete,” only to discover that the majority of housewives (his target audience) did not know what the word meant. He changed it to “old-fashioned.” How many people will know what ineffable, abstemious, or unciform mean without the help of a dictionary?

Avoid bragging or boasting

If you have a great product that you want to present to the world, avoid superlatives like “This is the best cell phone in the United States,” no one will believe you. Instead, show you readers how great it is by comparing functionality, practicality, usability. Make it more credible by including a testimonial; readers trust their fellow readers more.

Include prices

If you are selling a product or service, provide the price. How many times have you seen a great product – ring, laptop, movie camera – but try as you might you can’t find the price? Most people walk away rather than ask. It’s the same on the Web. If the price of a product or service is not easily found, people tend to go elsewhere. Take a look at Remarkablogger’s Blog Consulting page and you’ll find a perfect example of how it’s done; Michael lists his services and prices in an easy to understand manner.

Copywriting can be learned, but, it does take time. Start by looking at other business blogs and emulating the most successful. Look for inspiration from your biggest competitor – you know, the one with the huge budget, and a great advertising/PR/marketing firm on call, and then do as they do – until you know how to do it better.

If you want more Web strategy ideas, take a look at BlogWell, or better yet, grab the BlogWell feed.