How To Boost Conversions On Your Website (Without Hiring A Specialist)

An effective e-commerce site is like a well-written novel. Every word and every element is integral to the reader’s journey. Each chapter page leads you to the endpoint, the resolution of the problem, at which point you walk away satisfied. You risk losing your audience if you include words and pages that don’t belong. They leave out of boredom, confusion, or both.

This isn’t to say that your site is a high-pressure pitch. The novel makes its point over the course of many pages. Similarly, your site has a funnel. You capture the user’s interest first and lead them to the point where they become customers.

Yet, there’s one important difference between a novel and a website: with a novel, the reader must start at the beginning, while with a site, the user can start at different points in the funnel. That’s why each indexed page allowing external access through a search engine or webpage, must be optimized based on its purpose in the funnel. Purposeful optimization is the key to conversions.

1. Start with Evergreen Content

Evergreen content is top-of-the-funnel blog content that leads people deeper into your site. Why do you need evergreen content? Because there are millions of people online, plenty may be interested in your product or service at some point, but right now, they don’t know anything about what you do. If they learn about your specialty from you, they’re more likely to view you as an authority—someone they trust—which increases your chances of selling them something.

Think about it: you essentially do the same thing salespeople have done for ages. The salesperson who knows what they’re talking about but doesn’t pressure you to buy now is often the one who earns your business.

How do you make evergreen content? You begin by nailing down these three elements:

• Relevance:

Evergreen articles concern themselves with the underlying concepts of your niche and must be easy for beginners to understand

• Staying power:

This goes hand-in-hand with relevance, but it also means the content is definitive, answers questions, is well-written, invites social media shares, and links to other content on your site

• Value:

For posts to be valuable, they must be useful; posts that tell the reader how to do something or about the history of something are highly valuable, as are posts that share unique and helpful information

Evergreen content takes time and commitment to your niche. This is the long game that so many businesses aren’t interested in playing because they want a quick win. Evergreen content can and should include the following:

• Keywords you want to rank for:

Content management systems (such as Wordpress or Drupal) can help you determine if you have the right keyword density for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes; DO NOT overuse keywords—Google penalizes it

• Links to deep pages:

Hyperlinks to product pages will drive traffic to these pages and will tell Google you want your product pages to rank for keywords

• An easily scannable format:

Use subheadings, optimize them for your keywords, and use bullet points to make longer articles user-friendly

Anchor your site with some quality evergreen content geared toward informing the reader. Supplement the occasional evergreen post with a steady flow of new blog material.

2. Continue with Fresh, Consistent Blog Posts

You’re working on doing more than providing a bare-bones e-commerce site for your audience. Amazon already has that covered. If you don’t keep building content to supplement your product or service offering, people won’t be able to find you with search engines. Other sites will edge you out by getting more backlinks and providing more keyword signals to Google.

If you can manage it, set up a weekly posting schedule of at least two to three posts. You’ll notice many of the most popular sites post content daily. The more posts you publish, the more signals it sends to Google. You’ll be more likely to rank higher for your keywords, which helps drive traffic to your site and helps increase conversion rates.

For your regular posts, consider the following types of content:

• Trending topics:

Look at trends in your industry and post your own unique takes on them

• Insider tips:

You do want highly specialized content for people in your audience who have already initiated to your niche and for returning customers looking for information

• Company updates:

This help build a sense of community as you include your audience in the goings-on

• Listicles:

People love to read about the top 10 best activities, or even the top 10 things to avoid in your niche

• Curated content:

Roundups of the best content related to your niche can be a real asset to any blog, and they show you’re engaging with your niche’s digital community

• Videos:

People are increasingly drawn to videos and will likely share them on social media.

Throughout your posts, include shareable images such as memes and infographics. Make sure to include social media share buttons. Link to your evergreen posts; include calls to action and links to product pages when appropriate.

3. Consider Content-Length

When it comes to posting length, there are several different theories. John E. Lincoln, CEO of Ignite Visibility, presents convincing evidence that long-form content over 2,000 words ranks best in Google and increases conversion rates. Evergreen content should typically strive to be long-form.

But Lincoln’s article was written in 2015 when smartphones didn’t have quite the influence they have now. Michael Peggs, the founder of Marccx Media, shows that ideal post length depends on several factors:

• Where your traffic comes from
• What industry you’re in
• Who your target audience is
• Whether you’re an existing authority

Suppose your site is optimized for mobile, and you’re geared toward a smartphone audience. In that case, Disruptive Advertising’s Chris Dayley presents a case study in which the optimum post length for mobile consumption is around 542 words.

If you’re in an extremely competitive industry and your target audience likes to read longer posts, the optimum length is between 1,500 and 2,500 words. This isn’t to say that a post of around 1,100 words won’t do well. In Disruptive Advertising’s case study, their humanitarian organization client had the most success (for desktop users) with 1,055 words. Experiment with different post lengths to see what fits your audience best.

4. Do A/B Testing

Do you use ads as part of your marketing package? If so, each ad should have a dedicated landing page where people can make a purchase, subscribe to an email newsletter, view a webinar, buy a white paper, or do whatever it is you want them to do. A/B testing is a scientific method of ensuring your landing pages are the best at converting visitors.

Basically, you try out two different versions of a page. The first version is called the “control” page, the second is the “variation”. To do A/B testing the right way, do the following:

• Set your conversion goals:

This will give you a concrete gauge of which version is better

• Create your variations:

You don’t have to do just one variation on the original—try out more than one if you have a lot of ideas

• Collect data:

-    Send visitors randomly to your variations, and track the following metrics

-    Number of unique visitors that have viewed your various pages

-    Number of conversions for each page

-    Conversion rate, which is the percentage of visitors who converted on each page

-    Improvement, which is how much better your variations did (or didn’t do) versus the

original.

Try A/B testing elements such as how many fields the visitor has to fill out, the wording of a call to action, the colors of the page and buttons, and any other variables, such as placement of content on the page in relation to the call to action. This way, you’ll be able to know for sure what works and what doesn’t on your landing pages.

5. Be Consistent and Aim for Traffic

Derek Halpern from Social Triggers points out that you could do all the A/B testing you want, but it’s pointless if you haven’t worked on attracting an audience,

That’s why you should work on consistently creating valuable content on your site and sharing it on social media. Be consistent with content, watch your audience grow, and do A/B testing with your landing pages. Halpern says to A/B test your “money page”—the bottom-of-the-funnel landing page most important to your success.

Be consistent with both your content and your testing. You’ll see conversions go up, and you’ll become an authority in your niche along the way.