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When it comes to running a company blog, traffic is only one part of the equation. The other part is conversions.
Most content marketers are good at measuring and optimizing for traffic.For example, of the marketers we surveyed for this post, more than 50% of them have company blogs that get under 25,000 monthly visitors.
As for publishing schedules, nearly 50% of the marketers we surveyed are publishing new content 2-3 times per week.
However, your publishing cadence and traffic stats are meaningless if they aren’t contributing to your company’s bottom line.You need to be able to show how your blog traffic is converting – either directly or indirectly – to new revenue.
In this post, we’re sharing more than a dozen tips to help you convert more blog traffic to customers, including:
The biggest tip that came up over and over again is around creating relevant calls-to-action (CTAs) for each post.
“Make sure your CTAs are relevant to your content and not overly pushy,” says Daniel Hellier of Ricemedia. “Including them a few times is great but careful not to go overboard!”
Tom Zsomborgi of Kinsta says, “Instead of having the same standard call to action across your blog, try to customize these and change the message where the topic of the content and the CTA has a lot of common with your service.”
Alina Clark of CocoDoc adds, “Although blog content is most often meant for information, it should include a point of action to bring the traffic into your sales funnel.
Typically, readers come to answer because they’re seeking a solution or an idea. Most of them will leave as soon as they get the solution. Therefore, the content will make you look like the expert you are. It places your brand. However, content without a call to action is like a road leading to a dead end. A simple call to action at the end of a blog post can stimulate action, which comes in the form of traffic trickling through the content walls to buy from you.
In some situations, a call to action can be scattered inside the content piece. Often, website visitors won’t be looking for solutions only, they might be looking for help.”
In order to write better CTAs (and content for that matter), you need to deeply understand who your ideal customer is, their goals, and pain points.
Namratha Ambat of GemPool says, “As an IT Recruitment Agency, valuable leads for our business are strong candidates, who we could potentially place into our live roles and generate fees from.
The best tip to generate more of these leads is to conduct proper research of the market, understand the most commonly asked questions and try to provide useful content that your audience will find beneficial.
A good example of this was when we created our 2021 IT Salary Guide and released it just before the end of 2020. This post drew a significant level of engagement, which led to more downloads and more candidate leads for us. This post continues to provide us with leads on an on-going basis.”
One way you can demonstrate this is to speak to and solve your customers’ pain points.
“Use your blog to educate your readers on the problem that your offering solves for,” says Jasmine Hippe of Mindsailing. “This method works to build trust upfront and positions your company as the expert on a specific topic. This way when readers encounter that issue, they will naturally think of your offering as a solution that they can trust.”
Natalya Bucuy of LieHelpNow adds, “Address their pains! Knowing your readers is everything. People don’t buy from companies. They buy from people. And one of the most basic need one human can do for another is to have empathy. Empathy means understanding, knowing the other’s pain. If a reader feels understood and sees that the people at this specific company understand his or her needs, he or she will be more likely to buy products and services, even if they are not advertised in the blog. So know what your readers are going through and help them out with your content. They will thank you by becoming your customer.”
Another effective way to do this is to dive deep into one specific thing or pain point.
“Learn what your customers want,” says Dan Sears of Cirely. “If your blog is about car windshields, and your audience is mostly interested in buying a replacement windshield, you’re wasting time pitching them on car insurance.
Don’t try to be too many things to too many people. Do one thing well.
Know where your traffic comes from. If much of your traffic comes from organic search, you need to know how to target search queries that convert into paying customers. Ask yourself questions like:
These are all great ways to get more insight into how customers might respond to your offerings.”
Alex Birkett of Blissfully explains, “In paid ads, it’s common to think about the PPC traffic temperature or in other words, what buyer stage you’re targeting and how you match that with an appropriate offer. We don’t do that as frequently with blogging.
In many cases, it’s either a universal CTA to sign up for an email list, or it’s a handful of ebooks that map loosely back to your general business, but not to the post at hand. So I have two tips, and both have to do with buyer intent stages.
If you want to understand how your visitors are behaving on your landing pages, there are several on-page events and metrics you can track from Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console that will help:
And more…
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Just like you should map out content in your funnel, you should also map out the actions that you want visitors to take when consuming any of your content on your site.
“Have a clear call to action on your sidebar or header directing your blog traffic to your landing pages and don’t overwhelm your readers with a ton of different options,” says Martina Cooper of BHMR. “Make the next logical step that they need to take to become a paying customer fairly obvious and as easy as possible.”
Katrina Dalao of Referral Rock says, “Oftentimes, blogs leave readers hanging after an article. Aside from suggesting other related posts, the main call to action for readers is to stay on the blog.
When and where it makes sense, add a piece of interactive content or a lead generation quiz that will guide them to your product. It also helps to put this in the sidebar or in the middle of the article. Oftentimes, readers don’t make it all the way to the bottom of the post.”While customers don’t convert in a linear funnel, as marketers, the content and CTAs you create can do a lot to educate, shape, and influence their decision when they are ready to purchase.
Ashley Cummings adds, “As a copywriter, I tend to favor copywriting and CRO strategy as a way to get visitors to convert. For me, one of the most essential tactics is to make sure you are telling your customers exactly what you want them to do. This means including strategically placed CTAs throughout your content. You should also include content upgrades to capture more conversions.”
Eliminating guesswork also includes being strategic about how and where you display your CTAs.
“Ensure that you put a call to action part way through the content,” Nick Hollinger of Visitor Queue. “Generally, you can throw it about halfway through your content, but if you want to be strategic, use Google Analytics or Crazyegg to see where people are dropping off from your blog and add it just before then!”
And, Amber Reed-Johnson of Giraffe Social Media recommends, ”Include clear, targeted call-to-actions (depending on your goal) in the beginning, middle, and end of your content. For those at the top or middle of the funnel, link your informative/educational content (such as a webinar or a downloadable PDF guide). This will help drive the reader through the buyer’s journey towards their purchase decision. Snap up those in the decision stage by proving how your product or service can benefit them and add value to their lives. Link to other relevant pages on your site that support conversions/have high conversion rates.”
Marin Perez of Kajabi adds, “Creating multiple opportunities within your content for your audience to convert. Most blogs have a sign-up button in the top right but you must create various surfaces for that reader to convert. This can include:
Remember that not everybody who reads your blog is ready to convert, so there’s still value in just capturing an email lead and nurturing them through remarketing.”
The right content can go a long way to show expertise and establish trust.
Alex Cascio of Vibrant Media Productions says, “Having quality content that isn’t salesy has been key to us converting leads from blog traffic into actual paying customers.
We phrase our blogs to not always be about our company, but more informative to help increase page read throughs/retention.
A strong call to action with some testimonials (related to our business) has really helped increase conversions on certain blog posts as well.”
Another way to demonstrate your expertise and educate your audience is through lead magnets.
“When potential customers visit a website, it’s important to find a way to transform that visit into a qualified lead,” says Greg Gillman of MuteSix. “One of the best (and simplest) ways to do this is by creating gated content. This can be research, a detailed how-to guide or anything that can be of value to a potential customer. Once you gain their email address, then you can follow up with additional details, or even an offer.”
Jonathan Aufray of Growth Hackers adds, “When visitors are reading your blog, you don’t just want to have traffic, you want to actually generate leads with your readers. How? Give them something in exchange for their email address. For instance, you can have a lead magnet where they can get a free ebook, a free video course, or a discount if they share their email address with you.
Make sure the content you offer them is valuable and insightful. Once you’ve got their email address and they received your content or offer, you can easily connect with them, ask them questions about the problems they’re facing and figure out whether you have the solution for them.”
In addition to creating specific CTAs, you can take this a step further with custom landing pages.
Andre Oentoro of Milkwhale recommends, “Making specific landing pages for unique visitors. Every site visitor has different interests and goals. Having several landing pages helps you narrow down who’s interested in your product or service. Once they sign up through your landing page, you can introduce yourself to them and build relationships with potential customers.”
The key part here is natural plugs. ?
Karan Bhatt of Cheap Web Hosting says,“One effective tip for converting more blog traffic into actual customers, is by promoting your product within your content as a recommendation, in a natural tone.
You can write like this: To optimize your website’s conversion, tools like {Your Product} can help a lot.
You can also explain the most important features of your product within your content, but it should sound natural, not salesy.”
Steven Snell of Vandelay Design explains, ”Choose blog post topics that are closely related to the products you sell. It’s easy to naturally work your products into the body of an article when the topic is a close fit. Plus, the blog post allows you to provide detail or background and essentially sell it in an informative way.”
For example, Vimal Bharadwaj of SocioHub adds,“In any blog post (or any piece of content for that matter), talk about how your product or service solves their problem. Having said that, do not shove your product down their throats.
It has to feel natural for any visitor while they’re reading your piece. And, if you are using any web analytics tool, set up goals to measure conversions earned from your blog traffic. This makes you monitor your blog’s performance clearly in terms of sales.”
Using pop-ups strategically can boost your conversion rate.
“Use a targeted popup that includes an offer but comes with a countdown,” says Jerome Williams of JWorks Studios. “A good popup plugin will let you target only blog posts or even specific articles. Cater your popup to appeal to the reader based on the subject. And offering a small discount WITH a ticking clock to set a deadline. This will get people to consider closing the deal before it’s gone vs coming back to your site at a later time when they’re ready.”
Just don’t go overboard and display multiple pop-ups at once or at inopportune times (like on your checkout page or within one second of someone landing on your blog).
Most people reading blog posts aren’t ready to buy when they land on one of your blog posts.
Tiffany Lewis of More Meaningful Marketing adds, “Take your reader on a journey. In my experience, a very top-of-the-funnel value-packed blog with a call-to-action that solves a particular problem can be a great way to gate for contact information. You always want to make sure the value or offer you’re providing is worth the exchange for a prospective customer’s information. From there, you can use a very targeted email sequence by collecting from the form within the blog. Then, you have the top, middle, and bottom of the marketing funnel accounted for to prime up conversions.”
All of the tactics we shared above won’t mean anything if you aren’t tracking blog traffic and conversions.
As for benchmarks to shoot for, about 40% of the marketers we surveyed said that between 2-5% of their visitors turned into paying customers.
And, marketing agencies and consultants had the highest percentage of blog traffic turning into paying customers.
Related: How to measure blog attribution using Google Analytics
By analyzing your blog traffic and conversion numbers, you will be able to see what content is converting best. Regularly monitor your dashboard in marketing reporting software to track changes in your blog’s conversion numbers over time. This will allow you to double down on what’s working and lead to higher conversion rates.
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Jessica Malnik is a content strategist and copywriter for SaaS and productized service businesses. Her writing has appeared on The Next Web, Social Media Examiner, SEMRush, CMX, Help Scout, Convince & Convert, and many other sites.
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