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Your keyword research and focus on search intent did their jobs. A member of your target audience just landed on your site. Hooray! However, creating quality content that is SEO-optimized is only half the battle when it comes to driving conversions on your website. Content marketing requires you to implement effective content conversion strategies. Read on to discover the conversion strategies you should be implementing and companies that are using them with great success.

1. Call-to-Action Placement

Your visitor is highly unlikely to buy your product or download your white paper unless you ask them to. That’s why one of the most important elements of content conversion is the call-to-action.

A CTA generally takes the form of a button or link that encourages site visitors to do something specific, such as make a purchase or subscribe to a newsletter. If you include first-person pronouns — Sign Me Up! Open My Account! — even better.

The placement of your CTA is crucial to its effectiveness. For years, marketers believed the CTA should appear “above the fold” — the screen a user immediately sees — because of its greater visibility. More recently, that truism is being called into question.

What is most important for placement is what you are offering and how close to converting someone actually is. If you’re a financial advisor, you’ll need plenty of compelling copy to demonstrate your expertise before asking a prospect to schedule a meeting. Placing your CTA below the fold would likely make the most sense.

But if you’re selling an instantly recognizable product to people ready to buy, put your CTA above the fold. Everyone knows what Spotify is; that’s why the music streaming service hits visitors with a sign-up button right off the bat. Well-executed A/B testing can reveal which approach is likely to yield more conversions for your business.

2. Landing Page Optimization

A landing page is a specific web page that a user is directed to after clicking on a link or ad. While your homepage is broad and general, these more focused pages are designed to convert visitors into customers. Optimizing your landing pages for content conversion is crucial for improving your overall conversion rate.

By the time a visitor gets to a landing page, they have narrowed down the reason they’ve come to your site. This allows you to provide the targeted information they need to take action, whether that’s downloading an e-book or ordering your product. To increase the odds they’ll do what you want them to, don’t provide lots of choices — one CTA is often best.

Other tactics for optimizing landing pages range from the technical — ensuring fast loading speeds and segmenting traffic — to the aesthetic and psychological. Catchy headlines and images will maintain the user’s engagement, and visual cues can guide them to your CTA. User reviews and testimonials will assure them that what you’re offering is worth their time and money.

HubSpot reports that businesses that optimize their landing pages can see conversion rates increase by as much as 30%. Mailchimp gets it: Their landing pages have concise headlines, a cleanly minimal design, and a clear call-to-action. This makes it easy for visitors to take the next step in the customer journey.

3. Social Proof

The reason user reviews and recommendations make persuasive components of your landing pages is that they provide “social proof.” Social proof is a psychological phenomenon in which people look to others for cues on how to act in a given situation. Customer testimonials, product reviews, and followers and likes on your social media profiles are all examples.

Reviews and testimonials from satisfied customers are particularly potent, especially those that provide detailed accounts of their positive experience. (Bonus points if they say how much better you are than your nearest competitor.) Showcasing your thousands of 4- and 5-star reviews is another winning play.

It makes sense that social proof would be a powerful content conversion tactic. After all, who are consumers more likely to believe — the company trying to sell them something or fellow widget-seekers like themselves? These success stories will encourage prospects to give you a try.

And this isn’t mere speculation. According to A/B testing vendor VWO, including social proof on your website can increase sales conversions by up to 34%. So comb through your customer surveys and Facebook comments and share the nicest things people have said about you.

Perhaps no business better exemplifies the power of social proof than Airbnb. It wasn’t long ago that staying in a stranger’s house would wig many people out. But the visitor reviews and ratings next to each Airbnb listing help to build trust and credibility.

4. A Compelling “About” Page

Speaking of building credibility, don’t forget about your About page. This crucial page — one of the most-visited on your site — gives you the chance to tell the story of your business and boost your marketing efforts. Recounting how and why you started the company helps you connect with site visitors and establishes trust with them.

“But wait,” you might ask, “didn’t you just say consumers trust their peers more than a company trying to sell them something?” Indeed. That’s why the About page is no place for direct selling — leave that to your landing and service pages. While it should contain a CTA (e.g., Find Out More), the only thing you’re selling on the About page is you and your team.

Not that you have to do it alone. If you haven’t highlighted positive press coverage of your business on your website’s homepage, do so here. An “As Seen On” bar featuring badges from well-known publications will show a potential customer that trusted authorities think highly of you, too.

Just because you’re not selling on your About page doesn’t mean this page lacks conversion potential. On the contrary — putting a human face on your business gives your audience the confidence to buy from you. The important thing is to be yourself. Online translation service Tomedes found that out when it upped its conversion rate by 13% after swapping in sprightlier language on its About page.

5. Clear Navigation and a Robust Footer

Given how impactful the About page is, you might find it surprising that it’s often relegated to a website’s footer. But that’s both surprising and not. While many businesses are beginning to put their “Our Story” page right up top in the navigation bar, many more leave it below. That’s because they know customers know that’s exactly where to find it.

High-converting site navigation is all about putting things where site visitors expect them to be. Prospects won’t buy from you if they can’t find what they’re looking for — or see at a glance what you’re offering.

So be specific with your section headings, for starters. “Products” isn’t going to entice customers (or search engines) the way “Totes” or “Cookware” will. The point is to make it easy for visitors to get to different sections and navigate them with the fewest additional clicks. Texas-based custom printer PrintGlobe can attest to the power of this tactic: Improvements to its site navigation boosted its conversion rate more than 18%.

While good navigation gets most people where they’re going, there will always be site visitors who’ll want to cut to the chase. They’ll head directly to the footer, which is why a robust footer is so important. It acts as a safety net, helping visitors get needed info — everything from FAQs to your business address — fast.

In addition to helping users find things they missed up top, your footer offers you one last chance to make your case. Privacy policies and terms of service go here, both of which build credibility with users. And you can reiterate your mission and issue one final call-to-action, with a contact form or an email signup.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Implementing effective content conversion strategies is crucial for transforming browsers into buyers. The strategies above are just a starting point; you should continuously experiment with new tactics to find what works best for your business. Since a single digital content strategy won’t necessarily drive conversions on its own, use a combination of different tactics and strategies to achieve the best results.

Want to learn more? Reach out to see how Relevance can help boost your visibility with a strong SEO strategy. More traffic = more conversions, right?

7 Innovations in Search Engine Optimization and Their Application

The search engine optimization industry is constantly making innovations. Likewise, new technologies regularly emerge to help marketers and developers streamline their content creation strategy to achieve better organic search results. As a result, to ensure that your brand stays relevant in search engine results, you'll need an SEO expert to adapt to these fast-changing technologies and the latest trends in online marketing, social media, and more.

Don't get left behind. To reach your potential customer, your search engine marketing plan will need to combine social media, link building, email marketing, keyword research, Google AdWords, backlinks, and (of course) great fresh content. Your targeted audience will find you once you begin to rise in search engine ranking.

Learn to scale your SEO process, use specific keywords, tweak all of your core web vitals, and generate a high-quality search result. Do this by implementing these seven innovations in search engine optimization as a core component of your marketing strategy. There is a lot of trial and error involved with attaining effective SEO and digital marketing success, so plan on that!

1. Mobile-First Indexing for Improved SEO Ranking

Did you know that 50.81% of total global website traffic comes from mobile devices? Search engines, as a result, have begun prioritizing mobile-friendly content.

Smartphone proliferation has grown by leaps and bounds. As a result, more and more users are switching to mobile search rather than using desktops, laptops, or other devices. Your SEO efforts and content marketing will stall out if you're designing and marketing for desktop and ignoring what Google Analytics is trying to tell you.

In response to the dramatic increase in mobile search, Google Search introduced the approach of mobile-first indexing. This approach uses the mobile version of a website to index and rank it in search engine result pages (SERPs). Consequently, Google rolled out its mobile-first indexing for every website. That being so, optimizing websites to be mobile-friendly and cross-device compatible has become more pertinent for marketing than ever.

Google is steadily moving toward indexing only mobile versions of websites rather than desktop versions. If your website is still focused primarily on its desktop index and not optimized for mobile viewing, then it is likely that Google may not index it at all even if your relevant keywords are all top-notch. Obviously, this is likely to significantly affect your search engine rankings and ROI.

The need of the hour is to switch to responsive website design with Google mobile-first indexing, fast loading time, and improved user-friendliness.

Optimize dynamic website content and images to deliver enhanced mobile experiences. Mobile-first indexing can help boost your page rankings and organic traffic and backlinks using a mobile-optimized version of your site.

2. Natural Language Processing: Producing Effective Short-Form Content

Ever since Google rolled out its 2019 Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) algorithm update, Natural Language Processing (NLP) has emerged as a technology innovation powering the SEO industry.

Using NLP, Googles algorithm looks at the context of a word as it appears within a sentence to understand its meaning. This means that Google will no longer rely on particular search terms and phrases to provide the most relevant answers. Rather, they will look into the intent behind the search.

Leveraging BERT, the Google algorithm now understands the context behind every search and then provides appropriate information.

"By trying to understand the 'context' of search queries, and by mining the relationship between stop-words with other words in the query, Google's BERT algorithm pushes the limits of how a traditional search engine understands a user's needs. With Google weighing in on NLP to gain a deeper understanding of user queries, it implies that content-makers who get more specific, relevant, and descriptive with their content and information - including links - in their pages tend to rank higher."

Jaya Kumar Data Scientist, Deep Learning and NLP Specialist

From the perspective of SEO, NLP is important to marketing because creating high-quality, informational content will help make it most relevant to a searcher's intent and not the keywords they are using.

3. SSL Certificate Labeling for Strengthening Customer Trust

While often overlooked, SSL certificate (HTTPS) labeling is an important SEO trend that businesses must consider. HTTPS is a crucial ranking factor for Google as it secures improved trust with your target audience. Ongoing innovations in search engine optimization have only reinforced this requirement.

Websites that hold an SSL certificate are labeled as "HTTPS" by Google. This indicates that the site offers high-level security and integrity. The security of user data is a vital factor! It can help boost your search engine rankings and drive increased traffic.

A site that does not hold SSL certification or is a non-HTTPS site will be labeled as "Not Secure" by Google and other search engines. This can significantly affect search engine rankings. Additionally, end-users will be reluctant to visit any site that is not safe.

The implications for innovation in this space are clear. To boost search engine rankings and offer a secure browsing experience, websites must obtain a basic SSL certificate. It's now an integral element of any SEO strategy.

4. Automated Content Curation Using GPT-3

If you are looking for true innovations within the SEO industry and digital marketing, the Generative Pre-Trained Transformer Number 3 (GPT-3) is worth your attention. One of the most prominent examples of its application is a 2020 story published by The Guardian on its website - written entirely by a robot.

Using a broad pool of datasets, GPT-3 technology is trained to mimic the way humans write. Some of the datasets it uses come from Wikipedia, Common Crawl Dataset, historical books, etc. When you input a writing prompt into GPT-3, it will read the relevant information on the internet and predict what will follow next.

As such, the GPT-3 API is a revolutionary content curation tool you can use across different SEO applications. These include tasks such as writing emails or creating the first draft of a report. All you need to do is feed the API some bullet points as an outline, keeping your keyword ranking in mind, and the robot will write it automatically.

5. On-Page Automated SEO Optimization for Enhanced Search Experience

Google has been continuously updating its algorithm to offer an improved search experience to users. As a part of its algorithm update, the search engine giant now considers long-form content as a vital ranking factor. Long-form content ideally takes a more in-depth approach to the topic and, as such, tends to meet the searcher's intent.

However, writing high-quality and relevant long-form content is not easy. It involves considering a wide range of factors such as competitor research, keyword discovery, topic selection, creating engaging headings and subheadings, providing valuable insights, constructing a social media support strategy, and much more.

Continuously creating unique content that is of value to your readers is one of the more challenging innovations in search engine optimization.

"One of the first places I turn for new article ideas is the 'Top Content' area found within my Google Analytics account. There, I'm able to access a quick list of the posts on my site that have been viewed the most often, providing me with some interesting insight into the subject matter that my audience finds most interesting."

Eric Siu "Easy Market Research: Leveraging Your Existing Data for Content Creation"

New AI-Powered Tools Speed Content Creation

Normally, the next step would be to spend several hours editing and optimizing each piece of long-form content for search engines. This is where on-page automated content optimization and technical innovation come into the picture.

Tools such as Content Harmony or Frase AI streamline the process of content research or checking top-ranking pages. They provide useful data developers can use to curate high-quality content.

Content Harmony helps design content briefs automatically, helping meet a searcher's intent in a shorter amount of time. Writers only need to provide a keyword/keywords and the software will analyze SERPs automatically based on various data points. The generated results help the author create content briefs.

The Content Creation Process Is Evolving to Meet Recent Innovations in Search Engine Optimization
Source: MarketMuse (All rights reserved.)

6. Optimizing A/B Testing for SEO with Augmented User Interaction

Most SEO professionals tend to focus on end-user A/B testing rather than SEO A/B testing in digital marketing. The former involves picking website visitors randomly and assigning them to various versions of a web page. Based on the user's interaction with the pages, professionals use these SEO activities to gauge overall online marketing performance.

However, SEO A/B testing adds Google bots assigned to analyze the same version of any page. In essence, you are showing different elements of any page to Google to test their SEO-friendliness. These include meta description, featured snippet, title tags, H1, schema markup, anchor text, etc. SEO A/B testing helps clarify what works well for the page and what does not. Optimizing a page based on these results will help boost its search rankings and visibility.

7. Innovations in SEO Do Not Negate the Need for Non-Text Content

The purpose of using non-text content factors in SEO is to offer an improved user experience on your website.

Text alone lacks the engagement factor that keeps audiences interested, especially in long-form content. As a result, adding non-text content factors is crucial. These include images, graphs, infographics, videos, animations, audio clips, slideshows, PDFs, etc. will help improve the quality of your content. Likewise, doing so will make it more relevant and engaging.

Conclusion

With modern technology developments such as those already mentioned and Google Search Console making their way into the industry, it is evident that SEO optimization is definitely not dead. On the contrary, custom SEO has never been more important, especially local SEO. This will continue as Google constantly changes its approach to how websites are ranked in SERPs.

Do you want to leverage the potential of SEO to boost your search engine visibility, drive organic traffic, garner quality backlinks, and improve ROI? If so, you must commit to staying current on these technologies and implement regular modifications to achieve quality results. You might even consider partnering with a professional SEO service.

If you would like to connect with an SEO strategist to speak more about implementing innovative strategies and learn more about technical SEO, contact one of our Relevance SEO experts.

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